Tag Archives: Pinterest

Big League Pinning: Pinterest Best Practices for Brands from Pinleague

Posted on October 24, 2012 by | 11 Comments

The Online Marketing Summit is a playground for marketers to expand their knowledge and to network with their peers. With the convergence of PR and marketing, it seemed like a natural event for me to attend and extend the knowledge shared with my clients, and now all of you.

One of my first sessions for the day was “Tapping into Pinterest: The Time is Now!” Presented by Danny Maloney, CEO and Co-Founder of PinLeague.

Pinterest is still a platform that a lot of businesses are trying to harness. According to Maloney it is a platform that brands are taking notice of but struggling to get traction. For me, I am trying to find ways to elevate our company boards, especially the one I help curate for @PRNHealth.

Maloney stressed that the “I” in “who I want to be” translates to brands. Where is your brand headed? What are you trying to shift in your brand perception?

Pinterest goals can be divided into two plays for companies: Is your presence for branding purposes or to drive more traffic? Both have value, the latter can be linked to harder ROI figures – both to elevated SEO.

Pinterest audience stats:

The Pinterest audience is in planning mode by nature, they are looking for who they want to be or want to do:  this, coupled with the large numbers of women 25-44 on the platform, leads to more referrals and more revenue per referral.  Here are some powerful Pinterest stats he shared:

  • Less than 1% negative sentiment on the platform.
  • Contributing 20% of social commerce.
  • The half-life of a pin is more +1 week compared to 80 min for a Facebook post, and 5-25 min for a tweet.
  • It is not about conversation it is about quality content. It is a 175 to 1 ratio on repins versus comments.
  • The average order value on Twitter $69, Facebook $80, Pinterest $179.
  • PinLeague estimates that Pinterest is will have 90% of the top 1500 brands within 12 months.

Now the question becomes how to make Pinterest work for your brand? According to Maloney, “If you lead with monetization, it is a recipe for failure.”  This is a platform, like other social platforms, that have a long term benefit for your brand. His advice was, “Invest in building the audience now, and monetize later. “

Getting your brand started in Pinterest:

Should you invest time and effort into Pinterest for your brand?  Maloney’s short answer was YES. The longer answer entailed that fact that becoming an “early adopter” allows your brand to establish and audience and credibility within the platform prior to the inevitable push for monetization when ads could be sold or promoted pins could be created. Right now Pinterest helps elevate power pinners and boards without cost.

If you’re new to Pinterest and paralyzed, Maloney recommends creating 12 boards to get past “pinners block.” 5 boards about things your users love, 5 boards about things they have a hard time finding, and 2 boards about your brand.

If you have already started leveraging Pinterest, look at the data. What pins are performing? Do you have high influence followers? How are you competitors doing? PinLeague can help with a lot of that data, in addition to targeted outreach to people based on their current usage status of Pinterest. Other tips on how to elevate your Pinning:

  • Get your cover photos right!
  • With the fans you have on other platforms, drive them to your boards with content not a request to “join you on Pinterest.”
  • Create a contest.
  • Have content live on your boards that people want to see.
  • Mix owned content and other content that interests your audience.
  • Optimize your Pinterest profile
  • Leverage an in-kind exchange of pins
  • No need to be an “over pinner” even the largest brands only pin a couple times a day. If you inundate your followers with an too much content too fast they’ll get annoyed with you filling up their feed.

When I asked Maloney his top brand boards he offered a couple with different strengths. GE for a strong brand building set of boards, Mashable has great content, Whole Foods provides information and ideas for their followers, and Karmaloop is a great example of a growing brand displaying engaging images to tell their story.

Additional resources

Visuals play a crucial role in garnering online attention.  In addition to being loved by social media denizens, images, infographics and videos are also given extra visibility by search engines and social networks alike.    If you need some ideas on how to create and use visuals for your organization’s communications campaigns, here’s some additional info that can help you out:

Building Brand Engagement Through Online Video (free white paper)

A collection of posts about Visual PR (lots of tips about using images and videos in social networks)

Infographics!  How to create them, some ideas for developing them and some case studies to help you get started on using them!

Author Natalie Bering is an account manager in PR Newswire’s San Francisco office.

→ 11 Comments

Posted in Tools & Tactics

Tagged , , ,

Hidden Gems for Social Marketing on a Shoestring from Stella & Dot

Posted on September 26, 2012 by | 1 Comment

“Amy Gilmer, Social Media Director, Stella & Dot shows the audience a screen shot of one of their more successful Facebook campaigns.” Photo credit: Diane Harrigan

If you’re going to hold a Facebook sweepstakes, give away the sort ofprize that will generate true fans to your brand.  The common iPad giveaway is not always the best choice says online jewelry innovators Stella & Dot.  Social Media Director Amy Gilmer says they offer up the sort of sparkle their followers savor – a chic necklace or gold cuff.

Donning her own Stella & Dot estate necklace, Gilmer shared best practices to leveraging key channels at the Social Media Strategies Summit in SanFrancisco.

Gilmer says every social channel needs an objective and her company’s goals are clearly defined.  She suggests for Facebook  — to create an interactive experience; encouraging fans to engage with the brand daily and share with their network.

Her tips include:

▪ 1-2 posts a day

▪ Maximum 250 characters

▪ Always include a photo

▪ Ask for engagement

▪ Reward loyalty

Gilmer recommends that brands experiment with the Facebook Offers feature that recently opened up to include e-commerce last week. The feature allows for coupon-style promotions that when claimed, display as an activity on the customer’s timeline.

Stella & Dot’s business is jewelry and accessories sold by over 12,000 women through Trunk Shows – each with their own website.  All that bling is promoted as eye candy over Instagram.  Stella & Dot’s aim is to expose brand culture and develop a human-like personality.  They want to share products in a visually stimulating way.   Over Twitter, the goal is to build relationships and engage with their community in a way that is meaningful.

“Twitter is a place to let your brands personality shine,” she says.  Promptly responding to messages is key, as is re-tweeting positive messages. @stelladot also offers up strong exposure and encouragement for sellers of their products.

Amy Gilmer’s generous amount of social savvy is helping the Stella &Dot brand reach new audiences and target new entrepreneurs to fulfill the company’s core vision outlined on their Facebook page, “[To] give every woman the means to style her own life.”

Related reading:

Developing a Facebook Plan for a Busy Small Business Owner

Is Facebook Right for Your Business?

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Digital Content

Tagged , , , , , ,

PR Newswire’s New “Pin It” Button Makes Pinning Press Releases Easy

Posted on June 8, 2012 by | 1 Comment

A look at the new “Pin It” button appearing on press releases hosted on PR Newswire’s web site.

As Pinterest has grown into the third largest social media platform, its over 10 million members  have been making a huge impact.

Pinterest referral traffic has surpassed Google Plus, Linked In and YouTube traffic combined, and as we reported here earlier, brands are seeing an increase in revenue generated by pinned content.  (See “Selling in Social” for details.)

Not surprisingly, PRNewswire.com has seen an increase in Pinterest traffic since January 2012, and PR Newswire content has been widely pinned, liked, and repinned. Our clients distribute some fantastic visuals with their press releases (gorgeous photos, infographics, and interesting products), so to make it easier to share them on Pinterest, we’ve added the “Pin It” button to news release pages with images. Yet another reason why adding a visual to your release can increase engagement!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Digital Content

Tagged , , ,

Tips For Using Pinterest Successfully

Posted on March 22, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Tom Hynes' "Interspecies Buddying" Pinterest board is number one on HuffPo's "Must Follow" list.

You’ve probably heard of Pinterest. It’s the new social media network that’s all the rage. Well, the hoopla is rooted in truth. In January, the site attracted over 16 million unique visitors, twice the amount it drew just two months earlier. (You can find even more information on Pinterest here on my colleague, Lee Green’s board. )

Not surprisingly, brands are looking to get themselves and their products in front of those eyeballs. But as a new platform with some tricky terms and conditions, what’s the best way to stake your claim in this new space?

In order to use Pinterest well, you first have to know what it is. In recently describing the site via email to my dad, I called it a virtual scrapbook. “You see things on other websites, and you ‘pin’ them back to ‘boards’ you’ve created. It’s curation. It allows users to keep track of the things they find interesting or cool.” (Did you get all of that, Dad?)

At this point, I should probably tell you why I was emailing my dad about Pinterest.  Well, recently, the Huffington Post named my only board – Interspecies Buddying – one of the “most gorgeous” ones around. And I don’t have to tell you how it’s every English major’s dream to have their collection of animal pictures reach such internet fame!

But in all seriousness, something about this board resonated with other Pinterest users. I went from around 60 followers to 1,200 almost over night. The email notifications became so frequent, they had to be disabled. And now, every single time I post a new ‘pin’, I get almost immediate interaction and engagement. So how did this happen?

Well, for one, Huffington Post had asked readers for examples of interesting boards. Shortly thereafter,  someone sent them mine. HuffPo loved it so much that when they rolled out their list, my board was the first one shown on the slideshow. It’s not surprising. The internet loves pictures of animals. That’s probably going to be true forever. But, there’s more to it than that…. I think.

On this board, as in everything I write, I try to use my own voice. Every picture or video on my board has what I hope to be a funny comment underneath it. I’d wager to say it sounds a lot like how I speak in real life. I’m not writing what I think my audience wants to read. I’m writing what comes to my mind when I see a French bulldog encounter a horse down on Wall Street.

I also strive to consistently update the board. And now with all these new followers, I sort of have to do so.

Furthermore, pictures of animals hanging out with other animals  are a somewhat unique thing. My board – Interspecies Buddying – is unlike most other boards out there. Yet, it still fits within the Pinterest universe.

Now, that’s all well and good for my Interspecies Buddying board. But what about brands?  How should they use the site?

Lauren Arrigo, Marketing Manager at Juliska says, “We see Pinterest as a great opportunity to further connect with our core customers. It is an easy transition for us to create the boards and share a little more insight into the brand with our fans and others who may not be familiar with us.”

Basically, Pinterest is another way to reach customers. It’s another way to keep your brand, your product and your voice in the front of people’s minds. When done right and with the interests of customers in mind, it can be used as another tool in successful customer outreach.

And if none of that works, try pictures of animals. It’s certainly worked for me.

Author Tom Hynes is PR Newswire’s manager of blogger relations. And as you may have guessed, he has a twitter35353535 account.  You can also follow Interspecies Buddying on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/tomhynes/interspecies-buddying/

Visuals are playing an increasingly important role in public relations and social media.   We’ve collected a variety of tips for using multimedia (photos, infographics, video, etc.) in PR campaigns and on social networks here, under the Visual PR tag.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Digital Content

Tagged , ,

Unpinned.

Posted on February 24, 2012 by | 10 Comments

It was a beautiful cake.  It was tall, golden, crowned with a cloud of whipped cream and festooned with colorful fruit. The picture was a stylist’s masterwork, and it became one of the first things I pinned to my new “Foodie ideas” board on Pinterest.  Others thought the cake looked pretty good, too.  As of this writing, the picture of the cake has been “repinned” more than 2,000 times.

But I didn’t bake the cake, and I didn’t take the picture. The Chicago Tribune, the site where I found the image (and to which the image is linked) has been the beneficiary of some qualified and enthusiastic traffic.  In today’s day and age, when news sites need every eyeball they can garner, I’m sure the Trib isn’t complaining.  Yet.

Last night, stuck at home with the flu, with my satellite dish buried in snow and out of commission and my husband stranded in Roanoke due to the weather, I decided that I’d spend some time really getting into Pinterest.  Anticipating hours of visual enjoyment, I grabbed my laptop, Kleenex and some herbal tea and hit the couch.

However, a closer look at Pinterest’s terms and conditions brought my activities to a screeching halt.  I wound up spending the evening reading the fine print and the associated industry reporting around it – and writing this blog post.

So much for reveling in fantasies of cake, summer houses and wildflowers.

Here’s the deal.  There are two areas of Pinterest’s terms that are really onerous – for both the millions of people happily pinning, and for brands looking at Pinterest as the new social media Holy Grail.

Simply put, the site Terms & Conditions require users to 1) warrant that they own the content they’re posting, free and clear and 2) grant Pinterest operator Cold Brew Labs a “worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.”

In reality, the majority of pinners are out of compliance with Pinterest’s terms. Now, there seems to be some winking and nodding going on, because Pinterest is not enforcing the terms. That said, the T&C cover Pinterests’ interests.  Users who don’t comply with the terms, however, are at risk of infringing upon the copyright protections of the content they pin.

It could get ugly if Pinterest one day decides to start selling content via their “Services.”   They’re gathering a lot of data around which visuals people find most popular and compelling.  It would probably be pretty easy for them to publish (and sell) the top ten prettiest cakes, most popular spring looks, most sought after wedding dresses, cars, purses, shoes, handbags, vacation homes ….you get the point.  That’s valuable stuff.

After ruminating over this, I marched straight over to the PR Newswire boards on Pinterest, and unpinned a lot of content. Gone are examples of cool client work, PR related humor and interesting infographics that I pinned and re-pinned via our boards. The remaining collection  – comprised of our blog posts and marketing materials – is, frankly, a lot less interesting than it was before I started.  I’m not alone.  Other publishers have been spooked by the Terms, and are taking down their pinboards too.

I’m not begrudging Pinterest the opportunity to make money.  I understand that when I use a free service like Pinterest (or Facebook)  I’m giving away some information about my personal preferences, and at some point, someone is going to probably use that information to market to me.  And I’m OK with that.  If the information I share publicly means that the adverts I see are more narrowly focused on my personal interests, that’s fine.  This is a trade-off I’m willing to make.  And if advertisers pay Pinterest when someone clicks over to an ecommerce site and drops an item in their shopping care, heck, I personally think that is an elegant and unobtrusive piece of marketing.

But assuming the right to do anything they want with the images I upload personally?  That’s a bit more of a problem.  And, I imagine, if it’s a problem for a very casual photographer with zero professional aspirations, I’m sure that language makes Pinterest a non-starter for many photographers and publishers.   And it’s a big problem for brands.

So we’re left with a bit of a conundrum. What to do with Pinterest?  Well, for brands, at this stage in the game, the message is clear.  Share content you are 100% okay with losing control over and that you won’t mind seeing reappearing elsewhere.  For individuals, things are less clear in terms of risk.  Those with vested interests in their content, such as artists and photographers, will probably want to tread lightly if retaining control of their content is important.

Personally, the bloom on this rose is waning.  I’ll still flick through others’ pins, enjoying the interface and treating the site like a picture book.  But my engagement will decrease and my pinning is going to really dry up.  Copyrights and intellectual property are worth protecting and respecting, in my book.

However, I believe Pinterest will continue to flourish, until users bang their heads up against the Terms.  We’ll have to see how this shakes out with respect to Pinterest’s long term model.

I’m pulling for Pinterest, I really am.  The founder hails from Iowa (as do I.) The site is fun to use and is the best discovery engine I’ve ever seen.  It’s a unique and useful service, and would be dead useful for brands, if the Terms were reasonable.  Until that time, brands need to be cautious in their use any free social media service, Pinterest included.   Read the fine print.

Related reading:

Pinterest Users Need to Read the Fine Print

How You Could Get Sued for Using Pinterest

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

→ 10 Comments

Posted in Digital Content

Tagged

Pinning the Future of Communications on Visuals

Posted on January 24, 2012 by | 5 Comments

PR Newswire's fledgling Pinterest presence.

UPDATE: Communicators need to pay particular attention to Pinterest’s terms of use.  Failing to do so can result be risky for brands.   Read the details here: Unpinned.

While I’m normally reticent to give new social networks a try – I’m pretty heavily invested in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and am still trying to make Google+ work for me – I couldn’t resist Pinterest.

Pinterest is a new way to bookmark and organize all that interesting stuff you wander across when surfing. However, instead of producing a list of bookmarks, Pinterest renders the content you “pin” into gorgeous spreads (called “boards”) that resemble the glossiest magazine.  The results are beyond engaging, they’re arresting.

Here, for example, is one Pinterest enthusiast’s page.  Tina is into gardening and home decor.  She has beautiful taste, as you can see:

She’s created a lot of boards, collecting design ideas for her home and garden, along with myriad other things she simply likes.  Clicking on one of the boards (in this case, the “Ideas for My New Garden”  board) expands that collection of pins.  Here’s what you see:

The board expands, and it really does feel like you’re leafing through a high end magazine. However, instead of dog-earing the pages or ripping out something that catches your eye, you can simply “re-pin” the item, saving it to your own board.

Pinterest encourages users to link the items they pin to their sources.  This adds to the utility of Pinterest –  you can get to the underlying recipe or news article or product information easily.   At this point, what Pinterest means for in terms of opportunities for marketers and communicators should be pretty clear!

Sorry! No visual, no pin!

There’s just one catch, however.  Pinterest is for visual content.  If your organization isn’t producing visuals, your content will be bypassed by the growing and active Pinterest crowd.  You can’t pin content that doesn’t include a visual.

But what if you don’t live in the Land of High Production Values?  There is good news.  You can use Pinterest to build boards for content that is largely text based, as long as it is tied to a visual.  Mashable provides a good example:

Mashable uses visuals to pin links to text content on their web site.

Mashable has created boards around different themes, and has pinned articles to each. Each article carries with it a requisite visual.  The results aren’t as gorgeous as spreads devoted to gardens or gourmet cupcakes, but the boards are visually compelling, and make the underlying content attractive, consumable and – new verb here, folks! – re-pinnable.

The take away for me is simple –  communicators have to redouble their efforts when it comes to visuals.   Visuals carry extra weight on Facebook and Google+, they’re rendered on Twitter (drawing more attention to the tweet) and are what makes services like Flipboard and Pinterest so compelling and useful.  Flickr and Youtube are great repositories, with their own built in audiences.  But what makes Pinterest and Flipboard different is the fact that they make it easy to publish compelling visual content.

If visuals aren’t a cornerstone of your communications mix already, now is a good time make the commitment to build visuals into your plans.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR, which we’ve updated for 2012.

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,