Pinterest: Social Branding for Businesses
On Wednesday, I discussed the rise of social scrapbooking and social sharing. Pinterest, and how scrapbooking and sharing is the next level of personal relationships. While Pinterest can be used by individuals, brands can and should definitely take into the phenomenon as well. Why? See my three reasons:
1. Humans are visual
This one is as much obvious. Men and women when looking at another individual judge others by their appearances, above all else. Photos are just as much, and create memories with people and places. Pinterest takes advantage of that and does just that: create a visualized perspective of a brand, from the office to the employees to the events that the company is putting on. If you are Disneyland or a professional sports franchise, or even a college, with upcoming travel seasons, games and needs to recruit new students, there is definitely no hurt in implementing a strategy to put your best visual foot forward.
2. A picturesque experience
The social media experience is of course social, but also very experiential. One of the beauties of Facebook is that it has brought in an extra added flair to being at one place without actually being there. Being able to browse photos of a friend being in a foreign place is great, and Pinterest takes that to the next level. “Wish you were here” takes on a new meaning when you can like, comment and re-pin to another person’s wall, without the fear of seeing your picture going to all of your other friends’ walls by way of Facebook’s EdgeRank system.
3. A social experience
Tweets make it readable. Facebook makes it a relationship, and Pinterest makes it pinnable. Imagine if you were a restaurant and you posted each day’s special to your Pinetrest page. The potential of that is not only tasty, but sociable as well, and if you are a popular restaurant, a re-pinning of each day’s special adds flavor, meaning and fun - no pun intended.
What reasons do you think that businesses should use Pinterest for? Let me know in the comments below or tweet me @albertqian. Let me know how I can help your business become social, using Pinterest, as well!
Social Media: Don’t be Spooked Out from Engaging
If you forgot to don a costume this Halloween and were the butt of jokes in your office or among your friends, you really have nothing be afraid of and nothing to be ashamed of. For many companies, just being a follower on social media and complaining is scary enough, according to Maritz and Evolve 24. Of 1,298 individuals who were polled, an astonishing 71% said that their tweet towards a company was not responded to.
Conversation among people is one of the most difficult things to do over social media. At a previous company, I found myself in a social media nightmare. The marketing manager then admitted to me that she was afraid of social media and beyond pushing product to potentially interested customers, pushing articles and only interested in re-tweeting specific already-existing customers, felt scared. The CEO felt the same way.
They aren’t alone.
Human beings are for the most part, afraid of tasking risk. Unless you are the few entrepreneurs in society today, risk taking is dominated by pro and con charts, and if you’re a traditional marketing person, social media is dominated by risk: How will people respond to me? Does my tweet look good? Is this the content I want? Will there be backlash?
Don’t be Spooked Out from Engaging
Make no mistake, these are tough and spooky questions. That being said however, becoming freaked out over the prospect of those things happening is an irrational decision to make. If you applied the same thoughts to everyday conversation - which are still valid - you would end up being a loner and bringing value to to no one, which is exactly what many business accounts end up doing to themselves: bringing a lack of value to those who follow.
Becoming unspooked is relatively easy. Engaging involves asking questions, moving beyond the brand so that people can understand who you are and networking optimally through hashtags such as #FollowFriday and sending value-add Direct Messages. As you wouldn’t like someone to push product on you all day, start a conversation about the local sports team as it relates to your company, or talk about the food in the office that day.
So this Halloween, ask your fans if they want some candy or some tricks. Engage a little bit and come out beyond that mask. Its okay to engage - be friendly and build out that network today.
Are you engaging over social media? Would you like tips on how? Or are you a master at engaging? Share your tips below in the comments or send me a tweet @albertqian.
Are You Half Assing Your Social Media Strategy?
One of the greatest things about social media is that you can tell if any particular brand is half-assing their social media strategy. You need to be as real as possible on social media. Here are 11 ways to tell if it is indeed, not as real as it could be:
1) Its all scheduled: Every tweet and update you see has been planned out strategically but there are no ‘at replies’ or replies that show any kind of personality. The tweets sent out tend to be consistent in nature.
2) The user has failed to provide themselves a bio on Twitter. You see a username, a twitter name and no bio. There’s a picture but you can’t see much of anything else.
3) The user has no profile picture: Whether its an egg or a shadow of a person, you can’t see who they are. There’s no real reason to connect.
4) The person has hid themselves behind a veil of secrecy: Yes, its a company. Yes, its the official face of someone. But the name of the company is there, and not the person who represents them. Are you talking to a machine or are you talking to a person? We sure hope its a real human being on the other side!
5) The only time the company can bother to engage is when something negative is going on. Yeah, so the customer has a late order. There’s a defect. Ok, we’ll take care of it. When there’s something good going on? Forget about it, because that’s supposed to happen, right?
6) The only way the strategy is being measured is by the number of fans or followers, but not the way that fans are engaging. Sure, the CEO wants 10,000 fans by tomorrow, but what if only 15 of your best fans are engaging? Does that carry a point? Figure out your company’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and capitalize. Find out what your analytics strategy is as well!
7) You beg for attention by asking people to like you. Really? Would you do this in real life? Influence your followers and prospective followers instead.
8) You beg for attention by posting six times a day. You get hidden on people’s news feeds, and you wonder why.
9) There is no questioning. Just statements. How do your fans plan to engage with you if you aren’t asking questions about your brand, about the industry and others?
10) The rest of the company has no idea that you are on social media. You tell them you want to talk to them about Facebook, and they wonder if you’re trying to add them. No.
11) C-level execs have no idea what they are doing because they have dabbled in corporate marketing all their life. They try to apply what they learned in B-school and apply it to the wild wild Internet, and are frustrated when things don’t sound the way they want to. There is no engagement, and more of an eye towards traditional marketing where the message is one-way.
Do you have any other reasons to share? Tweet at me or share them in the comments.
