Boost your Website Traffic with Pinterest

February 27, 2012 3 Comments

Carmine Media on Pinterest

Carmine Media on Pinterest

If your business relies on driving traffic to your website to increase sales consider joining Pinterest. If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, it is a social network where users to share their interests by “pinning” images or videos to their own or friend’s boards. Remember how you decorated your locker in high school? Well now you can share those clippings on Pinterest and use them to drive traffic to your website. Of all the social networks this one is truly the easiest to get set up and running.

Getting started on Pinterest

  1. Go to Pinterest.com and request an invite. The response is usually fast, within one day or so.
  2. Add the “Pin it” button to your browser
  3. Start Pinning
Pin it button

Connect and Brand your Account

Currently Pinterest allows users to connect using either a Facebook or Twitter account. Note to businesses: the option to share your Pinterest activity is not available to Facebook pages, only personal profiles. When you set up your Pinterest account be sure to connect with your business Twitter account to allow easy sharing to your Twitter followers.

Brand your Pinterest account the same way you’ve branded your other social accounts. Under the settings tab add your website, a keyword rich description and your standard social profile picture.

Create and Build your Boards

Just as with any social network it is important to flesh out your content before actively seeking out followers. Explore the platform and pin images you like and those that represent the type of content your customers will find interesting. It probably goes without say, but make sure your images are visually appealing so users will want to share them. Go through your website using the “Pin it” button and organize your interesting images onto a board. This is where the platform becomes a powerful traffic driver to your site. Users will be able to click through that image from Pinterest right back to your website. Keep this in mind when adding future images to your site or blog. Make sure they are pinnable and interesting to Pinterest users!

Build your Pinterest Following

Start following users you hope will follow you back. Follow some of the Pinterest power users so you can see how they’re leveraging the network. Mashable, Etsy and Folk Magazine (debuted November 2011) are good resources for inspiration. You can see the beginnings of my boards at Carmine Media here.  Pin a few images every day for maximum exposure. The network is growing fast and you’ll be surprised by how quickly folks start repinning your images. Cross connect by adding a Pinterest follow button to your website so visits know you’re using the platform.

Become a Pinterest Thought Leader

By posting your own and curating other’s content you can become a subject matter expert on the topics most interesting to your customers. For example, if you’re a real estate broker, pin images of beautifully staged rooms so sellers can get ideas for home staging. If you’re a pet groomer, pin images of cute animals (there are plenty to be found) and show dogs being groomed. Make sure to add links to your image descriptions, use keyword rich text and know that Pinterest supports the use of hashtags. Remember too, as with any other social network there are rules of engagement known as Pin Etiquette . Make sure to check that out.

Happy Pinning!

The best way to get a handle on using Pinterest for business is to try it yourself. Sign up for a personal account, connect it to your Facebook page and start pinning images that inspire you. You’ll see quickly how all that activity can translate into buzz around your brand.

How are you using Pinterest for business? Share your thoughts, ideas, and any boards you love here with me.

Filed under Business, Marketing, social media Tagged with , , , , , ,

How to Work With a Social Media Manager

April 17, 2011 2 Comments

Successful social media communities require strong leadership behind a careful, organized strategy. If you’ve decided to invest in a social media consultant, analyst, strategist, or anyone else with the word “social media” in their title, keep in mind these thoughts as you move forward with executing your plan.

Facebook Keychain

Image courtesy of Zazzle.com

Educate your internal decision makers

Social media managers can not operate in a silo. One of the biggest challenges for any company entering the social media realms is to educate the decision makers about the dynamics of culture that surround social media communities. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, all have unique online cultures, some overlapping, that require keen understanding and strategy.  Before that first tweet, bring together your decision makers in marketing, sales, customer service and yes even front line operations, and have a conversation with them about your intended goals. Brainstorm with them for ideas on engagement, and what you hope to build by using social media. Decide what is realistic, and what will be required to succeed.

Understand your audience

You’ve heard this before, but it’s worth repeating. Know who you want to connect with, where they are, and what they look like. Age, sex, location, scale, interests, focus, all impact your success. It doesn’t pay to have a huge following of social media analysts if you’re trying to sell shoes, or encourage support for a foundation. Look for your intended audience and start engaging there. This isn’t to say that social media analysts don’t occasionally buy shoes, but you get my point.

Map Responsibilities

Decide who will be responsible for the daily postings and interactions. Remember that this individual’s personality will largely determine your company’s overall voice, so choose carefully. Qualities that make for a successful community manager include a desire to be helpful, credibility, the ability to be brief and concise, creativity, a sense of humor, fearlessness, and a strong background in business.

Provide the necessary authority

Once your strategy is in place and you’ve chosen your community manager, give them the authority to get the answers they need quickly.  Nothing can bring down a good community faster than a lack of response to sincere questions and concerns. Without the authority to respond quickly, or without cooperation from the entire organization, the community manager is left hanging. Remember, this is your company’s voice and a customer facing portal. Make sure your manager has the support he or she needs to keep that voice in relationship with your brand.

Lose the Fear

Please don’t restrict your community manager to conversations only about your brand. Who likes to converse with someone that talks about themselves incessantly? Yes, your social media accounts exist to build brand awareness, build sales, and develop leads and support around your brand; however, remember that people engage in an activity because something is in it for them, so make sure you’re providing something of value to your fans. Don’t be afraid to let your hair down a little bit. Reach out and see what you, through your social media pages, can offer your followers. What do they care about? How can you provide that to them? Don’t be afraid of looking vulnerable or a little silly. This isn’t traditional marketing, this is a conversation.

Don’t count, measure

Don’t judge your social media manager by the number of followers they bring in. Stop obsessing about your Klout score and instead, check click through rates, referred traffic and the quality of engagement on your pages. Who are your followers? Do you have a strong core group of fans and followers that reflect the type of community you’re trying to build? Are they interacting? That’s what counts. If you place emphasis on numbers you’re incentivizing your community manager to focus on the wrong target.

What are you looking for in a social media manager? I’d love to know your thoughts. Share them here with me or on Twitter @suereynolds or Facebook .

Filed under Business, Facebook, Leadership, social media Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Take Leadership of your Company’s Social Media Strategy

April 12, 2011 2 Comments

Social media strategists take note! One of the most challenging aspects of running a social media campaign for a large organization is to coordinate the communications between departments. Many social media strategists find themselves in the marketing department, which really does the position, and the company, a disservice. Yes, social media professionals should be aware of and participate in marketing campaigns, but that isn’t the whole story. Participating in social media should also involve monitoring conversations about your brand and products, reaching out to help when appropriate, providing customer service, and offering information that adds value to your business community.

Image courtesy of Access Business Technologies

If your business is involved in launching a social media strategy, or if you’ve been participating for some time but aren’t seeing the results you expected, ask yourself if your company fits this description.

  • Departments are siloed
  • Social media is seen as marketing
  • When you ask for input department heads tell you they don’t have time
  • Team leaders are not included in social media efforts
  • Department heads can’t provide the answers to questions posed on social media pages, or they don’t think it’s important
  • Timely responses are impossible to come by

Social media in many companies is still in its infancy. I am fortunate to work for a forward thinking company that realizes how important being social is to their community; however there are many companies that still don’t get it. There is so much potential, if companies would only stop doing social and start being social. Relegating social media to just a marketing task fails to take advantage of the broad spectrum of interactions that can, and will happen, on your social media pages.

In a perfect world the strategist should coordinate efforts from customer service, marketing, human resources and, sometimes, front line operations, to facilitate the company in being social as an organization. Companies need to embrace this philosophy before their social media efforts will truly be successful.

If you find yourself in the position of social media manager in these circumstances, take heart! Step up and take leadership of the effort, provide meaningful metrics to measure your past successes, and ask for more support and coordination. Talk about what you are doing within the company and why you’re doing it. Involve the thought leaders and the decision makers in your company, and sell what you are doing to them. Your efforts will provide big dividends in the long term.

What’s your biggest social media challenge?

Filed under Business, Leadership, social media Tagged with , , , , , , ,

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