Pinterest is the latest darling on the social media scene. Pinterest reportedly hit ten million monthly unique visitors faster than any other website. It is currently claimed to have some 15 million users. Basically it allows you assemble (‘pin’) images from anywhere on the web into themed folders (‘pinboards’). You can download browser plug-ins that allow you to pin an image from a website to one of your pinboards in a few clicks. The social element comes from ‘following’ other Pinterest users and commenting on and re-pinning their images. It is a simple idea slickly executed. The emphasis on images makes it rather different to Facebook, Twitter and other social media brands.
83% of US users of Pinterest are women and typical pinboard themes include: fashion, funny images of cats, interior design, places to visit, food and wedding ideas. Check the Pinterest home page to see a sample of images currently being pinned.
In our case study with Pinterest we have found that this site is most effective with women and female driven products.
]]>- if a marketed thing is a low-touch product or service
- if it is a search purchase, you are trying to find a product or service that matches certain exact criteria that can be pre-defined and searched in words (e.g. electronics like computers with certain speeds, all-in-one printers supporting certain features)
Social Media Marketing (SMM) makes more sense than SEO:
- if a marketed thing is a person offering experience related services (e.g. a show act like a magician) or a emotion connected product (e.g. a movie, or music, art)
- if it is a experience purchase, you have to experienced it, taste it, touch it, feel and see it directly (e.g. exotic food, beer, cookies, hamburger)
I believe that gamification will slowly die, except for major corporations (cocoa cola, movie industry, music industry, etc). I also believe that a companies (B2C) interaction with its consumers is going to change dramatically. Consumers like the latest and greatest. Augmented reality, contests, visually stimulating content, etc. are going to be on the rise. And Lastly GIFs. Animated GIFs are going to start making a big splash in the digital world.
]]>and generate results *if* you do it the right way. Your first step should be
devouring all the content out there that you can find to familarize yourself with
email marketing and learn as much as possible about its topics.
Once you start, a super-simplified version of your action plan may look like this:
1. Sign up with an email marketing service provider.
You want an easy platform that will make it super simple for you to manage all aspects of your email marketing campaign. Here are a few services you may want to consider: GetResponse (shameless plug), iContact, ConstantContact, MailChimp.
2. Build a mailing list.
The sweetest and most creative email campaign is worth little if you have no one to market to. Start by building your email list. You will want to import your existing contacts to your email marketing account, and set up a ‘sign up form’ on your website. More ideas in a whitepaper that we published on the topic:
http://www.getresponse.co
3. Start mailing.
There will be many other decisions you’ll need to make. Do you want to create an automated follow-up cycle that will reach your subscribers at preset time intervals? Are you going to explore triggered email marketing (i.e. send an email 2 hours after a customer has abandoned your order form with a “was that a problem?” question… or send them a discount on the day of your birthday?). Or perhaps you’ll just start by sending regular email newsletter once a week, and mix it with occasional special offers. The bottom-line is: start sending and find out what works for you.
4. Track and improve.
This is perhaps the most important and most overlooked aspect of email marketing, as marketers tend to focus much of their energy on the creative, rather than on tracking results and improving their email campaigns over time. When it comes to email marketing, think CANI (constant and neverending improvement). You want to monitor what works, shelve what doesn’t, and keep fine-tuning, optimizing and perfecting your approach all the time.
Are you purchasing Facebook ad space to gain more likes, drive Web traffic, convert sales, increase brand awareness, or increase engagement?
How large is your current fan base?
Are they all organic fans?
How is your engagement level?
If a new user visits the page, will they be compelled to comment, like or share based on current content?
Some organizations do well with no paid Facebook ads, some pay for ads and see no return, and some create a perfect balance between organic and paid promotion.
In my experience, pages that create a strong organic presence first attract more qualified and active users than those who use Facebook ads as a starting point
]]>- Visual
- Easy to do
- Is viral
- Is the first totally visual social network. You let your pictures do all the talking for you. No need to comment much. No deep conversations necessary.
- Brings traffic to whatever website or blog the images are pinned from, thus, you can build new traffic to your site and, if you know how to leverage that and turn your traffic into customers or new subscribers to your email list, then you’ll grow your business.
The latest research suggests a 3pm EST post-time. The previous research suggested a morning post-time.
Originally posted here:
The age of personal robots is at hand (video)