The Marketer’s Guide to the New Facebook Pages

The New Facebook Pages design is here. For anyone in the Facebook marketing world, this means a lot of major changes. If you took advantage of the features of the timeline design for personal profiles, then the pages will feel similar. This guide will help you find what you’re going to like and hate about Facebook’s latest updates to pages, including how your brand or business can adapt.

What is New About the Facebook Pages Design

Before we dig deep into the details, let’s take a look at some of the major changes to the Facebook pages’ design.



Here, you can see some of the major cosmetic changes including the following.

• The Timeline Cover Photo – This is probably the biggest and most beautiful of the new features. Depending on your industry, it could be the perfect portfolio or your worst marketing nightmare.
• Your About Info – The about info for your company moves from a tiny box on the sidebar to one of the first areas people will see after they take in your cover photo. Although Facebook doesn’t need to do it, this is the perfect place for you to put a link to your website so you can get a higher click through rate.
• Apps – After the box for your photos (which is not moveable) are three prime spaces for your apps, assuming you don’t want to keep your number of likes on the top row. There are twelve boxes total – ten for apps.

Next, you can see the two columns for updates. As for how this will affect conversions still remains to be seen, but you can assume that having a major update next to one that isn’t that important will take away some of the focus. While you can highlight important updates (which I will discuss later), the highlighting can leave your page’s wall looking unbalanced and somewhat empty if a less important status update is left in a single column.

It’s All About the Cover Photo

The biggest piece of branding on the new Facebook pages design is the timeline cover photo. Here are the things you need to know.

• Size – The optimal size for your Facebook page’s cover photo is 851 x 315 pixels. While Facebook says they can be as small as 399 pixels wide, you should go with the full resolution size so you get the best image quality.
• Rules – There are lots of rules when it comes to the cover photo. The first warning that pops up about cover photos when you go to upload yours for the first time is that they cannot be advertisements, promotions, or coupons. When you go to the read more page, you will see additional restrictions including no price or purchase information, no contact information that should be in your About section, no references to Facebook features such as Like or Share, and no calls to action.
• Ideas – Once you get past all of the rules, you have to start getting creative. Some ideas for a cover photo include a great photo of your latest product, an image of your services, a photo of your company’s employees, or an extension of your logo. Be sure to check out the new Facebook pages in the upcoming inspiration section.

Status Updates

If you’ve grown accustom to posting status updates on your personal timeline profile, then the Status Update box on the new Facebook pages shouldn’t be much of a change.

• To post a link to your wall, simply paste the link in the Status update box and it will automatically pull up the link preview.
• If you want to post a video from YouTube, paste the link to it in the Status update box and it will automatically pull up the video.
• To post photos or video, click the Photo option and upload photo or video from your computer. You can also use your webcam to take a photo or create a photo album.
• To ask an open ended or poll question, click on the Ask Question option.
• To post a milestone (such as expanding offices to a new location), click on the Milestone option.
• Don’t forget to use the targeting option to put specific updates in front of the right demographic of your fan base.

Once you’ve posted an update, you also have additional options.

• Pinning – Want a particular status update to stay up top? Hover over your update, click on the Pencil icon, and then click Pin to Top. This will keep the update pinned to the top of your wall until you choose to unpin it or pin another update.
• Highlighting – Bring extra attention to important status updates by hovering over your update and clicking on the Star icon. This will stretch that update across both columns on your page’s wall.
• Changing the Date – Did you forget to add your latest blog post from Friday onto your wall as an update and realize it after you added Monday’s blog post? Don’t worry. Just add Friday’s blog post on your wall, hover over the update, click on the Pencil icon, and then click Change Date.

Noticeably Missing Features

Although there are a lot of great changes, there are also a ton of things that are missing. Such as:

Missing – Wall Activity from Everyone




Maybe it is just a pre-launch issue, but one thing that is noticeably missing from the new Facebook pages is activity by anyone who isn’t your friend. You can compare the above screenshot while I am logged in to my account which shows the number of friends of mine that have liked Facebook’s page plus a friend’s recent tag vs. the screenshot below where I’m logged into a dummy account that has no friends.



You can still see likes, comments, and shares on wall posts from people you are not friends with. You just cannot see direct posts on a page’s wall or tags of a page from people you are not friends with. This means that you could go to a business page that has hundreds of rave reviews from others, but if none of those people are your friends, you would not see them. It is ultimately determined by the privacy settings of the people who post on pages. Visit Facebook’s help center to learn more about privacy for people who like pages.

Gone – Default Landing Tab

Say goodbye to having people who are not yet fans get directed to your fan gate or welcome tab. While you can use the direct URL of an application to direct people to a specific tab, anyone who clicks on the main link to your Facebook page (such as the one from the Like button or box on your website) will be taken to your main Timeline. This has made some marketers upset as they were able to successfully convert fans or even sales from a default landing tab, but it is sadly confirmed to be gone by Facebook.

Missing – Place Recommendations

Another (hopefully) pre-launch issue is the missing recommendations for local business pages/place pages. If you haven’t converted your local business page to the new Facebook page design, I would suggest copying your recommendations and who they were from before you do. Maybe grab a screenshot or two as well. No one is 100% sure on if this will get re-incorporated into the new Facebook pages or not. You can voice your opinion in the Facebook developer’s bug report for recommendations in timeline for pages.

Facebook Apps & Custom Content

Once you get past the loss of default landing tabs, you will likely next notice additional changes to the way you Facebook apps and custom tabs are displayed.

• Number of Apps & Custom Tabs – As I mentioned earlier, you can use up to 10 apps and content tabs on your Facebook page. While there are twelve boxes, one is reserved for your photos and another is reserved for your page’s number of likes.
• Prioritization – While the photos box always will stay in the first position, you have the option to put your apps and content tabs in the next three spaces. This way, you can display your most important apps and custom content tabs without having to hope that a visitor knows to click the down arrow. Click on the down arrow next to your row of apps, hover over a tab, and click on the Pencil icon. Then use the “Swap Position With” options to move your boxes around to the order you would like them displayed.
• Custom Name & Icons – For any box other than Photos and Likes, you can change the tab name and image. To do so, click on the down arrow next to your row of apps, hover over a box, and click on the Pencil icon. Select Edit Settings. Here, you can enter a different name for your tab or click on the Change link to change the tab image. Images should be 111 x 74 pixels. Use larger images with the same proportion so they will scale down to fit inside the box. Images smaller than 111 x 74 pixels will not fill the entire space.
• Content Size – Custom content and apps now have a width of 810 pixels to work with. Any of your current apps or custom content should be centered within this space until they are changed by you or your application provider to fit the new layout.
• Direct URL – The only alternative to a default landing tab is directly linking to the tab you want to direct your fan page visitors to. Click on the tab you want visitors to see first when they come to your page, and copy the URL from your browser’s address bar as shown below. Then use this URL when you link to your fan page within your website content, email signature, and other locations.

Messages – The Good, Bad, and Ugly

One other major new features that visitors to your Facebook page can take part in is private messages.

• Keeping Bad Comments Off Your Wall – One perk to having the private messaging option on your page is that it has the potential to steer angry customers or fans from writing on your wall to writing to you in private. This way, you can handle a situation without it becoming an ugly (and possibly viral) mess for your brand.
• Keeping Good Comments Off Your Wall – A downside to having the private messaging option on your page is that people who might otherwise leave a good comment on your wall praising your brand might send the compliment privately instead. While you could politely ask if they share their comment publicly (or mind if you share their comment publicly), it would just be easier if they had left it on your wall in the first place.
• Losing Wall Engagement – The other downside to messages is they might take away public engagement with your wall. Instead of commenting on one of your posts, they may message your page instead.
• Turning Off Messages – Once you’ve balanced the pros and cons of the private messaging system, if you choose to turn off private messaging for you page, you can. Facebook certainly did. Simply go to your Admin Panel, then click on Manage and Edit Page. On the Manage Permissions screen, you will see a checkbox for Show “Message” Button on your page. Simply uncheck that to turn off the private messages option.

The New Admin Panel

The new Admin Panel for your Facebook pages gives you the most important information about your page in a quick glance.



The following are some features you will definitely want to check out, staring with the at a glance sections.

• Notifications – Of course, notifications are not new. But when you click the See All link, you will find an RSS feed for your page notifications. This comes in handy if you manage a lot of pages but don’t want to go to them individually to check your notifications. Now you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed for all of your pages’ notifications to see them all in your RSS reader.
• New Likes – Click on the See All link under New Likes to see the latest people who have liked your page. Use the dropdown to also see the Facebook pages that have liked your page.
• Messages – If you leave the private messaging feature on your page, this is where you can see incoming messages. Click See All to view them all, or click on the name of the sender to see the full message and reply.

Next, you’ll want to check out your dropdown menu options, starting with Manage.

• Manage > Edit Page – Under the Manage menu, you will find the Edit Page section. One of the most important screens you will want to visit when you convert to the new design is Manage Permissions as shown above. Here you can customize the posting ability of fans on your page, post visibility, tagging ability, private messages option, and other settings. The rest of the information is the same as your page’s previous Admin Panel.
• Manage > Use Activity Log – If you have used the Activity Log for your personal timeline profile, this one is similar. Scroll through your activity log to see posts by your page and by your fans. Click on the icons to the right of each update to change the settings for each post to Highlighted on page, Allowed on Page, Hidden from Page, Delete Post, Change Date, or Report / Mark as Spam.
• Manage > See Banned Users – If you have ever banned a user from your page, you can see a list of those users here. You can also choose to unban users if your issues with them have been resolved.

The other important menu item that will help you get more Facebook fans to your page is Build Audience. Here is what you will find under it.

• Build Audience > Invite Email Contacts – Have a huge email list? Take advantage of it by importing your contacts (up to 5,000) and inviting those email contacts to become a fan of your page.
• Build Audience > Invite Friends – Page Admins can invite their friends to become a fan of their page. By suggesting your page to a friend, that friend will see a notification on their profile to check out your page. This is a great way to build your fan base. Be sure to take advantage of it before Facebook decides to remove it again.
• Build Audience > Share Page – This is just a quick way to post an update with a link to your page on your personal profile.
• Build Audience > Create an Ad – If you want to expand your page’s exposure on Facebook, try Facebook Ads. It will allow you show your page to a target audience by location, demographics, and even interests.

New Facebook Insights Data

Want to learn more about your Facebook page’s fans and activity? You can with Facebook Insights. To get to your Insights, click on your Admin Panel and See All next to the Insights portion. There you will find the some exciting information about your Facebook page.

Overview

The first screen in your Insights panel is the Overview where you can see the following details.

• Total Likes – The number of people who like your page. Unfortunately this number does not include Facebook pages that like your page.
• Friends of Fans – The number of people who are friends with people who like your page. It seems this number should also include subscribers of people who like your page. Although it doesn’t, that would be a great addition.
• People Talking About This – The number of people who have created a story about your page including posting to your wall, interacting with a status update (likes, comments, and shares), answering a question, responding to an event, mentioning your page in a status update, tagging your page, or checking in at your place.
• Weekly Total Reach – The number of people who have seen any content from your page for the last seven days.
• Posts – The purple bubble on the graph represents the number of posts your page has published on a given day.

Beneath the graph, you can see engagement information about your individual page posts. Columns are sortable by date, post snippet, and the following pieces of data.

• All Post Types – The default view for this section will show all of your latest posts. Click on this dropdown to see posts with photos, links, videos, or questions.
• Post – The post column shows the beginning snippet of your post. Click on it to see a full preview.
• Reach – The number of people who have seen the post within the first 28 days after it was published on your wall. Click on the number to see the graphical breakdown of organic, paid, and viral views.
• Engaged Users – The number of people who have clicked on the post within the first 28 days after it was published. Click on the number to see the number of times your post generated clicks and engagement from users including likes, comments, and shares.
• Virality – The percentage of people who have created a story from your page post (shares) out of the total number of people who have seen it.Likes

The Likes section shows you a demographic breakdown of people who have liked your page including age, gender, countries, cities, and languages.



Beneath the demographics is a section that tells you where your page’s likes have come from.



This is a great way to see what converts visitors into fans.

• On Page – Likes generated from your Facebook page itself.
• Like Box and Like Button – Likes generated from the Like Box and Like Button social plugins on external websites.
• Admin Invite – Likes generated from the use of suggesting a page to a friend from the Admin Panel > Build Audience > Invite Friends.
• Timeline – Likes generated from people clicking on your page in a person’s personal Timeline profile Likes section.
• Mobile – Likes generated from people on a mobile device.
• Search Results – Likes generated from people who used Facebook’s search box.
• Page Like Another Page – Likes generated from other pages that like your page.
• Facebook Recommendations – Likes generated from a Recommended Pages unit in the right hand column on Facebook.
• On Hover – Likes generated from the popup window shown when someone hovers over a link leading to your page anywhere on Facebook.
• Ticker – Likes generated from mentions of your page in the news ticker.
• Friend Referrals – Likes generated from a story about someone liking your page.

You can also see the number of unlikes you have on a given day. If you see a big spike in unlikes on a particular day, you should see if you posted something on your page’s wall that day and avoid similar updates.

Reach

The Reach section shows you demographics about the people you have reached through your page’s content, posts, and stories by others. Scroll down to the bottom of this section to see two important pieces of information.

• Total Tab Views – The number of times each tab is viewed on your Facebook page, including the main timeline itself.
• External Referrers – The number of referral visits from sites other than Facebook, including any site you have included a link to your Facebook page.Talking About This

The Talking About This section shows you demographics about the people who have created stories around your Facebook page. Beneath the demographics data are graphs that show how people are engaging with your page including page likes, stories from your posts, mentions and photos tags, and posts by others.

Export Data

Want to see the raw data? You can export your page and post level data to Excel (.xls) and comma-separated text format (.csv).



This can be helpful since most of the Insights screens will only allow you to go 89 days back. The export will include any data after July 2011.

Facebook Insights for All

While detailed insights is limited to page administrators, you can now see some basic insights about any page by visiting the page and clicking on their number of likes.

Here, you can see the number of people talking about a particular page this week, the number of total likes, the most popular week for that page, the top location engaging with the page, the age group of the most engaged fans are, and a graph of their latest engagement activity.



This is a great way to do some competitive research.

• You can target your competitor’s most popular city and age group in Facebook ads to generate new likes for your page.
• You can scroll through your competitor’s timeline to see what they did to make their page popular on the most popular week.
• You can see if your competitor’s latest Facebook marketing strategy is increasing or decreasing their page’s engagement and model your similarly or not.

Your New Facebook Pages To-Do List

So now that you’ve read through this guide, you might be wondering what you should do first. Here’s a simple to-do list of things you need to do to prepare your business page for the new design and functionality. Otherwise, your page could end up looking like this.

• Take Advantage of the Preview Option – You don’t have to convert your page over until March 30th, 2012. But you can prepare your page to be converted to the new design by clicking on the preview button to see how it will look and prepare accordingly.
• Get a Great Cover Photo – If you have to, hire a photographer to take pictures of your employees, your building, your products, etc. But get a good cover photo. Your page will look abandoned without it.
• Update Your About Information – You can have up to 165 characters in your page’s About field including a link to your website. Use it wisely as it will be front and center and could lead to additional clicks to your website.
• See How Your Updates Look – Scroll through your timeline to see your page’s wall posts and status updates. Make sure that you have a good amount of updates from the past few months at minimum. Use the highlighting option by clicking the Star icon on important updates to make them stand out.
• Break Up Third Party Updates – If you used a third-party platform to update your page, you might find that some of your updates are clumped together. Click on the Pencil icon above a group of updates and the View Individual Stories. This will take you to those updates in your Activity Log. Click on the Circle icon next to each update and change it to Highlighted on Page. Then go back to your page and click the Star icon to un-highlight them. This should make them individual stories on your page’s timeline.
• Backdate Updates to Fill Up Timeline – If you don’t have a lot of updates, post some and then click on the Pencil icon on the update and change the date. Use this to fill up your recent timeline to show some activity.
• Check Your Page’s Basic Information – Click on the About link on your page and take a look at your page’s basic information (contact information, description, etc.). Add additional information if necessary to fill this area out.
• Check Your Custom Content & Apps – Click on each of your Facebook apps and custom content tabs to see what changes need to be made. Contact your designer or application creator to see if they have updates on when they can fit your apps and content to the new Facebook pages layout size.

On-Going New Facebook Pages Maintenance Plan

Once you have taken care of the basic housecleaning, you will need to do the following to keep your new Facebook page’s timeline full of activity!

• Post a Variety of Updates – Keeping your Facebook page up to date is now more important than ever. Be sure to post a variety of updates including simple status updates, questions, photos, and videos to engage with fans and keep your timeline looking healthy.
• Use Pins and Highlights – Take advantage of the pinning feature to keep important wall posts up top and the highlighting feature to stretch important content across both columns for maximum impact.
• Check Notifications & Respond to Messages – Keep an eye on any activity happening on your page and be sure to reply when needed. Especially keep tabs on your messages – you might be able to prevent an angry message from going private to public by responding quickly.
• Do Some Testing – Try new things. If you feel like your number of likes are not increasing at a good rate, try a new cover photo or Facebook ad. If people don’t seem to be responding to links on your wall, try photos or videos instead. Move your tab around to see if you get more traffic on a welcome tab over a Twitter tab.
• Keep an Eye on Insights – Check up on your Facebook Insights regularly. This could be the key to finding out which page posts get the most response, what sources are leading to likes on your page, and other crucial information about your page’s engagement.Inspiration from Brand Facebook Pages

Conclusion

As you can see, while there are some major drawbacks to the new Facebook pages, there are also many new advantages. There is no sense in protesting the changes as they are going to happen whether you want them to or not, so you might as well go with the flow and adapt to Facebook’s new design. Take the next few weeks and make it work for your business!

So what do you think about the new Facebook pages?















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The Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest

HGTV. Nordstrom. West Elm. ModCloth. Those are some of the big name retailers who are using Pinterest to drive significant traffic to their retail websites. In fact, Pinterest has become so popular it is driving more traffic than Google+ to retailers’ sites.

I think it is safe to say that as marketers it’s time to take this social network site seriously. But what exactly is Pinterest? And how do you use it to promote your business or brand?
Well, this guide will help you get started.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is becoming a social network site for sharing interesting images you find online. Think of it as an image-based social bookmarking tool like delicious.com…but with a better community.

These images, once uploaded to the site, are known as Pins. Users can place these pins on boards customized under a theme. You can create any kind of theme you want…architecture, motorcycles or even history.



Fifty-nine percent of its “pinners” are women between 25 and 40 years of age. Women also make up 58% of its unique visitors.

It’s been on a spectacular growth in the last six months with 40 times the number of visitors. In fact, Time magazine called Pinterest one of the top five social networking sites.

The site is so popular they are controlling growth by making you enter your email address to get on a waiting list to become a pinner. However, this should only take a couple of days.



Of course, if you know a pinner you can ask them for an invite.

How to pin

Pinning is pretty easy. You can link to a website or upload an image. Or you can install the Pin It button from Pinterest.



Pinterest will grab the web address anytime you pin content so you don’t have to worry about crediting the original source. After you’ve grabbed an image, your next step is to assign it to a board, add a caption and you’re done.



It’s better to create boards that are narrow in focus. If you have fifty boards on very tight subjects…social media tools, 20s silent movies, Seattle micro beers…you are more likely to catch the attention of someone who shares your interest.

How to add prices to your pins

If you want to add the price to something you pin, you can include it in the description. A header will then appear over the content with the price:

How to pin on Pinterest with your iPhone

You can also pin images with your iPhone.



Just download the app and you can:
Look at the pins and pin boards of the people you follow.Comment, like and re-pin.Use your camera to pin, which adds a location.

And make sure you tag your images. This will help your images to be found when people search Pinterest.

What to pin on Pinterest

When it comes to what to pin, the possibilities are endless. Right now the leading pins tend to be fashion, crafts, photography or architecture.

If you do a quick glance of the most popular pins you’ll notice one thing…they are stunning, unique or useful:



That should tell you something. Those who are really enjoying Pinterest are very visual.

And sure, you could just pin random, cool stuff you find across the web…but the power behind Pinterest lies in the ability to organize content around a theme or project.

How to create boards on Pinterest

For the best user experience, anything you pin to a board should relate directly to that board. This will also increase the likelihood of people following your boards.

Create a title for the board, and always add a description:



Why should you create a board? You could create boards for…
A car you are fixing up and pin ideas for things you want to do to modify the car.Each room of the house you want to redecorate.Pin images that are ideas for blog posts.Birthday wish list.Recipes and cooking ideas.Items you might need to go on a camping trip.Movies you want to see or books you want to read.

A board can have multiple contributors, so you can work with other people on a project, seeing all the ideas that are being shared. You can invite others to contribute, but they must be one of your followers.

How to find pinners

Like Twitter, Pinterest is an open social network site…that means you can follow anybody you like without having to get their permission.



How do you go about finding people you like? There are a couple ways to find pinners who might follow you:

Comment on a pin you like, “like” it or re-pin to one of your boards.Follow a specific board.Follow all of a particular user’s boards.Search for a particular topic.Browse the “Popular” pins section to see what is trending.Invite your friends or co-workers to join.

Once you’ve found several pinners you’d like to collaborate with, you can now create a group to work on a project…whether to plan a wedding, class reunion or event.

Creating a group is simple:
Click the board’s edit page.Change the pin setting to “Me + Contributors.”Add a friend’s name.
You have to be following one of their boards in order to do this, and keep in mind, anyone you invite can decline the request.

How to find content on Pinterest

Most of the content you will find on Pinterest is photos. But you can also see all the videos that people are sharing.

Just hit the Video navigation link at the top of the page:



This page sits behind a user account so you need to be a pinner in order to see all the videos, but it’s worth it. The tutorials alone are useful and practical, and trailers are fun.

From a marketing standpoint, the videos are a great way to create and share educational material. Because of the Pinterest audience, however, there is a way you have to create these videos so they appeal to the audience. Remember, right now the audience is predominately women who love fashion and crafts.

So, let’s say you are a financial advisor who targets parents that want to set up a 529 college savings plan. A tutorial on a 529 wouldn’t get a lot of traction. A tutorial on how to decorate or furnish a dorm room, however, would. And the eyeballs that land on your video will then be exposed to you and your business.

10 tools to help you find great content for Pinterest

Most people who are professional web surfers are not short on coming across stunning and useful images. However, even the best of us need a little help to find inspiration when it comes to pinning. Here are ten tools I recommend.

StumbleUpon – Choose a topic you are interested in and then click “Stumble” and this discovery-engine will deliver surprising results to your screen. When you see an image you like, pin it.

Facebook – Follow people who share extraordinary photos on Facebook. When you find a pic you like, search the web for the original source to pin. Pinterest won’t let you pin from Facebook directly.

Google+ - Follow some power users on this site who tend to share stuff that is both work related and fun. Google’s Marissa Mayer shares pics of her extreme hiking trips while explorer Trey Ratcliff posts pics of great stuff when he travels across the globe.

Twitter – People share content on Twitter all the time, especially Twitter power users. When someone shares a pick, click through and pin it.

Blekko  – You can eliminate the spam stuff from your searches with Blekko, giving you highly-targeted search engine results and inspiring images.

Paper.li – With Paper.li, you can turn all of your social network feeds…Twitter, Facebook and blogs…into a stream of news content that you can scroll through quickly to get that gem of a pin.

Delicious – You may have forgotten about delicious.com, and not even used it forever, but it’s still a great place where people save content. You can skim your connections’ list of stuff that they are sharing, crawl through a stack or simply search under specific topics to find great images to pin.

Google Reader – If you want a quick and dirty way to see what all your favorite blogs are sharing, stick them in a reader like Google’s. Sites that are picture heavy that you might want to add are The Big Picture by Boston Globe, This Isn’t Happiness or Hawlin’s MOOD. Follow the pics from those last two sites and you’ll discover great niche sites that share great images, too.

Bundlr – Surf this curation tool to find inspiring images to pin. Look at their most-popular collection or staff’s pick to find the unique and useful image.

Pinterest – It should seem obvious, but simply working through Pinterest several times a day will lead to some amazing images to re-pin. Don’t forget to @mention the original poster when you do.

9 reasons why marketers should use Pinterest

If you are a community manager, early adopter or social media enthusiast, then the business value of Pinterest may be obvious to you. However, everyone else in marketing may not share your enthusiasm.
But how do you go about convincing them they should jump on board? Here are nine reasons your business should consider marketing on Pinterest.


1.Shift in consumer behavior from search to discovery – Search is great for finding answers. Discovery is great for finding inspiration. Pinterest taps into that phenomenon. As Samil Shah explained on TechCrunch back in November, Pinterest is bringing some of that discovery online…which could lead to a revolution in how we purchase items. Right now we are trained to go to Amazon or Google to find what we want. Pinterest starts before that search, before we even thinking we want to buy a particular product. For example, if I wanted a sound system for my laptop, I might hop on to Pinterest, browse a category devoted to sound systems and then land on a product. Within that discovery phase, however, I may never end up at Amazon since Pinterest drives traffic back to a retailer’s site.

2.Little interaction needed for brands – A legitimate concern for any brand considering jumping into a new social media platform is the resource question: do you have it in the budget to staff? The nice thing about Pinterest is there isn’t a lot of overhead. Outside of pinning, categorizing and tagging images, you don’t have to worry about managing comments or playing the follower game. You can push content at your own pace.


3.Connect with the visual segment of your audience - Pinterest is visual. So it attracts an entirely different crowd…those who may have an appeal for an image over written words. Why is this important? Consider how content marketers typically engage their audiences…through words, videos or audio podcasts. You can open the doors to a new segment of buyers who may be interested in your product…but not know about it…by building a community around the images you pin. That can draw others in who are inspired by your account and lead to referrals.

4.Inspires the shy content creator – Pinterest is allowing another segment of the online market get into the action. That segment is the lurker…the person who is too shy to create their own blog, comment on other social sites or contribute in any way online. Pinterest is best compared to Tumblr, where most Tumblrs do not create original content…but share, or “re-blog,” other content. Pinterest is a great way for people to express themselves without having to do anything original.

5.Amplifies the content of original creators – The average Tumblr post gets reblogged 9 times. That means it’s reaching far more people than if it remained on its own site. While there aren’t numbers on Pinterest, you can assume the same thing…content is re-pinned and shared across a wider audience. So if you are an original content creator, sharing that content on Pinterest will amplify its reach.

6.Repinning is the new “retweet” –It’s quite possible that you can build a community from simply sharing other people’s pins…the same way some Twitter power users have built a following off of retweeting or Tumblr users who’ve reblogged.

7.Tap into niches – As I mentioned above, Pinterest will allow you to pick up on a different segment. You can take this idea of niche marketing further by creating boards specific to particular segments. For example, Crutchfield might create boards around “dream man caves,” “cool clubbing” and “ladies’ lounge,” which include reader-generated home-based sound systems in these themes.

8.Build your expertise – Even if your brand doesn’t work seamlessly on Pinterest like a lifestyle company’s might, you can still use it to share your experience and build your expertise in a particular location, industry or relationships. A web strategist like Jeremiah Owyang might create boards around “must-have social media equipment for road warriors,” “top people to know in the web analytics business” or “places to eat when you attend Conference X.”

9.It’s beating out Facebook referrals  - Finally, perhaps one of the best reasons for using Pinterest in your social media marketing plans is that it is outperforming Facebook. The general manager of digital for the print magazine Real Life said that Pinterest was a huge source of traffic in October 2011…more than Facebook. Time to re-tool our marketing strategies, don’t you think?

21 business/brands promoting on Pinterest

So what kind of brand or business promotes on Pinterest? Great question. From non-profit organizations like the Humane Society of New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to small, Midwestern shops to global brands, Pinterest is proving a good fit for offline and online organizations. Here is a list of 21 of the most notable Pinterest accounts.

1.San Francisco Museum of Modern Art – SFMOMA is the perfect example of an organization being able to weave Pinterest into their marketing plans. A museum on the West Coast devoted to 20th and 21st century art, it’s already got great boards geared toward “caffeinated,” “humans” and, of course, “exhibitions.”

2.Modern Ink – This bi-monthly magazine shares photos in boards that reflect critical keywords when it comes to their audience: “polished beauty,” “outdoor lust” and “face time.”

3.Etsy – No surprise to find the online vintage and hand-made marketplace on Pinterest. The two seem perfectly fitted for each other.

4.Ivory Homes – Utah’s number one homebuilder Ivory Homes shares content with followers that involves great home exteriors, things that make a house a home and décor for each room of the house. It’s a good example of blending their own content with the interest of their customers.

5.Sevenly – Charity based t-shirt maker Sevenly pins the images they use for inspiration, actual t-shirts they’ve created and plain goofiness in their “epic check photos.” The combination of business related and personality make it a great pinner to follow.

6.Honeycomb Salon – This hair salon in Minneapolis pins images of hairstyles broken down into boards like “short cuts,” “long cuts” and “men’s cuts.”

7.The Humane Society of New York – This non-profit uses its Pinterest account to update followers on pets adopted, new pets available for adoption and books pet lovers might enjoy reading.

8.General Electric – You might wonder what a giant technology multi-national like GE could do on Pinterest. Well, if you like science, their account is quite fascinating as it pins content to boards like “bad-ass machines,” “the archives” and “#GEInspiredME,” a board devoted to photos taken by people with Instagram and tagged “#GEInspiredMe.”

9.Gap – The clothing company pins content based on seasons, holidays and pics of Gap clothing worn by models and customers. The Gap pushed into promotional territory with their “2011 Holiday Gift Guide” board.

10.Birchbox – This beauty 2.0 company merges skin care with tech, make up with new media. What’s really cool is their “birch box” board…a place that customers attach images of their birch boxes they bought from the company. A great way to use testimonials!
11.AMD – You may be a little surprised at this maker of microprocessor’s Pinterest account…24 boards with topics that range from CES2012 pictures to PC Gaming, Valentine’s Day to New Years. It’s a great strategy that shows you how diverse a company can get when it comes to segmenting.

12.Mashable – With nearly 7,000 followers, Mashable staff pin content based on tips and tricks, infographics, Super Bowl ads and gadgets. Check them out and see how a non-lifestyle content publisher is using Pinterest. It will be good inspiration!

13.Drake University – This private university curates content around their mascot, the bulldog, items to inspire students to study, what to explore in Des Moines and images the ultimate DU fan may love.

14.Better Homes and Gardens – BHG created over 54 boards with over 932 pins (that’s 17 images per board). Boards are devoted to fun front doors, kitchens we want to cook in and not-so-boring neutral. Their Pinterest account shows how well they adapted their magazine online…knowing who their audience is and what they like. Their nearly 10,000 followers is a testament to that.

15.Martha Stewart – This lifestyle guru uses her personal Pinterest account to promote her personal brand, while Martha Stewart Living is designed to cater to the magazine lovers. The combined accounts have over 22,000 followers.

16.Bergdorf Goodman  – This fashion company with over 5,000 followers has created boards around the seasons. Notable other boards include collections of pictures of coiffed hairstyles, books the staff is reading and Tom Ford.

17.Travel Channel – True to their core audience, this TV media company puts a unique spin on their pins by placing them in boards like “places we’d rather be than work” and “behind the scenes: man v. food.”

18.Chobani – America’s number one yogurt company cultivates “good conversations” around topics that will naturally be shared by their target audience: fitness, travel, flavor inspiration and holiday treats.

19.Domestica – Online retailer that specializes in home goods made by hand, Domestica encourages followers through boards that display their love of Wes Anderson art, “Lez Talk Fall Fashion-Femmes” and “Plaid Is Where It’s At.” And they are not shy about directing traffic back to their retail site.

20.Daily Grommet – This is the New Egg of crafts, delivering useful, interesting and exciting products they’ve discovered daily. They have a board dedicated to “talented artisans” and their favorite videos.

21.Gusto Pizza – Small pizzeria in Des Moines curates content that endorses what they do—sell pizza—but more importantly let’s you see who they are with boards dedicated to swagger and David Hasselhoff.

Brands that will struggle to market on Pinterest

Don’t get me wrong…not every business is going to find using or promoting on Pinterest easy. It’s still pretty tightly-focused, so tech brands, for example are not going to find it very accommodating. In a recent article on TechCrunch, Sivan Cohen and Ben Lang share 7 Reasons Why Pinterest Isn’t Ready for Tech Brands. Here are the four most important reasons:

1.Neither people nor brands are important – Pinterest emphasizes the pin…the image. Not the person nor even the board. The pin is what you will see first when you search.

2.Tough to convert pinners into followers – A big global brand like Martha Stewart only has 22,000 plus followers, you would think she would have more. But for the most part, people will re-pin or like an image but won’t take the extra step of following. However, no surprise that Pinterest has close to 10 million. It helps that they re-pin the most popular pins everyday.

3.You have to be creative if your brand isn’t visual – Lifestyle brands work well on Pinterest because what they do and how they promote it are identical. If you own a beach resort, all you have to do is show stunning pictures of the beach, your villas and the ocean. A tech brand like DropBox, however, can’t compete. One way to overcome this hurdle is to create boards around the people in the office…and pin images of their antics and adventures in and out of work…much like The Today Show does.

4.Men don’t get Pinterest – It’s not hard to see why women dominate as users on Pinterest. Pinterest is a platform that attracts fashion, crafts and lifestyle images…natural favorites for women. I think it might be hard to imagine World of Warcraft or Craftsman feeling comfortable at Pinterest. Until then, tech brands will probably be limited on Pinterest.

14 strategies for marketing on Pinterest

First, warning: While it’s not a rule that will get you kicked off, Pinterest does suggest that you avoid self promotion when using the site:



If you come across spammy, the bigger danger is you’ll simply get ignored. Your self-promotion must appear native to the community if you want to drive traffic to your website/blog.

For instance, in Leo Burnett Worldwide’s slide share on Pinterest, he suggests:

• Whole Foods would pin about food.
• The Travel Channel would pin about travel.
• The Today Show would pin about access.
• Bergdorf Goodman would pin about fashion.

That’s what I mean by native. So how exactly should you market on Pinterest. Here are 12 common strategies:

1.Online catalog – This is the most obvious example for a business with a physical product to sell. Gap has treated some of their boards this way. A jeweler might create boards for earrings, necklaces and bracelets. Don’t forget to add the price so you have the benefit of the price tag showing up on each image. And each image should drive the user back to the product description page of your website.

2.Create user-generated boards – Since you can open up boards to other Pinterest pinners, create a board hosted for your followers. Then ask them to pin stuff in those boards based on that theme. For example, Amazon could create a board that allows users to pin books they’ve read and loved. Apple could create a board that allows users to share their favorite iPhone cases.

3.Create a board devoted to your customers - Along the same lines as user-generated pins is the idea of a board in which you showcase some of your customers’ best pins. ModCloth gets the reward for this one.

4.Create a testimonial board – A great way to leverage your customer and fan enthusiasm is to create a board dedicated to ways that your product or service has helped them. Say you are a financial coach…ask your followers to pin images of ways that you have made them wealthier. Leveraging testimonials is an excellent way for companies that don’t fit the lifestyle mode to use Pinterest.

5.Pin about your event - If your brand or business is hosting an event, create a board around it and pin content leading up to the event. Social Media Examiner would be an ideal candidate with their Small Biz Success Summit. Boards could curate pins on topics related to the conference, profiles of the speakers and examples shared during the conference.

6.Pin about a new product launch – Even though tech companies may struggle to use Pinterest, startups might find Pinterest a good place to connect until the product is released. Supyo might find that it can keep interest on high alert with a Pinterest account that has boards focused on “things developers love,” “antics in the office” and “videos that they love.”

7.Offer exclusive discounts – The most direct way of promoting on Pinterest is to offer exclusive deals on products for your Pinterest followers. You can also pin a QR code with compelling content that will drive visitors straight to more description of a product. Local businesses could benefit by offering QR codes for iPhone users to bring into their stores for special discounts.

8.Host a Contest – Suggest to your followers that they create boards on their accounts about your brand…and then pin images that reflect why they like you. Lands’ End created a holiday contest called “Pin It to Win It” that bridged other social media sites to generate interest in the contest…and ultimately in the company.

9.Create a video gallery – Pinterest’s video capabilities offers a lot of options for folks who want to create tutorials or record segments of a conference they are holding. Because of the draw of the visual element to Pinterest, I could see a content marketer like Smashing Magazine leveraging video tutorials, giving lessons on CSS and Flash design. Again, this serves as another way to adopt your content and brand to a wider audience…and because of the re-blogging option, as the Pinterest user base grows, your chance for spreading content grows, too.

10.Show the human side of your brand – Pinterest is great for having fun…and showing your customers that you can have fun. Or that you are quirky and that you are not all about the bottom line. Today Show pins pictures of funny things there anchors do. How could this work for you? Imagine you are a start up with a small staff…you could create boards for all of your employees, make them contributors and then allow them to share stuff that lets their personality shine. Pinterest is great for relationship management, leveraging the hopes, dreams and desire…not only of your customers…but your employees as well.

11.Add watermarks to your images – It’s easy for images to get pulled and the original source to be forgotten on the web. Some of your content then could stop having the marketing impact you hoped to drive traffic back to your site. To keep that from happening add watermark to each image you post on Pinterest…or on your website. The watermark could be your web address or simply the name of your brand if it is easily recognizable.

12.Raising awareness for non-profits – Among its efforts to alert people to endangered animals, The National Wildlife Federation also combines ideas for camping in your backyard and bringing attention and education to squirrels in their Squirrel Appreciation Day 1-21 board where they shared a new photo for 21 days. Another non-profit, Amnesty International USA, is raising awareness on issues like human trafficking and the death penalty from their boards. One board shares inspiring quotes, while another gives a recommend reading list. Naturally all traffic is directed back to the site for donations.

13.Use Pinterest as research marketing tool – A great way to crawl inside the minds of your customers is to crawl through Pinterest looking at what your fans are pinning. Remember, pinners are curating content that is important to them. A lot of the content revolves around major milestones in their lives…getting married, buying and decorating a home and having a baby…plus, things that inspire them.

14.Use Pinterest as a minimum viable product - You can even treat your followers as a focus group by creating a board that revolves around an idea you have for a product…and then see how they react. Did you get a lot of comments? Repins? Likes? For example, Virgin Airlines might create a board dedicated to a new plane they want to test. In the board they would share pictures of seats, foods and even locations that the plane would travel to. Followers could then add items that they would prefer to see on the plane. You probably wouldn’t get enough statistically reliable data to build a plane, but from cost perspective, this would be an ideal way to get customer feedback.

Finally, don’t use Pinterest is you are not playing on measuring your results. In fact, it’s critical that you start paying attention to referrers if and when you launch your Pinterest account. Lay down a baseline of traffic you would like to see coming to your site, create benchmarks and then a deadline.

If you haven’t reached your baseline by your deadline, re-evaluate whether Pinterest adds value to your brand marketing. Yes, you might be extending your personal brand awareness, but a direct lift in traffic to your site should be your number one metric for judging its usefulness.

9 ways to get Pinterest followers

While Lady Gaga might be able to pick up several million followers in a matter of months, mere mortals like us will probably not have such good luck.

But don’t let that frustrate you. Follow these 9 tips for encouraging people to follow you and who knows…maybe in a six month you’ll have several thousand followers.

1.Re-pin what your customer’s are pinning – To attract the attention of particular followers, create a board in your account labeled “coolest re-pins” or something like that…and then start re-pinning the content that they are sharing on their accounts. This is a great way to make your account less about business…and more about the relationship…showing them you are actually taking the time to interact. A company using this strategy well is Whole Foods.

2.Follow pinners/boards who/that fall in your target market – Basically, look for people who share the same interests as you do…and might be interested in what you do for a living. For example, if you are a photographer, then you would follow boards that are tagged “photography” or “weddings.” If you are a tech geek, follow people who enjoy science.

3.Comment on pins – When you see a pin that you like, leave a comment with the pinner. Do this frequently and you will start to gain their attention. Don’t forget that you need to add value when you comment. “Great stuff!” doesn’t cut it.

4.Create a pin that goes viral – Sharing pins is obviously the main way you would promote your brand. But content on Pinterest has the chance of going viral. If you share a pin that someone likes, they may “re-pin” it…in other words, they share it with their audience. The more people who re-pin an image, the longer it will stay on the popular page…getting more re-pins and follows.

5.Use the 1/19 content sharing rule ­– Like my rule for Twittering promotional content, you should share 19 pins that are not promoting you for every pin that is promotional. For instance, you may only want to share your very best blog posts on Pinterest. Or it could be an infographic or guest post you wrote for a big blog.

6.Encourage people to share your content on Pinterest – You can grab Pinterest share buttons from their site and embed on your own. However, you may want to wait to do this until adoption of Pinterest grows and you’ve established it as a place where you are going to spend resources to maintain. I would recommend that you don’t overload your website with share options…people tend to get confused when there are so many options.

7.Encourage people to follow you – You can also embed a Pinterest “Follow” icon for your website/blog.

8.Tag popular pinners – You can get the attention of other pinners by including a “@mention” tag like Twitter in your caption. This will send a message to that user who may then pick up on what you are pinning and re-pin.

9.Use hashtags – Like the other social media sites, hashtags work on Pinterest to help you gain attention across multiple platforms and build up a following during a marketing campaign. It also works in gaining followers in much the same way that it does on Instagram. On Instagram, if you include hash tags on your photos, you will appear in those popular searches.

My final tip is to use Pinterest as an individual rather than a company. This is probably why Martha Stewart has double the followers than Martha Stewart Living. You are more likely to get followed since people won’t have the suspicion that you are trying to sell something if your profile was a company.

How to optimize Pinterest for best SEO impact

From a web marketers stand point, the most valuable aspect of Pinterest is link building. As AJ Kumar pointed out the social and SEO value is obvious:

• Pinners can share content effortlessly – This leads to a high-probability for content to go viral, spreading across the network…muck like content on Tumblr.

• Each pin has a link pointing back to the original source – No matter how many times a pin was re-pinned…each pin is a unique link pointing back to the original source.

In addition, these are not “no follow” links. In other words, you get all the authority of Pinterest with each link back to your site. That could change as the popularity of the company grows…and joins the ranks of Twitter or Facebook…but in the meantime it proves useful when it comes to ranking.

Chris Silver Smith shared some great tips on Search Engine Land for optimizing Pinterest for local search. Let me summarize some of the important points:

• Make your profile public – Do not hide your Pinterest profile behind a private setting…otherwise you will not get crawled by search engines.

• Include keywords in your About profile – Just like when you are creating a profile for Google+ or Twitter, your Pinterest profile should tell who you are, what you do and convey the main benefits to anyone who might follow you. Keywords are a must.

• Set your location as specific as possible – Share both the city and state in which you work to attract and draw local traffic.

• Connect your other social sites – Go the extra step and publish the other social sites you belong to…Twitter and Facebook being the most popular options. You can also add a subscribe button.

• Use a review page for business URL – If you have a really good review on a business directory like Yelp, use that URL for your company website on Pinterest. This can feed it authority to help that review rank high.

• Create boards around your keywords – Create a board about your city and pin pictures of your city in that board. Do the same with your service or product or event. Don’t forget to tag these pins with keywords.

• Promote infographics on Pinterest – Pinterest is highly-visual, so infographics work well for items you can pin. Have one professionally created…and then pin and promote.

More than likely Pinterest didn’t use “nofollow” on the links as an incentive for people to use the service in the early stages of its growth. So, the engineers may eventually turn all out going links from Pinterest into “no follow” once they reach a critical mass.

Conclusion

Pinterest is clearly here to stay…and it clearly offers a new way for you to promote your business. But it is technically still in beta and the full power it has to promote brands is limited. For most brands it may not be the right platform.

But if you have the right fit for the platform, there are plenty of ways in which you can interact with your community, experimenting and innovating with the consumer experience. It’s all about the relationship anway. And for the time being, it offers good SEO benefits through its no “nofollow” policy.

Have you had any success marketing on Pinterest?

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