Grow My Company

10 steps to better Pinterest marketing

I'm no expert Pinterest marketer, and for that matter, neither is anybody else. It's just too new on the social media scene. But I have noticed some things that make sense if you're interested in using Pinterest to market your product or service.

1. Use great photos in your own blog posts so people will be encouraged to pin them:
   Pinterest is a visual marketing tool, so your images are especially important. This is true whether you’re pinning your own or another’s content. Good quality pictures are more visually appealing and will capture more interest, which will likely make them more apt to be repined. You want your content to be shared, right?
   
   
2. Choose clever names for your boards:
   Sure, “Food,” tells users what that board contains, but “Fabulous Food is just catchier, and you definitely do want to captivate your followers.
   
   
3. Carefully select your board cover photo:
   That cover photo has the potential to generate a lot of intrigue, so choose it carefully. It should instantly relay the board contents and be visually appealing.
   
   
4. Tag ecommerce items with price tags:
   I recently read that pins with tags enjoy up to a 40% spike in sales. Adding a price tag is easy. Simply add a $ sign before the price in the caption, and the price will be displayed. So if you’re selling goods online, don’t keep buyers in suspense. That won’t generate more interest. Let them know upfront what your widget costs and drive interested buyers to your site.
   
   
5. Narrow your board topics:
   When my own social media tips board reached the point where I couldn’t quickly find the one that I was looking for, I knew it was time to create social media tips category boards, i.e. LinkedIn Tips, Facebook Tips, etc. Although you can’t nest subcategories within a main category on Pinterest, you can reposition boards, so it is possible to keep related boards near each other.
   
   
6. Follow others:
   Pinterest is a social network, and the whole point is to connect, communicate and share. If you’re not following others’ boards and only pushing out your own material, you’re missing out on opportunities to find great new content that you and your followers might enjoy.
   
   
7. Repin enthusiastically:
   Share, share, share. The more great content you find, the more valuable you are to your network.
   
   
8. Control your home page feed:
   Few Pinterest users create all the boards they need at first. Most people generally build new ones to suit their evolving needs. When you follow a person, you automatically subscribe to all their current and new boards that they create. This sometimes floods your own home page with a bunch of pins that don’t interest you. But that’s an easy fix. Simply go to that person’s profile page and unfollow the boards that are unappealing to you. Problem solved. That person keeps your subscription, but your home page feed is free of unwanted content. Do this regularly to maintain a valuable and interesting home page feed.
   
   
9. Create a board with offers exclusive to Pinterest users:
   Talk about an easy way to track Pinterest leads! Create a board with exclusive offers that people can only find on Pinterest. You can also do the same on Twitter, or Facebook, or YouTube…
   
   
10. Create a contest:
    Take advantage of Pinterest’s tagging feature by encouraging users to repin your content on their own boards with tracking hashtags, and develop a criteria to determine the winner. Or you could use the hashtag feature along with a theme and have people exercise their creativity when pinning content to their boards. Again, you would then have to search for the hashtags, review all the entries, and determine the criteria for a winner.

Pinterst is the hot, new social media, and we're still discovering its marketing potential, but there are plenty of built in marketing opportunities for clever business people.

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

 

 

 

 

 

Opinion: How will Facebook make money?

Facebook went public last week, and I watched the ticker all day long. It did what I and many others suspected, climbed and fell as the day went by. It made me think though...what exactly were those people buying? How solid is this investment? What is Facebook's plan to make money? 

Let's start with the fact that social media is in essence a communications platform. People use it to connect. They share information, solicit assistance, are entertained. However, for the most part, people are not there to be solicited, and they consider ads to be an unwelcome interruption. So how can Facebook make money if its users reject its business model?

First, you must understand the difference between users and customers. You and I are users. We use the platform for free. Facebook's customers are the people and businesses that it makes money from: its application and game developers and its advertisers. There is a very big difference in the status of a user and a customer, as is evidenced by Facebook's continuous rejection of user outcry when Facebook does something that users find offensive, such as open their personal information to developers.

Hindsight is 20-20, but if I sat in the big chair at Facebook, I would have been developing premium content that users could pay to use, like chat and video capabilities. I would have maintained a basic, free platform available to all users, but introduced enhanced premium content that was so appealing and inexpensive that many users would want it. Let's face it, if Facebook had introduced chat several years ago as a paid upgrade, with a prominently stated 90-day free trial for all existing and new users, many people would have been hooked on it and just might have been willing to pay $1/month for this feature. $12 per year wouldn't really break anybody's bank, but it would have brought a lot of income to Facebook.

Let's not confuse this with LinkedIn's flawed business model that consistently strips away favorite functionality from it's free model, without notifying its users, and requires a paid, premium subscription to access this content and functionality that users had relied on for free in the past.

How about businesses? As Facebook exploded, and businesses wanted to cash in the huge database of users by developing pages there, why didn't Facebook charge them to build a business page? Again, many, if not most businesses could and would have afforded a nominal fee to establish a presence there. But then again, if Facebook charged for this service, users would have had some rights, and Facebook wouldn't have been able to do things like employ customer service reps overseas who "review" and seem to randomly delete content reported as offensive, despite there being no problem with it at all. And they wouldn't be able to randomly take down pages and ignore users' customers' requests for help.

But I digress.

Facebook has already come close to reaching critical mass. With the exception of kids who age in annually, most of the people who aren't on already, don't want to be there, and it will take a lot of convincing to make them actually become engaged users if you were able to get them to sign up in the first place. So where is the growth potential? China?

As far as I can tell, Facebook's business model includes income from app developers and advertisers only. Now that it is public, there will be no more angel invertors. So when was the last time you clicked on a Facebook ad? How often do you do so? Do you pay for game upgrades? Have you even associated a credit card with our Facebook account? No? Neither have I.

It seems to me that the only people making money are the ones who had huge bundles of stock that they unloaded last week to people who wanted to own a piece of Facebook.

I'd love to hear how you think Facebook will make money and turn out to be a good investment for all those stockholders down the road.

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

LinkedIn: 5 things you can do right now to make your profile more effective

There is no doubt that your LinkedIn profile is a critical component your professional identity. It ranks at or near the top of search rankings, and it can create interest from potential employers, clients, and customers.

On the other hand, a poor LinkedIn profile can work against you when your competitors make an effort to build complete profiles that truly demonstrate the benefits of hiring them instead of you. 

So what can you do to make yourself attractive on LinkedIn right now?

1. List your inherent professional benefit rather than your job title in your personal branding box under your name:
   This is one of the most common mistakes I see on LinkedIn. Simply listing your job title doesn't help you at all. Okay, you're a Lawyer, Compliance Officer, VP of Lending, Business Analyst, Looking for Full Time Employment, etc. So what? What can you do for me? What is the inherent benefit of hiring you? Tell me what you can do to help my business thrive. This is precious personal branding space. Don't squander it by listing a boring job title.
2. Get 3 recommendations:
   I wrote a blog post that explains why and how recommendations help you on LinkedIn. In a nutshell, since so few people bother to obtain any, they are a point of distinction. You can toot your own horn all day long, but when someone else describes your professional abilities and skills, it substantiates your claims.
3. Update your status:
   When you update your LinkedIn status, a story is posted in the newsfeed of all your connections, so this reminds them of you. Don't use this space for anything that isn't exclusively professional. Use it to educate your connections about the great things that you do an a daily basis, for example, if you're a divorce lawyer, you may write something like, "Just avoided a nasty custody battle by reminding both parties that the kids' best interests are their primary concern."
4. Add sections:
   Most people don't bother adding special sections. This is where you can appropriately list community and charitable involvement, which are not jobs. You can also use sections to add publications, presentations, awards, certifications, etc. And there are special sections designed to help students and recent grads, who have little relevant career experience, to promote courses and projects that are related to the job that they seek.
5. Complete your profile to 100%:
   You must add a photo, 3 past jobs, and receive 3 recommendations to achieve a 100% complete LinkedIn profile. This is achievable for most people, so take the time, make the effort, and complete your profile to display your strongest professional presence. 

Realize that LinkedIn is a double edged sword. While it is a tremendous resource to demonstrate your capabilities, it also provides a venue that makes it easy for prospective employers, clients, and customers to evaluate your competition and compare you against them. Make sure that you're the most attractive option, or your competitors might just edge you out before you have an opportunity to get your foot in the door.

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

 

 

How to clean up your Facebook news feed of game spam

If you're tired of seeing all your friends' game activity posts and constantly ignoring friends' requests to play games, you're in luck. Watch this video to learn how to block game invitations and delete friends' game activity from your news feed. Christine@GrowMyCo.com 413.537.2474

 

 

© 2012, Christine Pilch, Grow My Company. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Are you a social media connector or a collector?

Social media is a set of communications techniques. It helps you to reconnect, strengthen, and establish relationships. To some, however, social media seems to be one big competition for who can establish the most connections.

Let's be clear though, in most cases, volume and quality are not necessarily congruent.

Connecting without engagement has little value. How many collectors are you connected to? You know the ones; they sent an invitation and then ignored your attempts to engage with them. They may or may not post content on their Facebook or Twitter accounts, but they certainly aren't interested in communicating with you. They're silent or they're preachers.

Social media is one of the most powerful networking tools at your disposal today. It allows you to meet people virtually that would have likely never crossed your path just 5 years ago. It can help you to educate your friends and family about what you do professionally. It provides venues for online collaboration that can speed up business processes. It helps you find a job or qualified people to fill an opening within your organization.

Collectors don't seem to care about this though. They just want more connections than the next guy. Or they just want to snoop on their old friends and acquaintances.

Don't be a collector, be a connector. Make an effort, and it will pay off with enhanced social media relationships that can help you fulfil your goals. Here are a few tips about how to be a connector rather than a collector:

1. Personal invitation:
   Personalize your LinkedIn invitation. Sending the stock invitation says that you're lazy and you don't care enough about the person to bother taking the time to address them personally. Facebook used to allow personalized invitations, but, sadly, they removed that ability, preventing you from reminding an old friend about who you are.
2. Follow up:
   Message the person after connecting. Thank them for the invitation or for accepting yours. 
3. Start a conversation:
   Or at least make an effort to get to know your new connection. Even it it's someone you've known all your life, the new social media connection may add an entirely new dimension and lead to opportunities down the road for each of you.
4. Read updates:
   Keep up to date on your connections' promotions, job changes, and new company affiliations. That IT specialist whose trust you earned with one company could be your next big account in his new capacity as IT manager at another company.
5. Respond:
   When someone takes the time to post or comment on your profile, Tweet @ or message you, respond. Unless you're a celebrity, there is no excuse for not responding. It's just plain rude.
6. Read about them:
   Read the information that people put in their About sections. When you connect with someone new on LinkedIn, they know if you've looked at their profile or not. Show some interest and possibly learn something new about that person on Facebook too. This prevents you from messaging someone from your past with the stock, "So what have you been up to for the last 20 years?," when it's all right there for you to read, had you only taken the time. This helps to demonstrate that you actually respected them enough to read their info and allows you to comment on something substantive that may open a meaningful dialog.

People who have accounts on social media, but don't bother engaging, miss opportunities. Don't be a collector, be a connector and start being a more valuable member of your social media circles.

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

Image credit: Public-Domain-Image.com

Are you obnoxious or valuable to your LinkedIn community?

This morning, one of my friends, @JasonTurcotte posted on Facebook, "Not a groundbreaking revelation, but frustrated at how much spam there is in @linkedin groups. Not worth participating in most."

That sure did fire me up. As a LinkedIn speaker and trainer, I try really hard to educate people about how to get the most out of their LinkedIn experience. I have demonstrated success getting people into the job they want with a polished profile, and I try to teach people about how to contribute value to their LinkedIn community.

But Jason is right; many, many people use LinkedIn improperly, causing irritation to others.

In Jason's example above, the problem is trying to sell your product or service to an audience that:

1. Doesn't know you
2. Doesn't trust you
3. Hasn't demonstrated a need or desire for what you're selling

Good salespeople know that the above are critical elements of successful sales, so people who attempt commit interruption sales pitches within LinkedIn groups or via its message system are completely off the mark and just plain obnoxious.

Think about why we're on LinkedIn: to sell ourselves. Whether your objective is a new job, new clients, or new customers, we're all trying to sell something. The difference, however, is in our tactics.

A good, valuable member of the LinkedIn community gives, gives, gives. They offer advice when someone asks a question within a group. They constructively comment on discussion items. They post relevant articles and blog posts written by themselves and others that will bring value to the group and incite discussion among its members. 

They do not act selfishly, doing such things as posting only their own blog entries, links to their own products and services, and links to their own speaking engagements, while neglecting to read additional group content and participate in other group discussions.

A good rule of thumb when considering posting content to a group discussion page is to ask yourself, "Will this help the members of this group, or is my main objective to promote myself, my skills, my product or service, or my own blog?" If the former is true, post away. If the latter is true, don't bother.

LinkedIn group members aren't stupid. They can tell the difference between someone who is genuine and helpful and someone who is selfish. People buy from people they like, so don't be someone who is unlikable within the LinkedIn community.

Now I'm not saying that it's inappropriate to reference your own product or service as a solution to a need identified within a particular discussion item. But don't try to sell anything before you've earned the right to do so by being helpful, developing relationships, and adding value to your LinkedIn community.

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

Marketing essential: give your clients what they want

One of the primary rules of marketing is to give your customers and clients what they want. And I try very hard to focus my efforts in that direction, so imagine my surprise when I learned that I was overlooking a critical use of Pinterest!

Here's how it happened. One of the conversations I had at PodCamp Western MA 4 was about the content that I share on my social media channels that my followers like. The person I was speaking with mentioned that she loved how I share so many infographics on Twitter because they're visual and it's easy to get the gist of the info quickly. I thanked her, and then our conversation flowed into Pinterest use, and she mentioned that she loves infographics there as well. 

Interestingly, I had been deliberately not posting infographics on Pinterest because I disliked the clutter aspect in my own home page feed, and I said as much to her. Then she actually asked me to start pinning the great infographics I find there, because, as she said, "This might seem like clutter to you because it is your business, but it's a learning experience for me!"

Lesson learned. I have now started sharing interesting social media infographics that I find on Pinterest. Followers are free to follow or not follow that board if they find the content clutters up their own feeds.

The best thing though is that I listened to my potential referrer and client. She is now receiving the valuable content that she likes, and this makes me a more valuable resource.

Are you giving your clients what they want? When was the last time you asked them?

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

PodCamp Western MA 4 wrap-up: Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks!

Where else can you get 5 custom social media and/or tech presentations/discussions, lunch, a t-shirt, a cool swag bag, meet new friends, catch up with old ones, and learn more that you expected for just $30?

PodCamp Western MA 4!

What a day it was!

This was my 4th PodCamp Western MA, and I'll admit that I was a bit sceptical that I would learn anything new. I've been at this social media stuff as long as anybody, and I'm a seasoned speaker and trainer. I pretty much expected that I would be there sharing, and reconnecting, but not really learning.

Was I ever wrong!

I started the day at my friend and fellow PodCamp organizer, Morris Partee's Augmented Reality session. Morriss reviewed some of the most popular apps, and I offered one of my own favorites, Historypin. It was a fun session for all and quite enlightening for many of the attendees who didn't understand the potential for things such as NY subway assistance or finding a restaurant by scanning your locale with your smartphone. 

Next up, I went to another friend, Lesley Lambert's Pinterest session. I'm a pretty enthusiastic Pinterest user, so my goal was to support Lesley, and I'm thrilled that she had a packed room full of inquisitive people who wanted to learn how they can use Pinterest personally and to promote their businesses. She successfully drove home the point that Pinterest is a major driver of traffic to blogs and websites, so businesses should take notice. Lesley's slidedeck is here if you'd like to take a look.

After a very tasty lunch I attended a session that I requested, Davd Pakman's Podcasting How-To. David hosts a thriving political podcast that is syndicated on hundreds of radio and cable TV stations, so he knows how to do this right. He started with the basics of equipment and went right trough to promoting your podcast and growing a following. I couldn't tweet out my notes fast enough. If you're interested, his slidedeck is here.

Next up, I co-presented a session about Optimizing Your LinedIn Profile with Christine Parizo. The room was full of a variety of people. Some were seasoned social media users, others were beginners, and some were students. Everybody shared a common desire to improve their profile to position themselves for hire, be it employment or consulting gig. I received several emails, tweets, and LinkedIn messages over the last couple of days from happy people, so I think I did a good job for them.

I wrapped up the day with a session created in true PodCamp spirit. I was standing with Lesley Lambert reviewing the PodCamp session board, and nothing really struck our fancy, so I said to her, "How about if we grab a room and discuss productivity tips and tricks? Let's share ideas about what we're using that is making it easier to do our jobs and get through our days." Lesley grabbed a sticky and posted this on the wall, and 5 minutes later we had about 20 people ready to share ideas. Ron Miller started chatting about how he is using Evernote, and Lesley told us about how she combines Evernote and Dragon dictation to write her blog posts in the car. That flowed into talk of tools to schedule tweets, apps to backup data in the cloud, a cool app that helps your create lists on the fly, and also something to help you keep track of client time and easily invoice. Next we moved into Gmail productivity tips, lots of other things, and we wrapped up with discussion about solving one of a blogger's major challenges, finding royalty free and low cost photos that won't get us into copyright trouble. 

Interestingly, throughout this session, nobody left, but we gained several additional people who came looking for us after reading the tweets that were coming out of our discussion. You see, one of PodCamp's rules is called, the rule of 2 feet. Anybody is free and encouraged to leave any session at any time, and the session leader is not allowed to get hurt feelings. 

I look forward to PodCamp every year, and each year it goes by way too fast! I come away with new acquaintances, fresh ideas, and plenty of inspiration. If you have an opportunity to attend a PodCamp in your area, I recommend that you give it a shot. All of them are different, and in Western MA, our goal is to keep it small, (cap of 150 people,) and create an environment where there is room for spontaneous sessions like the one I described above. Other PodCamps run throughout a whole weekend with all time blocks pre-scheduled. That's fine too, but I think I prefer our format. We do PodCamp pretty well here in little ole Western MA!

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini

 

2012 PodCamp preparation checklist

Tomorrow, Saturday, February 25 is PodCamp Western MA 4 at the Kittridge Center at Holyoke Community College. It's going to be a great day of learning and sharing about all things tech and social media, like podcasting, Pinterest, augmented reality, LinkedIn, Twitter, you name it.

If this is your first PodCamp you're probably wondering what to expect and what to bring, so here's what I suggest:

 

1. Wireless Device: We've been assured that the wireless at HCC is terrific, and a lot of what you'll do tomorrow will be working live, so bring your laptop, netbook, or iPad so you can get online.
2. Charge your devices: Charge your still camera, Flip, Kodak Zi8, smartphone, etc, and make sure you bring them along to document the day's activities. Half the fun is in sharing all the media later.
3. Power up. Bring an extension cord and power strip if you have extras lying around. You don't want to risk running down your battery and missing something great because your device isn't working.
4. Batteries: Bring extra batteries to power your devices. You don't want to run out of juice. Are you seeing a theme here?
5. Bring accessories: Remember your microphone, lenses, XShot, and any other attachments that enhance your media capabilities. (Don't now what an XShot is? We learned about it at PodCamp Western MA 2 from Steve Garfield!)
6. Comfort rules. The feel is casual, so wear whatever makes you feel good.
7. Identify yourself: Bring business cards and a nametag if you have one. otherwise we'll have sticky ones for you.
8. Plan ahead. Check out the session suggestions to see if there are any must-attend sessions that you can't miss. Please note that this is an incomplete list.
9. Stay hydrated: Bring a water bottle. There should be plenty there, but just in case...

So there you have it. Yes, many of us come in with wheeled cases, loaded up with equipment, and you'll be glad you bring your gear too! See you there!

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini

Pinterest wish list

I signed up for Pinterest in the summer of 2011, and I've been using it enthusiastically since just after the holidays. I guess I'm about as much of an expert as anybody because it's so new.

I really like it, as I'm a visual person who has been scrapbooking and clipping things from magazines to stick in binders for many years. Pinterest is right up my alley.

There are a few things that Pinterest could do right now that would greatly enhance usability, for me at least:

1. Create private boards. Just like my private links stored on Delicious, sometimes I'd like to be able to be able to save something for future reference without letting the whole Pinterest world know about it.
2. List followers chronologically. Seriously, Pinterest, how hard can this possibly be? Facebook does it with Likes on Pages, Twitter does it with followers. Why not you? It's a time-sucking pain to have to review my whole follower list to find new people that I may want to follow reciprocally, especially if I know them personally.
3. Create boards that anybody can post to. This would fit well with contests and other marketing initiatives. Facebook did away with the old requirement that only fans could write on a Page's wall. How about lifting the requirement that board owners must assign permission to individual users to pin to a specific board that they want shared? 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini