Pinterest - the latest social media buzz word. 

If you are a business person, trying to stay involved and up-to-date with social media, you may have been hearing about the new uber-popular site and wondering what it’s all about. 

Pinterest is essentially a collection of online idea/inspiration boards. It’s a bookmarking tool where users “pin” items they found online and think are particularly beautiful, unique or useful. The “pins” are displayed on their various boards, broken up into different categories for all of their followers to see. Some popular board categories are DIY, things for the home and favorite places. 

Pinterest is all about the visual. 

(You guessed it. The majority of users, at an overwhelming 97%, are women.)

SO what if your business has nothing to do with DIY crafting, hip interior design or  vegeterian-friendly recipes…why should you care? Maybe Pinterest doesn’t need your attention. BUT…

• They hit the 10 million unique monthly visitors mark faster than ANY independent site in history.
• Now, they’re at nearly 12 million.
• Daily users have increased more than 145% since the start of 2012 (TWO MONTHS, for those who need a little help with the math).

Side note: they’ve accomplished all of this with only a 12-person staff. Now that deserves a “hats off.”

———-

SO. Maybe that info got your attention. But the point of this post is not to urge you to join Pinterest. The point of the post is to get you to take a look at this potentially lucrative platform and decide if it fits in with your company and its goals.

Take a look at Mashable’s profile, below. They’ve got boards dedicated to “Tips and Tricks,” “Web Humor” and “Infographics.” Things that directly correlate to the purpose of the company that they can communicate in a visually appealing way. Things that consumers may find useful and interesting. 

For companies like Mashable, who seem to have a good handle on what Pinterest is all about, they’re probably going to reap benefits from this. 

But, as I said before…don’t get excited and create a profile just because Pinterest is pretty and popular. Think about this.

Do you sell tires? Don’t join Pinterest and “pin” 524 images of tires and links to your website. No one on Pinterest is interested. Do you own a flower shop? Pinterest could be perfect for you to show off unique flower arrangements and aggregate different sources of advice for gardeners and flower lovers. 

Think Pinterest is for you? Click here, request an invite (yep, it’s invitation only) OR login immediately with your Facebook or Twitter. 

Happy Pinning!

-Gabby, Editor at Source Media. 

How many of you plan on buying stock in Facebook? 

Here’s the deal

Here’s how to get involved, before the masses 

Here’s the “don’t buy” argument

Here’s the “buy immediately” argument

What do you think? Will your business, or you personally, be getting involved?

-Gabby, Editor at Source Media

According to THIS article & infographic:

95% of wall posts are not answered by brands. 

Our advice - don’t bother making a Facebook page if you aren’t going to spend any time monitoring it. If a customer is ignored, they likely won’t try to find information in other ways. They’ll find a brand who will respond. 

-Gabby, Editor at Source Media

Youtube just keeps on growing. Just since 48 hours of video in a minute, recorded in May, there are now 60 hours of video uploaded per minute. 

There are 4 billion online videos watched every day. 

But very often, users will watch a video or two and leave the website entirely. 

Is your business making an effort to develop a YouTube presence? If so, these stats may be discouraging. Your goal is to keep the attention of these viewers long enough for them to want to know more about your brand. Long enough to get them to your website. 

How do you do it? Any ideas?

#1 - CALL TO ACTION. At least once (the end) of every video you post, there should be a strong call to action to connect with your brand further. That could mean pointing the viewer straight to your website or to “like” your page on Facebook. If you can entice them further with an incentive to connect, you’re ahead of the game. 

#2 - SERIES. If you can hook viewers with a short (30-second), intro video - they’ll want to watch part 2 in the series, etc. It is important to keep each part very short because most people have short attention spans. Don’t try to jam pack your videos with tons of information people will likely get bored with. 

Any other ideas?

-Nic, Project Manager at Source Media