Pinterest. A startup wonder.

How did NYU’s Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp create such a success with this seemingly simple idea/venture?

According to Pinterest’s FIRST investor, Brian Cohen, he attributes the startup’s success to a few things:

1. Listening. Silbermann and Sharp were smart enough to listen and consult the advice and wisdom of their older and wiser investors. 

2. Happiness. Cohen observes that in everything I do, the two are always happy. He sees “almost a child-like fascination” in what they do. That’s a new one.

Thoughts?

Read & Learn.

-Gabby, Editor at Source Media

LinkedIn “Follow” buttons are now available for company’s to include on their websites. By choosing to follow the company on Linkedin, company updates will then automatically show up on their LinkedIn feeds. 

It’s about time!

Read more, here. 

-Ryan, COO of Source Media

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

[Is your team lacking the talent you need? How do you find the perfect person for your open position(s) without spending hours upon hours weeding through irrelevant resumes? Most business-owners (especially small businesses) don’t have this extra time. How do you solve your recruiting woes in an easy way?]

Use social media. 

If you don’t have the time or money to hire a recruiter to fill positions in your company:

-Use Facebook. Utilize your already established Facebook fan page by calling out to those fans about the job opening. You can even make it into a promotion - attracting new fans and possible employees. “Message us with your resume and the top 3 reasons you deserve the position. We’ll call 10 of you at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.”

-Twitter blast. Use hashtags to announce to not only your followers but the Twitter universe as a whole, that you are hiring. This is the kind of valuable information that people retweet to their fellow unemployed friends. 

-Linkedin. Posting a job on Linkedin is easy, though not completely free. This would allow you to see exactly who is applying for the job, just by looking at their profile. Those serious about the job hunting process will have not only their resume uploaded, but recommendations, specific skill sets, work samples & ways to see their other online profiles will be made available. 

Don’t believe us?

Check out this infographic, courtesy of Mashable:

“According to this infographic by HireRabbit, 48% of all job seekers (and 63% of those with a profile) did social media job hunting on Facebook in the past year.”

-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

This Mashable article outlines the

5 Best Practices for Digital Marketers in 2012

Great advice:

“Key terms such as “football” and “Valentine’s Day” are sure to be hot tickets in the weeks to come. Act fast, and the keywords will do the work for you. Have a smart contextual plan at the core of your strategy, and you’ll help your brand gain ownership of its voice around the web.”

This is why we create social media plans for all of our clients. Planning is key and publishing whatever content you can think of that minute is likely not going to be the most effective. Do your research and share content in the most effective context. 

-Nic, VP/Project Manager at Source Media