Pinterest And Other Social Sites You Should Be Aware Of
Most
people know about popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and
LinkedIn. However, I get a lot of questions about other, underutilized
sites that are on the tipping point of popularity, and how to use those
sites for marketing purposes.
First, I'd like to clarify the differences between various 'social' sites:
Social bookmarking, news and tagging
are sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, and Pinterest.
These websites allow users to 'bookmark' things they like - content,
images, videos, websites - and allow others in the community to see
what's been bookmarked and 'follow' if they wish. This is the epitome of
viral marketing and community interaction. When groups of people are
like-minded, it's fun and easy to share feedback of things of common
interest. For business purposes, it's also a strong way to bond with
your audience through content, news and images that are synergistic and
leverage those interests for increased website traffic and more.
Social networking
are communities like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus. It's a
way for groups of people to meet and stay in touch with each other, for
personal and professional purposes. People can friend, follow or fan
someone based on affiliation or interest. Another new site is Quora.com,
which is a social question and answer site. Users can view by category
and post questions or answers on virtually a business related topic.
Social media
refers to sites like Youtube, Flicker or Tumblr where groups of users
share media content such as video, audio or pictures (photos). There's
also new sites like Spotify.com, which are social music sharing sites,
where users can listen to mp3 files as well as with friends via
Facebook.
The
following are some social marketing and bookmarking sites that you may
want to include in your online marketing mix as well as some other tid
bits you should be aware of.
Pinterest.com is
a social community where users 'pin' (think of a bulletin board) things
that they like. Quite simply, it's a virtual pin board. Users can
re-pin (which promotes viral marketing ) or follow someone with the same
interest. Pineterst is a fun site because it focuses on the visual
element. You can utilize content (when you add your descriptive text to
your 'pin') as well as include a back-link, but Pinterest primarily
leverages graphics, images (pics) and videos pictures.
Important Tip!
For marketing purposes, you can use Pinterest to promote your business
or websites related to your business, such as landing pages, squeeze
pages, product pages and more. What's important to know is that if your
website, or the webpages you're thinking of pinning are flash webpages,
you will be unable to 'pin' it, as there's no static images on a flash
page for Pineterst to 'grab' for posting.
I've never been a fan of flash-based website. These sites may look
pretty, but it's very hard for search engines to 'crawl' the page, for
the very same reason Pinterest can't 'pin' it ... because it's dynamic.
(Something to think about for those using search engine marketing and
optimization!)
So
if you're thinking about using testing Pinterest in your social
marketing plan, make sure to pick websites or modify your own webpages
to be graphic, image or video rich. Also, like any marketing tactics
you're testing, make sure it's in sync with your overall marketing plan
and target audience.
If you're target audience is an older crowd, then this may not be the best website, or channel, to reach them.
Quora.com is
a great online resource community of questions and answers. If you want
to reinforce yourself as an expert, you can search questions related to
your area of expertise and post responses that are useful, valuable,
and actionable. If you have a legitimate question about any topic, you
can post by category and view replies from others who may be versed in
that field.
Important Tip! It's important to
keep a steady presence on Quora. Stick to your areas of expertise
(categories and topics). Make sure you have a keyword rich descriptive
bio about yourself and include back-links to relevant websites. All of
these things help with credibility and bonding. In addition, Quora's
pages are indexed by search engines and do appear and organic search
results listing pages (SERPs). Than can expand your reach and
visibility, which can lead to traffic to your website, which can then be
parlayed into leads or sales.
Digg.com.com is one of my
favorite content bookmarking sites. You can upload content 'snippets'
or news nuggets. The site will also pull in any images and well as
back-links appearing on the same page as your content. Content can be
given a 'category' so that the right readers will find it. The more
popular your content (number of 'diggs'), the more people in the
community it gets exposed to. Viral marketing and traffic generation (to
the source website in the 'digg') are typical outcomes from this
website. Reddit.com is a similar site which allows users to
upload a content excerpts (article, video, picture) and link to the full
version. This is a great site to increase your market visibility and
extend reach. It's also a powerful platform to drive website traffic.
Important Tip!
Pick content that is useful, valuable and actionable - something
newsworthy and/or interesting to your target reader. It's very important
to have a strong, eye-catching, or persuasive headline that people in
the community will want to read. There's so much background noise on
Digg, that you want your content/headline to jump out at the reader.
Also, include a back-link in the body copy you are uploading. With
Reddit, excerpt space is limited, so make sure to pick content that will
not only resonate with the target audience, but also include a headline
that screams out to the reader to 'click here' to read more.
With
social marketing, it's a matter of matching the content type to the
most synergistic platform and audience. Social marketing may not be for
every business. But I believe it's certainly worth a strategic test.
Just remember an old copywriting rule of thumb, which is 'know your
audience'. If you know who your target reader (prospect) is, then you
can craft enticing messages and pick social platforms where those
prospects are likely to congregate.
Most
any social marketing site can be leveraged for marketing and business
purposes. But make sure to keep your messages fun, entertaining,
engaging and interactive. Because after all, that's what the 'social' in
'social marketing' is all about.
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