Archives : social media marketing
A Visual Social Network – Pinterest
Pinterest has been emerging slowly for a while, since its early beginnings in 2009. In the last couple months however, the website has exploded with a burst of new members and has gone viral. Users of all ages are pinning their favorite colors, cars, swimsuits, decorations and food. Pinterest is addicting, and people love it.
But let’s back up for a second—we’re business owners and professionals! We don’t have extra hours to spend re-pinning pictures of kittens! While this is certainly true, one of the core practices of a successful business is being where your customers are. And with over 12 million users and growing, Pinterest is quickly becoming one of those places.
Using Pinterest for Business
There are only a few types of businesses that can use Pinterest very successfully—the “visual social network” niche simply doesn’t work for many industries. For instance, we have a Pinterest account here at Smart Solutions, but it’s not something that we expect a lot from. People aren’t as interested in “pinning” the kinds of things that our business sells, as much as they would a retail business.
Furniture shops, art galleries, clothing stores and travel businesses are perfect candidates for using Pinterest for business. Any website that is visually oriented would be ideal for this new social network. If your business fits into that category, you need to be on Pinterest.
Pinterest Marketing
As with Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest works best if you’re connected to a lot of people—and the right kind of people. Follow people who have boards related to your industry. Comment on their pins, and re-pin—it’s the ultimate compliment to be re-pinned on Pinterest.
Stay away from only posting your own pictures. As a general rule, you should have at least two non-promotional boards for every promotional board. Make sure you stay active, too! Pin several new pictures from your website each week, and check in once a day to make sure you’re keeping up with your followers.
Most of all—keep it fun. People love Pinterest because it’s fun to look at cute pictures and get away from the usual humdrum of the day. Play into that feeling with your boards!
So now it’s time to get started! There’s no time like the present to get started on marketing your business! And don’t forget to follow our Smart Solutions Pinterest to hear about more posts like this.
Not ready for Pinterest yet? Keep up with us on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin!
Google+ Pages Now Offer Admin (or Manager) Rolls
When Google+ rolled out pages, people jumped on board and quickly realized a problem—no ability to add additional administrators? You could have a total of one owner, making it difficult for companies with several employees working on social media.
The new social network has finally remedied the issue—allowing one Google+ page to have multiple page administrators, which they call Managers. This feature is a lot like Facebook’s ability to “Manage Admins.”
Facebook vs. Google+ Admins
There is a very large difference between how the two social networks use administrators, and that is ownership. While Facebook pages allow any admin to delete a page, only an owner can do it on a Google+ page. For instance:
- On Facebook, if Person 1 created the page, but added Person 2 as an administrator, Person 2 has full control. He can delete the page, or even remove Person 1 as an administrator.
- On Google+, if Person 1 created the page, he has ownership. He can add Person 2 as manager, but Person 2 cannot delete the page or remove Person 1 as owner, because Person 1 has ownership.
You can debate Facebook and Google+ on other aspects of the two social networks, but Google+ comes out the ultimate winner in this battle. Some things to consider are these:
With Facebook, if a client with admin capability goes rogue, your Facebook account could quickly become compromised. They could delete every other administrator, and post whatever they want on your company’s Facebook.
Despite that disadvantage, though, selling companies with social media equity is easier thanks to that. You can easily hand over the Facebook account to someone else and remove yourself as an administrator.
On Google+, you have the best of both worlds. While you are safe from having an employee go rogue (you can quickly remove them as an administrator, and delete any posts they may have made), you can also hand over reigns very easily. In the admin for your Google+ page, you can transfer ownership quickly to any manager you have added.
Google really thought through their manager system before they launched it, and they did a seamleass job. It is smooth and easy and provides for a lot more than Facebook does. It’s just a step for Google+ in the fight with Facebook, but it could be an important one.
To keep up to date on other social media stories and updates, circle us on Google+! You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter!
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