This is a guest post by Nate Towne. Follow him on Twitter @Fancy_Lad.
Pinterest, schminterest! What’s with all the buzz about this new social media channel? Is it worth your precious web surfing time? And how can you use it to build your business so you can feel less guilt about surfing boards on Pinterest on the company dime? Read on, fearless reader – you might just learn something (I swear it’s not my fault if you do.).
Our good pals at Mashable report Pinterest is currently enjoying the limelight as one of the top 10 social networks – and it’s still (technically) invite only. Though getting an invite is pretty easy if you’re on Twitter or Google+ – heck, just ask me and I’ll invite you. Or you can ask Pinterest for an invite –I’m betting dollars to donuts they’re not going to turn you down. I’m a sharing kinda guy. The premise behind Pinterest is pretty basic, it’s a cloud-based social media network that lets you organize and share all the cool discoveries you find on the web. Pinheads (yes, I’m coining that term) use pinboards to showcase their mad style, plan vacation shenanigans, organize their favorite recipes, share gifting ideas, and among other things, drive traffic to ecommerce sites – *gasp!*
What makes Pinterest a social network? It allows Pinheads (see? I’m running with it!) to browse pins and boards created by other Pinheads. Trust me, you could spend days browsing other Pinhead’s pinboards – they are a constant source of amusement, amazement and discovery. And if you’re an entrepreneurial kind of person, the two words that stand out here are “discover” and “share.” Who wouldn’t want Pinheads to discover and share your coolness on this hotter than hot internet destination?
Let’s face it – if you build it, and it’s cool, and it reaches MILLIONS of potential customers, businesses will come. But should your business jump on the bandwagon? According to ComScore’s recent data on Pinterest, the site has nearly five million users and shows no signs of stopping in its race to the top. Data from Google Ad Planner reports nearly 1.5 million unique users are visiting Pinterest daily, and spending more than 14 minutes on the site per visit (If you ask me, this number is a little low – Pinterest is *that* addictive!). If that data isn’t enough to get you thinking, digest this new insight from Shareaholic via GigaOM: Pinterest is now driving more web traffic referrals than Google+ (not surprising), on par with Twitter referrals (rather surprising!). But juicy and compelling data aside, is Pinterest right for your business?
That’s a question for another post – in fact, my next few posts will break down why brands should consider converting to Pinterest , or not as the case may be. I promise you dear reader, it will be worth the wait. And if not, I’ll gladly give you your money back…
With so many social networks, sometimes it can be difficult to figure out where to post content and information. It’s important to remember that each social network has a different audience, and they want and expect (and react to) different types of content. How do you figure out which social network to post different types of content on? Let this amazing flow chart guide you…
Click on the chart to expand.
But in all seriousness, it is crucial to treat each social network differently, because your connections will vary on each, and so will the information your connections are interested in receiving from you. So unlink your Twitter handle to the other networks (except perhaps LinkedIn) and give each social network some personalized attention, so show them they you know who they are, and want to engage with them.
First and foremost: Amanda Knox has been acquitted. The live-stream of the verdict was scheduled for 3:45 p.m. EDT today. All (or most all) of us at Racepoint Group were wired into our computers eager to witness history. Being perhaps a little unhealthily addicted to Twitter, I went a step further and plugged “Knox” into a search column on Tweetdeck: For comparison, I searched “Bieber” shortly thereafter. While that column also updated continuously, the Knox updates were even faster and furious…-er. It’s no surprise that Twitter explodes with breaking national and global news. However, I’d never tried doing a live search on such a hot topic. As you can see, anyone who wanted to read the tweets of the masses couldn’t possibly hope to catch them all without having supersonic reading abilities. It’s become so easy to publish content that for events of this magnitude, you have to know what you’re looking for – be it via a more specific search term, or a more limited pool or resources (just folks you follow, for instance). As more and more content becomes more readily accessible at rates that we can’t pace, we need to learn to be way more discriminating of our resources.
RaceTalk was lucky enough to catch mild-mannered Tom O’Keefe (better known as the legendary @BostonTweet) in between burritos and assorted Boston goings-on and convinced him to chat with us for a spell to talk about his Twitterlebrity status, social media in Boston, and some other Tom Trivia.
Prior to our discussion, we asked the Twitter community to tweet their questions for Tom using the hashtag #AskBostonTweet. We got some great response, and have included the timestamps for each question in the video below. Enjoy!
Special thanks to Mandy Miller (@AmandaMMiller9) for her awesome, patient camera work.
1:30 Do you use other social media platforms?
2:17 How do you pitch @BostonTweet?
3:15 People can win Groupons by retweeting your tweets. If they retweet Groupon’s tweets, can they win you?
3:45 Where will @BostonTweet go from here?
5:15 Will you release a @BostonTweet-branded fragrance, a la Britney Spears and Khloe Kardashian?
5:30 What causes and nonprofits inspire @BostonTweet?
6:50 Are there @BostonTweet counterparts across the country?
7:44 How many tweets could a Boston tweet if a Boston could tweet tweets?
7:58 Aside from “I’m @Bostontweet,” what pickup line generally works best on women in Boston?
8:36 Have Twitter followers ended up crossing over to real life friends and colleagues?
9:50 After you die, will you submit your brain to the MIT Media Lab?
This morning Gizmodo reported that Cisco has “axed the Flip cam.” The Flip video camera has been a great companion to many a PR professional at trade shows, conferences, industry events and for one-on-one Q&As. A moment of silence, please.
Jenna Wortham, a tech reporter for the New York Times, reacted via her Twitter account @jennydeluxe:
She is absolutely right. The “Swiss army-like smartphones” she is describing are going to become a one-stop shop for all your content creation needs. I am going to toss tablets into that ring too – the iPad 2, the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the like. What will be next, the death of the digital camera?
In a salute to the absolute supremacy of smartphones, I dedicate this song:
What do you think, readers? What device will disappear next?
Earlier this week, we heard from Bloomberg Businessweek that Facebook would be offering a Groupon-inspired discount deal service. Given its potential customer base of over 500 million users, the social networking site definitely has a good starting foundation as it hopes to take advantage of the bourgeoning online-deal market.
Anyone else not surprised? Don’t get me wrong: Facebook is awesome and all, but once again, it’s taking a pre-existing idea from another social networking platform and incorporating it into its own one-stop social metropolis. Facebook has been a copycat from Day 1. Even prior to its conception, we had MySpace, FriendFeed, and several other social networking platforms that eventually floundered and or just never took off.
So what made Facebook succeed where others had failed? In short, exclusivity. Whereas MySpace was a very public platform where any creep could try to add you as a friend (Remember that creeper who was at least twice your age, lived across the country and was always commenting on your pictures for no good reason? Of course you do.), Facebook was initially a private club for college students. Only later, when it had established itself above the common man’s social networking sites, did it eventually open its doors to everyone.
Throughout Facebook’s young life, it has continued to adopt popular online tools in an effort to provide its user base with the be-all, end-all source for online interaction: in May 2007, the Marketplace launched, a lá Craigslist. In April 2009, the Facebook news feed underwent a drastic makeover that resulted in a suspicious resemblance to Twitter. In August 2010, Places kicked off, but while FourSquare doesn’t have nearly as many users as Facebook, it still seems to enjoy a higher volume of check-ins – for now, anyway. Later that year, we talked about the Facebook Deals introduction (and Foursquare still seems to be doing just fine).
Over the last six years, this social networking monolith has tried function as our online interactive Swiss army knife. Sometimes its efforts are impressive, and other times less remarkable – I actually had to see if Facebook Marketplace was still active when writing this post. While it is an enormous platform, I personally think that even the likes of Facebook won’t be able to do it all while holding everyone’s interest.
At the very least, imitation is the best form of flattery though, right? What do you think of Facebook holding the crosshairs over Groupon, or any of its other social adoptions?
Every PR/Marketing person dreams of being the genius mind behind a successful viral video. In 2011 content creation is king and producing an entertaining and informative video to raise brand awareness is a high priority for any PR/Marketing team.
Enter this superb infographic posted by Mashable. Seriously, superb. There are several valuable statistics illustrated here covering everything from the length of the video to the best sites to promote it on. Check it out:
- Videos that clock in at 15 seconds get circulated 37% more than longer clips
- People share video on Facebook 218% more than via email and Twitter combined
- Women account for 57% of social video views
*This is a guest post by Nidhi Mathson, Account Executive at Racepoint Group. Follow her on Twitter @NidhiMathson.
If you watched the Golden Globe awards this past weekend, you know that the film “The Social Network” snagged a number of the big awards including “Best Film,” “Best Director,” “Best Actor” and “Best Adapted Screenplay.” Watching the awards show reminded me of my initial reaction when I first watched the film. I thought to myself, “Wow, I already knew Mark Zuckerberg was smart, but now I think he’s a genius!” At the time, I posted this re-tweet:
Telling it like it is! @toadmeister: After seeing The Social Network, I’m now a huge fan of Mark Zuckerberg: http://bit.ly/9SKLDC
Later I spoke with a few friends who’d also watched the movie, and I soon realized that not everyone had the same reaction. In fact a majority of the viewers of the movie began to despise Mark, calling him “conniving” and a “back-stabber”. But I don’t know if any of these people realize that Facebook would probably never have reached the global success it enjoys today if it wasn’t for MZ. Do you think the Winklevoss twins had the drive and fierce ambition that Zuckerberg had to make Facebook what it is today? I doubt it.
Without Mark Zuckerberg, I doubt that Facebook would have achieved any of the following:
48% of 18-34 year olds checking Facebook right when they wake up
71.2% of the US web audience as members
A record breaking 750 Million photos uploaded over the new year’s weekend
More Facebook success stats can be found in an infographic recently posted by RaceTalk.
You can hate Mark Zuckerberg all you want, but if you’re addicted to Facebook then you have to give the guy credit. Facebook has almost single-handedly ushered in a new era for social media, encouraged real-time global communications and changed how people connect with each other —and that’s an end that most certainly justifies the means.
“The Foursquare integration has two key components. First, Gowalla now lets you broadcast your check ins on not only its app, but Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook Places and Foursquare as well. Gowalla even lets you earn Foursquare badges and Facebook Deals through the iPhone app. As an added bonus, Gowalla also pulls in Foursquare Tips whenever you check in.”
This begs the question, why not just use Foursquare? Parr goes on to explain his theory on Foursquare’s reaction:
“Gowalla did not work with Foursquare on this integration; it was all done through the API. That leaves the real possibility that Foursquare could throw a big wrench into Gowalla’s plans by blocking its rival’s use of the API. The threat posed by Gowalla 3 is real; that alone could force Foursquare’s hand in the name of competition. It would also create a firestorm of controversy.”
In order to succeed in the market, Gowalla will have to differentiate itself from Foursquare and other mobile check in applications (like Facebook Places), encouraging the user to exclusively check in with their application.
Perhaps, Gowalla feels this integration will allow users to broadcast one check in across multiple apps, with just one touch to the Gowalla mobile app. If that’s the Gowalla game plan, it’s pure genius.
RaceTalk’s friend, Erik Qualman, shared on his blog yesterday a list of the world’s top social media sites, ranked by the number of registered users. In first place is Skype with 560 million registered users, followed by Facebook at 516 million.
Does this come as a surprise to anyone else? Given its ubiquity, I would think Facebook would come in at the number one spot easily. The two sites are not separated by a small number either. 45 million users is a fairly wide gap.
In your personal experience, do you know more people using Skype than Facebook?
