Most brands and business not to long ago thought about Pinterest in the Context of Radio Caroline, the now infamous pirate radio station parked offshore in the English Channel sending out a stream of rock and roll that offset the boring pulse of the BBC.

Pinterest has morphed in the last eighteen months into a social media channel that delivers stellar marketing ROI in the form of traffic, incremental revenue and strong brand awareness – with a demographic rich target market comprising educated, sophisticated females with discriminating taste.

Pinterest Delivers Like a Good Rolling Stones Blues Riff

Pinterest is NOT another dare we say it flash in the pan Flickr (now a repository for aging images craving Marissa Mayer’s attention) – the hard numbers underscore the blistering growth (especially among creative females) Pinterest has been experiencing the last 18 months.

Pinterest is now the number two social network, right behind Facebook in terms of size and delivering more brand punch (read: traffic and engagement) than Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+ and even Instagram.

It’s estimated, based on Comscore’s most recent numbers, Pinterest is in high growth mode (blistering) with an estimated 34M users as of the end of Q-1 2013. And, Pinterest user’s spend money, with an estimated $170. per purchase, contrasted with $95. via Facebook and $71. via Twitter users.

If your brand is targeted educated women buyers (you’ll strangely find lots of boards via men devoted to more mundane images) Pinterest is where you want to be. With 52% between the ages of 24-34 (boomers are MIA), 57% have a four year college degree and a 88% have purchased a product they’ve pinned, win an average 105 repins on each image shared.

Pinterest Jedi Tips and Techniques

If you want the plain vanilla basic platform review of Pinterest check out our marketing platform reviews for a more baseline review. Here are five critical marketing inflection points for brands that want to thrive on Pinterest.

Great Pinterest marketing is just content marketing and curation – (don’t overthink) and great content trumps everything else on Pinterest. If your images are all self-promtional and product-centric don’t expect repins (brand amplification) or interaction with Pinterest Users.

You can log in to Pinterest and find terabytes of funky images with descriptions written by amateurs with high signal to noise ratios Don’t replicate these mistakes! Spend time researching content – a good rule of thumb for image curation is 1-3 hours for a Pinterest Board with 10-20 images. We engage with and support (not a client BTW) Pardee Homes via Twitter and Pinterest – their boards are a superb example of stellar content curated and targeted for homebuyers in Las Vegas and L.A.

What makes their brand stand out on Pinterest? Their Pinterest Boards all have high quality images, with a good mixture of  Boards featuring their homes and Boards with lifestyle content visually targeted for their customer demographic. Our mini critique: Pin descriptions are too short, with no hashtags on their pins – long form descriptions drive SEO rankings and deeper engagement on the platform. Your brand will generate a much higher volume of Likes and Repins with well written Pin descriptions, potentially piquing the interest and social engagement of the viewer.

Pinterest is a black belt driver of search engine rankings for savvy brands – deep link into your web site (interior pages) with Pinterest images by creating multiple Pins based on an existing pages. Note for SEO savvy marketers, incremental deep backlinks into your site from a top tier portal like Pinterest mean your brand will generate more traffic as an “authority web site.” Typically if you are a consumer facing brand you are going to get less bounces rates and more sales conversions linking visitors to an interior page about a specific product.

Don’t be boring on Pinterest with your brand – look at the Gucci’s Pinterest presence – it’s all magazine or print centric high quality images, with no soul, no personality or anything that generates brand impact. This is an iconic brand no less and you would think they would invest a lot more in their digital assets – but their Boards are product and model centric, with the personality of a tree stump. Boring!

For another digital reference point, Forever21′s Pinterest Boards are just about as boring and mundane as Gucci. It’s just product centric images, with no real lifestyle branding components (videos!!? MIA); note the “like” count is low as well and not what you would expect this type of of a popular brand with a younger demographic well represented on Pinterest. The images are glossy, the models are fashionably draped but the brand resonance doesn’t move the meter much. Yawn IOHO.

Pinterest is a social platform just like Twitter or Facebook -many brands on Pinterest never get any traction – just using low cost outsourced labor to create funky images, go for volume marketing strategy (lots of Pins), with no Page or Board optimization (just bare bones titles) and of course, not realizing this platform is social in its DNA just like Facebook or Twitter. These are flat profile accounts (throw them up and check it off the list) with no Following, posting comments, sharing other Pins via social accounts (“Pay it Forward”) and inserting “Likes” on quality images and videos. Not dynamic, with no compelling content. Meaning, no downstream engagement or real marketing ROI. Game, set, match!

If done properly, Pinterest is a great place for content syndication – this means repurposing all Infographics, Images, Staff, Company Functions, Events and Tradeshows, YouTube and Twine Videos, Blog images and don’t forget about customer supplied images. See content rule #29: all images and videos should be shared on Pinterest via a Board with thematic content structured properly, optimized with hashtags and keywords in the Pin and Board titles and long form descriptions. But, again, to underscore, content is expensive and it should be repurposed via Pinterest. And, don’t forget to share Pinterest content on all social media platforms – this will drive followers and social media engagement. And, enable “social sharing” via your web site.

Our 30K Foot Summary, create high quality content comprising images that resonate with the Pinterest community (it’s competitive BTW), don’t be a boring brand (no risk no reward), be social and engage with the Pinterest community and refresh your account 3-5 times a week at a minimum.

Image credit: our Creative Content Board with curated images for your viewing pleasure. Got questions, comments, feedback, bon motes or a meme you want to share reach out! As always, no words or editors harmed in this post!

The post Pinterest Content Marketing for Brand Managers appeared first on Linked Media Group.

For better or worse, effective social media marketing is like a great Ridley Scott film about Aliens (your pick) – they keep coming regardless of what you do. In the end the heroine prevails but it didn’t look good early on. She was resourceful, learned on the move, was bold and fought to the bitter end. Enough of the metaphors – our take, advice, counsel and read of the crystal ball for brands who need social media marketing insight!

Most brands don’t have a clue about budgeting effectively for social media marketing and start out the process with a per-determined “let’s hire an intern” to get on Twitter mentality. Fail! Your social media marketing budget should be a meaningful subset of your “big picture” (quarterly, annual) marketing budget; not an afterthought predicated on hiring cheap to get market “ROI” that is mostly flash with no substance. Interns rock and some may do a wonderful job; but there is a big difference between pushing content out on the social web and meaningful social media marketing that drives tangible engagement.

Speaking of staffing issues (interns or others), your business needs the right person working as a community manager – geeks are not always great at social media or those that are not outgoing and engaging.  This may not sound like it’s insightful; but, we see a ton (endless) social media accounts managed by those that aren’t engaging (supportive, reaching out, showing some moxie (piss and vinegar if you will), paying it forward and/or with any understanding of how to follow others and engage.

Dare we say it; but, sorry guys, ladies rock the social world as community managers in most cases. See Jan Gordon’s Profile via Twitter as an example – we love her “pay it forward” mentality.

If you have a variable marketing budget; then pick 20-30% (roughly) of your overall budget and invest this in social media marketing for no more than one or two major platforms for one or two quarters and then measure your ROI via Social Engagement, Traffic to web site measured by Google Analytics and Lead Generation or Revenue that can be mapped to social media platforms. Then, carefully analyze your traffic generation and adjust your budget accordingly.

Think about three primary variables with the most impact on your social media marketing campaign costs: Staffing (who is going to manage the accounts), Content Marketing Strategy (Text, Images, Videos, Editorial Calendar) and Analytics and ROI Analysis.

Thinking that your brand or business understands social media at the outset of the campaign (we see this frequently) and not being able to listen to knowledgeable advice from others and/or getting out of your own way. Or, as above, thinking the cheapest solution (offshore in many cases) is going to achieve meaningful results that are predicated upon simple social connections. Connections don’t necessarily mean engagement.

Your brand or business is much better off with an engaged Facebook Business Page with Fans/Followers who amplify your brand messages by referring them to others, commenting or “liking” your brand. A huge Twitter Following account generated quickly with spammy Follow and Unfollow activities will do nothing for a business in the long run, other than look “cool” in reports to an exec staff that knows nothing about social engagement.

Buying Twitter Fans, Facebook Fans, Pinterest Followers to move the meter for a business owner, executive or marketer that thinks junk Followers will do anything for their business. This flies in the face of “perception is reality” marketing to a certain extent. But, aligns with the now ancient computer marketing maxim of garbage in and garbage out.

You can see thousands of Fiverr or Elance profiles predicated upon helping brands to buy their way in to the market. Does this work in the near term for your brand? An emphatic yes is needed – your commercially purchased Likes on Facebook may help you with Facebook’s Edge Rank initially and make your account look dazzling and sexy to others. But, when/if you do any kind of Facebook Ad Campaign your advertising to a bunch of “friends” (we are simplifying a bit) who have no connection with your brand whatsoever.

Not having a meaningful content marketing strategy (small plug: sign up for our Newsletter to download our 25 page Content Marketing Guidelines) – we tell out clients the “best social media marketing” platform and process we know is (drum roll) a blog that’s SEO and Topic organized with a basic Editorial Calendar.

The latter can be as simple as you want to make it with topics mapped out chronologically via a Word doc; or, a more complex model: spreadsheet, topics, keywords, timelines, responsibilities, edits, content syndication components.

Where many businesses have a difficult time with social media marketing is understanding the importance of sharing topics (read:meaningful content), images, links to “thought leader” content in a blended manner. Some of this content should be deep dive material that can be saved, downloaded and/or archived by our target market, with built in lead gen capture mechanisms.

To summarize the social media marketing strategy (what to do): check your ego at the door and listen to the right marketer or agency of your choice,  personnel trump process (select the right people), don’t buy your social connections, share meaningful content across the social web and pay it forward – brands, business, social consumers are listening.

Be bold – Ridley Scott’s greatest character/female protagonist was Ellen Ripley – Ripley prevailed in the end – she took chances, observed and learned, didn’t give up and kicked some serious butt (sorry guys) along the way……….

The post Five Social Media Marketing Fails and How to Become a Heroic Brand appeared first on Linked Media Group.

We try to focus our content marketing initiatives on Small to Medium Sized Businesses. That’s the client based we focus on (a bit self-serving we know) and more importantly, so much advice/insight about content marketing initiatives is pushed out into the ether referencing sexy marketing campaigns about big brands that’s meaningless for most small businesses. Our attempt at writing the wrongs and balancing the scales – four key initiatives to help you create a meaningful content marketing strategy.

Think Like an Anarchist with Your Marketing Strategy

We love Jenny Mollen’s Twitter Location Description: “in your driveway with the lights off.” It’s creative and a bit off the wall and in your face anarchy, similar to Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal this Book” – both of these titles get your attention, make an impact and drive brand awareness. As a small business, you can’t always caption a press release with an anthem borrowed from the 60′s but you can think about irreverent Tweets, creative photos uploaded to Facebook and Pinterest that may be out there on the cutting edge – think creative.

Integrate News with your Content Marketing Initiatives

Your business may not have the budget of the Huffington Post but you can co-opt Arianna Huffington’s publishing strategy for your own business. Here’s how: identify what’s trending in your industry this week or month, set up an informal Editorial Calendar, then write content that touches on these trends, follow industry thought leaders (who’s influential via Klout or Kred) to get “big picture” news or events that you want to write or Tweet about. Don’t forget about #hashtags for news gathering; set up a Twitter List(s) populated with hashtags that related to your business and you’ve got your own mini news gathering “organization” all set up.

Invite Guests or Customers to Help you Create Meaningful Content

Let’s face it your business probably isn’t going to recruit Richard Branson for your blog like American Express. But, you have key customers and business partners who’d love to get free publicity via guest blogging that is socially amplified vie your social media accounts. Think like a publisher when sharing content – it should be “repeatable” across multiple platforms (Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) with a built in “rinse and repeat” cycle that drives content awareness on a occurring basis.

Remember your target customers are moving across multiple accounts and platforms every day. If you want to get their attention you must build in some repetition components to your content marketing initiatives. You may want to use some paid promotions to enhance the digital reach or your content marketing; these can include pay per click or sponsored posts via Facebook. But, be aware, the best ROI for your content marketing will always be sharing high quality content that engages your audience across the social web.

The best source for high quality Guest Bloggers (ignoring paid sponsorships) is Cathy Stucker’s “Blogger Link Up” which is a superb source (no paid promotions or ads are allowed) for finding guest bloggers that write good compelling content, in exchange for market visibility. Make sure you vet their work of course and integrate some administrative control over the content they may produce for your brand.

Editorial Lines are Blurring for Branded Content

We repurpose our Pinterest Infographics via our blog and actively monitor news sources using hashtags, Twitter Lists and RSS feeds to stay on top of news that’s occurring in real time suitable for sharing across our social profiles. As should you to drive awareness of the moving target we call news and information.

Top tier publishing sites such as Mashable, BuzzFeed and even the storied Washington Post are starting to mix and match news with commercially sourced content. We are not advocating cutting and pasting content into your blog or Tumblr accounts. But, there’s nothing wrong with using sourced news content across your social media accounts. Make sure you underscore the source as you share the content – pay it forward and honor copyright issues.

Key takeaways: take some risks with your content marketing initiatives – blend in a little anarchist with your content sharing, mirror some of the news gathering and content publishing processes utilized by top tier publishers and integrate customer stories or guest blogging into your content stream.

The post Content Marketing Strategy for Business Anarchists appeared first on Linked Media Group.

You can’t attend a marketing conference today without hearing the buzzword du jour – content marketing initiative. For good reason! Great content marketing campaigns drive strong brand awareness with your target market, have a lifetime value that can outweigh any paid marketing activities and can be easily re-purposed many times across a large number of platforms to drive marketing ROI.

Most brands and businesses struggle with defining a viable content marketing strategy. To many it’s like boiling the ocean – where to do you start, what are pertinent metrics and how do you involve your sales, customer service teams and exec staff? Here are five key content marketing initiatives that will get your brand moving in the right direction!

Great content informs, tells a story and engages your target market segment. Start with keyword rich topics that help to convey a consistent brand message, integrate these with an Editorial Calendar that maps out what specific topis (just an Word doc outline will suffice initially) you want to write about, coupled with a specific timeline. Think small at first like EF Schumaker - just start with a 30-60 day period and tell your brand story!

Search Engine Optimization should be part of your content marketing strategy but great content moves beyond boring keyword driven topics. Great story telling trumps SEO optimization. In the end if your content doesn’t engage and inform you lose the mindshare battle. Balance these at time opposing marketing maxims: traffic via keywords vs. great story telling.

Differentiate to stand out and make your brand message resonate with – today’s social driven, smartphone-ready consumer has an attention span of a gnat! Your content must have impact be factual and pique the interest of your market segment. Build a compelling story and know that it will take time to build content messaging that will resonate with the market. Think Like a Content Zenmaster: drops of water wearing down the stone.

Every content marketing initiative helps to build your brand story: images, videos, Tweets, Status Updates, Blog posts, photo, press releases, comments and even paid marketing activities. Think holistically and remember your story and associated content marketing goes beyond what your putting out via formal marketing processes – it embraces and should include what your sales and customer services teams convey to new and existing customers. Get everyone on the same page (literally).

Leverage your content marketing costs to drive market ROI. Your content can and should be syndicated across any and all platforms. These can and should include third party platforms such as HootSuite and OnlyWire – and the associated marketing costs for these types of platforms pale in comparison to the broader exposure you will generate. Rinse and repeat your content marketing to generate the most impact and to leverage your marketing costs.

Content marketing measurement can be difficult and challenging. Think about digital touchpoints – these can and should include Google Analytics with social media tracking turned on, lead and revenue generation that is mapped to specific performance metrics (time elements, landing pages, conversion rates), social amplification of your brand messaging (ReTweets, Comments, Likes, @AtMessages), some kind of SWAG feedback from sales and customer service teams.

Your telling a brand story right? So, think if this as an iterative marketing process that involves formal measurement, feedback and insight from external sources (customers, sales, customer support, channel partners) that helps you understand whether or not your messaging and storytelling is resonating with the market. Capture mechanisms can be simple or complex, depending on the sophistication of your content marketing initiatives: blog post series, video, Pinterest Boards, Facebook, Twitter outbound marketing, press releases, etc.

Hashtags facilitate content tracking. Test mapping some or all of your content marketing initiatives to hashtags and use formal tools for tracking like Radian6 or HashTracking to capture positive or negative social sentiment tied in to a specific hashtag or broad group. Or, just add a hashtag tracker to your Twitter account and extract the references and usage for a specific period of time mapped to your content marketing initiatives.

To summarize, get a content strategy in place, this can be just a simple outline with topics and timeline, tell a story, engage and inform your target market segment and set up informal content marketing measurements.  Leverage content marketing costs with content syndication platforms and processes and a built in a rinse and repeat process that gets the attention of today’s distracted consumer! Go forth: create and multiply your content!

The post Steal These Content Marketing Initiatives and Embrace Your Inner Brand appeared first on Linked Media Group.

The post Fortune 500 Social Media Usage – Infographic appeared first on Linked Media Group.

The post Biggest Social Media Questions for Brands appeared first on Linked Media Group.

The post Identifying Social Stereotypes appeared first on Linked Media Group.

The post Social Media Marketing versus Email Marketing appeared first on Linked Media Group.

The post Structuring Social Media Teams appeared first on Linked Media Group.

The post Social Recognition Programs Overview appeared first on Linked Media Group.