Social media marketing managers are still buzzing about the phenomenon that is Pinterest. It was during that month of January that Pinterest exploded from a casual social network into a powerful new way to distribute information, with more than 10 million registered users. Retailers quickly saw Pinterest as a way to inspire shoppers and drive traffic, but many brands have found it difficult to track, monitor, or understand how Pinterest activity affects their bottom lines.

The ‘Visual’ Community

When our team first started to research the inner workings of Pinterest’s users and community of followers, we immediately thought the group was saturated with women. Conversely, as soon as we started measuring Pinterest’s reach, our hypothesis had quickly dissolved. The secret behind this community is not what is popular within the context of a few followers; it’s actually about the collective as a whole.

Much like Facebook, Twitter and the many other social networks we are currently a part of, images of puppies, kittens and cute kids quickly take on viral capabilities. Yes it’s true that throwing up a picture of the latest male celebrity asking for a ‘Strawberry Banana Smoothie’ (we won’t name names here) will get thousands of repins. The  most important piece of advice we give to our clients is that the users of Pinterest are looking to share and repin creative ideas and advice.

When it comes to going viral, making the popular page is an absolute necessity in the effectiveness of your content. Asking how to do this? We’ve given 5 steps below on how to get get your engaging content out to the Pinterest community.

1. For this step it’s pretty simple, just find an idea of a cool concept or creation that you think would go over well in the Pinterest community. The possibilities are endless; however, make sure the idea is something that you’ve never seen before.
2. Now that you’ve come up with a viral idea, figure out exactly what you want to share. This means what links, description, messaging back to your site, other social media page, blog, etc. Keep in mind if this idea goes viral, every other piece of information that’s included will go with it, so choose wisely and cautiously.
3. Now it’s time to create! It is important to remember to keep the main message of your Pinterest piece as visible as possible as it will be the first thing viewed by the users of Pinterest.
4. Measure twice and cut once. Size matters in the Pinterest world. As long as your content is longer than 2,500 pixels it will be unreadable by the Pinterest users. Anything smaller and Pinterest will magnify the image so that it’s readable on the site (meaning there’s no reason to click through to your page). This forces them to click on your submission, through to your page to view the content. If it’s something that’s worth reading and creative, this is a necessity. If it’s longer than 5,000 pixels, then create a simple 300 x 300 pixel button outlining your graphic. The reason for this is because the “like” and “repin” buttons are at the top of the submission. If they have to scroll too far town to view the entire piece, chances are they aren’t going to scroll up to click on those buttons. For me the ideal image is 600×3000 pixels.
5. Next, send the piece out to Pinerest. Be aware that Pinterest gives very little attention to their URL associated with your content. As long as your piece is remotely similar to the site and looks like it fits it will be just find with Pinterest.

Popular 'Pinning' Categories

Being Popular Among Pinners

Like every other social network out there in cyberspace, there is a certain art on how to become popular on Pinterest.

To gain momentum, we recommend to our clients looking into certain category pages to help get on the ‘popular’ page. Unlike websites within Google, you do not need an established or aged account to get the most attention, but there are some elements that will block your attempts. It is important to remember that every piece of content is placed onto the top of the category pages with the exception of the following guidelines:

• You’ve submitted within the past hour
• You’ve hosted your content on Imgur

Timing Is A lot (but not everything)

As with every social networking strategy, what time of day and which day you send out information is a very integral part of how well a piece of information gets distributed. Pinterest is no different as their users tend to be more active during different points of the day. The goal as a content creator is to get your content onto the site when it is least competitive yet most effective. With Pinterest this time tends to be between 6 – 8 a.m. – 5 – 7 p.m. EST. The reason for this is because the majority of users are either waking up or getting off work to check their Pinterest boards. Since this is the case, you want to submit your content at least one hour beforehand to ensure that it will be visible to the most people at the right time.

Watch What Happens…

After your content has been submitted to Pinterest and gone viral, it is important that you check the popular boards routinely to see if your content has been rehosted on any different sites or blogs. As the creators of the content you are entitled to every visitor that it receives. While it might seem tedious and time consuming, this is essentially thousands of visitors that your brand may be missing out on if you do not follow through.

Pinterest is another dubious social network that seems like it’s here for the ‘long haul’ and if it’s not in your marketing plans yet, it very well should be. Many social media analysts are predicting that Pinterest will double in size and traffic potential through the summer and into the fall. Don’t be one of those companies kicking themselves in a few months because you didn’t get in on the trend. Contact Triangle Direct Media today and discuss with our social media team how we can incorporate Pinterest into your social media marketing strategy.

Many marketing directors and small business owners that are a part of our social media campaigns are looking for the ‘big’ answer which is, “how can I figure out my return on investment (ROI) of my social media campaigns?”

In many of our SEO campaigns, we’ve looked at viewer’s measurement online. We are focusing now on one of the most difficult areas to track, which are of course, social media campaigns.

Start Fresh

Conventionally, businesses use ROI as part of their planning process. The question is simple, “Is this an idea is worth doing?” To find the answer, businesses try to measure the cost of the investment against the anticipated result.

However, when it comes to social media, some businesses approached ROI the wrong way. Social media shouldn’t just be the #1 goal in any business. It should be considered as a part of an overall business plan to reach a certain objective (i.e. promoting a certain product or improving customer relations). There’s an enormous difference between: “We need a Facebook page” and “We need to learn more about our customers through our Facebook page.”

When businesses try to gauge a certain strategy, they should ask themselves 5 questions to help them decide on what to move forward with:

1. How many people are talking about your product, service or topic?
2. Which ways are people are talking about your information (positive / negative / neutral)?
3. How many social media sites (or off-page sources) are working with your conversation?
4. How much reach does the followers or fans talking about your campaign have?
5. With what you are talking about, how much of the conversation is 100% focused on your business?

Once the answers have been compiled, look at the results before diving into a huge campaign or promotion. It might just surprise you that what you thought might work as a way to market your business online, might just not be recognized positively (or at all) on your social media channels.

Give Me a Number!

Many different sites (like Klout, Radian6, etc.) measure general popularity, but it’s difficult to get accurate details and they can easily be manipulated to produce higher ‘scores’.

There are ways to calculate the monetary value of your fans. You can figure out how much more an engaged fan is worth to you – such as whether he or she is more likely to spend twice as much as a casual fan – and compare that to your social-media costs to see whether it was worth recruiting them. But putting a value on your engaged fan in the first place can require surveys or other investments.

Many business owners need to look at social media strategy as an overall long-term goal made up of smaller campaigns and promotions thoughtfully pulled together with focused strategies from the beginning. By realizing the many campaigns that make up their overall social media strategy (and a lot of patience!) they will truly see their ROI climb over the course of 6 -12 months.

That being said — some tech watchers say 2011 was the year of social media, and 2012 will be the year of social metrics. If so, we’ve reached the year of the ‘true beginning’.

Many companies have thousands of fans with the opportunity for over 800 million (the latest tally of Facebook members) potential new clients for organizations promoting their brands on the social media site.  With all of that promise, it is simply wasted if companies don’t engage with their pages and the people connected to them.

We have some simple ideas to help companies get their audience and KEEP them before the dreaded ‘unlikes’ reach epic proportions.

Promote Contests/Exclusive Deals and Offers

Facebook offers you the opportunity to reward your customers and for many companies, they are rewarded in return for being so gracious. If you offer something free to your users occasionally, on the condition that they “like” your page or update, this will not only just increase your growing audience, but it also ups your traffic – your users’ “like” activity will pop up in their friends’ news feeds and provoke more activity.

Take a Poll

If you’re posting a status update asking a question, or constructing a poll, people love to be asked what they think. Giving your followers a forum for their opinions will surely inspire some responses.

Get creative when asking questions. You can simply ask about one of your products you are selling or get personal. Either way, it’s a great method to find additional information about the people who you are marketing to.

Take Action

Don’t be that page that has comments posted from 2011 that still have unanswered questions on their wall. People enjoy giving their thoughts and opinions, but hate being ignored. Reply to the responses posted by your followers. This is one of the fundamental areas (also seen as a ‘no brainer’) but there are actually an overwhelming amount of high-profile business pages that are guilty of not responding to their fans.

Personalize Your Comments

Facebook doesn’t have threaded commenting, but we’ve all seen people addressed as ‘@username.’  It’s one simple step to acknowledging the person who asked a question or offered a response will make that person feel special, and it gives them a reason to post something on their own wall.

Posting Times

Train your followers when to expect new content from you. If you post daily, or several times per week, your readers will naturally start checking your page to see if you’ve posted something new. Plan on trying to post during times when most of your users will be online — somewhere between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. in your time zone, when everyone’s at work. Popping up in their news feed when they’re online will guarantee you’ll be on their radar.

Good Deeds

Your page doesn’t exist solely to sell your product.  It serves many purposes, and promoting a cause or charity should be one of them.  This activates your fan base in a motivating way, and it demonstrates compassion on your part.  If you own a pet supply store, encouraging your followers to contribute to a non-profit campaign will push them to impact the outcome of something bigger than themselves – and your company.

Reputation Management

Facebook pages aren’t the place for companies to complain about the economy or changes in the industry.  Keeping your tone light and your topics engaging is crucial to maintaining readership.  However, that doesn’t mean others won’t post negative comments on your page. Address their concerns quickly and professionally, and follow up with the posters off Facebook. Your fans will watch how you react and respond accordingly.

Quick and Concise Updates

Users like Facebook because it allows them to get several snippets of information in a short amount of time. If your updates are longer than 300 characters, your audience will lose interest.

Provide Updates And New Offerings

If your stores have changed, you have new products, or your policies are being restructured, let your Facebook fans know. Your audience will appreciate being ‘in-the-know’, and it may remind them to stop by or place an order.

Treat your audience well by providing what you originally offered when you signed up your business on Facebook. They will be sure to appreciate it and thank you later for the time and consideration you put forth. You may not actually earn 800 million fans, but you’ll garner the ones who are the right fit for you.

For more information on how to grow your fan page on Facebook, contact Triangle Direct Media today and find out how we can help take your social media marketing efforts to the next level with our vast array of online marketing services.

Can this be done? Shall we say that real-time can actually be scheduled? We say it can to a certain extent. If you are a small business that has a somewhat scheduled online presence, but are scratching your heads vying for a status update or tweet, then why not put your online marketing strategy to work? We’ve outlined a simple 3 step process to consider when mapping out your social media campaigns.

STEP 1: First look at your online efforts monthly. Which days during the month are you wanting to generate buzz about a new product? How can you incorporate a blog post on that product? How about a press release? Start filling in those dates accordingly.

STEP 2: Next, look at your strategy on a weekly level once the monthly topics are generated. Utilize your links, photos, white papers and other online media to endorse those topics on Monday through Friday.

Note: The Social Media Management Company, Vitrue released a study identifying the days and hours users are most active on Facebook. The results weren’t surprising. The three biggest usage spikes tend to occur on weekdays at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET. The biggest spike occurs at 3:00 p.m. ET on weekdays. Weekday usage is pretty steady, however Wednesday at 3:00 pm ET is consistently the busiest period. Fans are less active on Sunday compared to all other days of the week. That being said, when planning your daily posts, don’t sweat the weekends! We now have proof to send up to your bosses that those days are not the days when conversations are happening.

STEP 3: Suddenly, you will have a viable outline for the entire month to post on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and your other social networks. Fill in your scheduled posts with real-time information when it comes along.

Coming up with a successful social media campaign strategy can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be an impossible one. TDM has unique strategies for online businesses to get ahead in the status update marathon. We understand that it’s simply not a race and creative, mapped-out efforts trump those that are disjointed.

For the past few months, there have been strong signals that a company’s “brand” is becoming an indicator to Google’s algorithms in determining organic rankings.  There was a great deal of chatter back in late-February about this topic within the SEO industry.  If this concept is news to you and your company, then you need to take some time to consider how your website is impacted.  There is a solid article over at SEW about this very topic and how businesses (small & large) are successfully “branding” themselves online and gaining benefit in higher search engine rankings.

A couple of points web-driven businesses should recognize with SEO-driven branding:

• Offline Branding, as a marketing strategy, is a concept many companies shy away from because it lacks immediate results, is very difficult to measure, and often falls far down the priority list as a “want” and not a “need”
• Online Branding, as it relates to search engine rankings, is a much more justifiable approach when one considers costs, time investment, resources, measurement, and channels to proliferate a brand.
• Practical and proven methods to conduct “Online Branding” include but are not limited to:

+ Blogging
+ Community & Industry Participation
+ Press Release Marketing & Optimization
+ Social Media Content Creation
+ Link Building through Strategic Outreach

“All of these help you gain reach and frequency.  Most importantly, you’ll reach those who are interested in (and searching for) your products and services.”

• Create great content (on-site & off-site) that educates your audience and strategically links back to your most relevant website pages and you’ll see positive progress.  As this content is syndicated and viewed by engaged audiences, you will naturally build “votes” through mentions and natural backlinks.

As we commonly say, Social Media Marketing is converging with Search Engine Optimization.  This is proof positive in the Branding component that continues to influence some of the organic search results.  We are clearly seeing this in the movement of our client’s rankings, campaigns and success.  Those small, mid-size and large brands who embrace the shifting landscape (as is always the case in organic search) and stay ahead of curve, will continue to thrive in ultra-competitive environments.

Many of you have already seen this alert from Facebook, but we wanted to be 100% certain that all clients working with or considering to work with Triangle Direct Media had advance notice of a very important Facebook Alert:

Starting on Saturday, June 13th, at 12:01am, you’ll be able to choose a username for your Facebook account to easily direct friends, family, and coworkers to your profile.

To select your username, visit the link below after 12:01am on June 13th:
http://www.facebook.com/username/

To learn more about usernames, visit the Help Center:
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=896

This opportunity is great for individuals, companies and groups that have established Facebook accounts.  Specifically, odds are that a “vanity”, more personalized Facebook URL will lead to increased Google rankings for “branded” search terms.  As reputation management continues to grow in popularity and as a pro-active strategy for companies seeking to control the first 10 organic results in Google — this seems to be a “layup”.

Fortunately, Facebook has rigid guidelines preventing “name squatting”, which has given Twitter a blackeye in recent months but securing these new, vanity usernames is on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Good luck securing your name!

A recent study conducted by Forbes called the “2009 Advertising Effectivness Survey” has proclaimed that both Viral Marketing and Search Engine Optimization will experience the fastest growth and highest percentage spend increase in company budgets throughout 2009.  The study surveyed more than 100 key CMO’s and Marketing Executives who hold roles in advertising, marketing and media.

Key findings from the report include:

In the coming six months, respondents expect that ad networks will see the biggest declines in allocation of marketing spend; viral marketing and SEO will likely see the biggest increases.

$1MM+ respondents are significantly more likely than total respondents to point to viral marketing (54% vs. 42%), SEO (50% vs. 40%) and pay-per-impression ads on digital publications (36% vs. 26%) as areas where investment is expected to increase over the next six months.

As a leader in innovative SEO, viral marketing and social media marketing services, TDM is well prepared to work with clients seeking to leverage and exploit the benefits of these highly-efficient online marketing channels.  Feel free to contact us for a free new media marketing consultation and to learn how your company can take its online marketing to new levels of success!

More women than ever before are spending their time online, rather than reading the newspaper, magazines, listening to the radio and engaging in other traditional media activities. The 2009 Women in Social Media Study by BlogHer, IVillage and Compass Partners, show that over fifty percent of women online today are between the ages of 27-62. So what is causing the sudden shift?

Social media is now attracting over 42 million women, 75% of which participate in social networks such as Facebook or MySpace. When it comes to advice and recommendations, 55% of these women are turning to blogs to seek out information. The survey showed that 45% of respondents purchased an item after reading about it in a blog post. Whether it be women on the lookout for the best deal on shoes or moms posting tips on raising children, women have become the most actively engaged participants in the realm of social media networks. The trust in like-minded consumers and peer groups supports the trend reported by MarketingVox in 2007 that “91% of moms prefer brands that other moms have recommended.”

Blogs are becoming the new medium of communication for women when it comes to finding the best places for deals, getting coupons, giving recommendations for products, or even receiving guidance for the daily struggles in a woman’s life. Through blogs, search engines, and other social media marketing vehicles, businesses can focus on reaching out to and engaging these key, household decision makers.

There continues to be a groundswell of attention towards Social Media in mainstream media and other circles, but let’s examine Social Media’s relevance to SEO. The majority of industry experts, including those in-house here at TDM, would argue that a well crafted, well executed social media marketing strategy WILL have positive benefit on a brand’s natural search rankings. An in-depth discussion is currently taking place at the popular UK-based site eConsultancy on just how much social media influences rank order (positively, neutrally, and negatively).

Below are a couple of key reasons why we at Triangle Direct Media believe social media can and will continue to impact the organic rankings of a website:

• Search engines, like Google, examine the quality & diversity of backlinks along with the “buzz” of a brand through Trust & Authority variables. Social Media is becoming mainstream so a brand’s participation in these channels helps it become an even stronger “subject matter expert” and informational resource.
• Social Media reaches a very large and diverse audience of content creators, discussion participants and sideline observers. Social Media “content creators” serve as a very likely source for natural link building should a brand’s content or network participation move these content creators to post on their own sites or blogs about the brand.
• While most major social networks allow for back links, such links almost always include the nofollow attribute which do not count in most search engine algorithms. In contrast, a number of social media outlets do provide brands the ability to secure and create “follow” links as part of the content creation life cycle. These pages get indexed and cached, serving as a credible link building channel. It’s important that brands actively participate to boost in-network visibility or the strength of a given set of social profiles or social content pages.
• Blogs have proven to be a very strong platform for ranking well in major search engines through the practice of developing solid, unique content on a consistent basis while participating in a ecosystem of industry-related and/or peer blog publishers. Not only do blog posts rank well, they also serve as a strong source for link building particularly when posts go viral and secure active comment discussions.
• Universal search has opened new ranking opportunities for online brands that effectively create content through video, images, news, blogs and other Social Media oriented vehicles. Many community sites provide great opportunities for instructional or informational content creation that incorporates text, video, images and discussions — these typically rank pretty well and can be a good source for ‘followed’ back links.

For anyone that has been an active member of SEO community for the past 5-10 years, determining the most productive and cost-effective ways to help clients rank on the first page is how we’re measured. Leveraging social media is a positive and the next evolutionary step in organic search. The above reasons are what standout as an argument to brand advertisers to engage social media from a natural search ranking perspective. There are obviously many other benefits social media marketing can deliver brands such as consumer-engagement, product testing, brand discussions, contests, etc.

Do you have any other primary reasons why companies interested in organic rankings in Google, Yahoo & MSN/Live should leverage Social Media Marketing?

Forrester Research has released a forecast on US Internet Marketing Spending for the next five (5) years.  Great outlook for those companies investing and specializing in social media, mobile marketing and search marketing.  Considering the sheer size of the “Search Marketing” category, why do these independent research firms keep grouping PPC and SEO together?  It is widely accepted that SEO garners at least 12% of Search spend (and this percentage is quickly growing!!).  Doing simple math for Internet spending in 2009, SEO spend would be greater than mobile, social or email marketing, respectively.  So why are SEO & PPC not yet standalone categories?  We already know that organic search rankings are the #1 focus of Internet Retailers.

Attention business owners, CMO’s, VP’s & Directors of Web Marketing —- what are you doing to allocate marketing budgets and put your business at the forefront of these growth markets?  Don’t miss the new media marketing bus!

Where the budgets are going

Props to Andy.