Your Business Marketing Strategy: A Closer Look at Pinterest

Pinterest has slowly been staking a solid spot in the social media world. Although it’s best suited for personal use, a business may benefit from it as well.

Remember your locker in high school or the bulletin board in your dorm room? It had pictures, ticket stubs and other neat tidbits you hoped others would see – and comment on. Take that idea and spin it in a web-friendly way – and you have Pinterest.

See a photo on the web you like? “Pin it”. Comment on other interesting “pins”. The important part is to get involved in the Pinterest community.  Like all social media, Pinterest’s main goal is sharing, making it mostly a personal, social experience. However, just by thinking a little outside the box, we can see how easily it would be to fit this into a digital marketing plan with great success.

Here is a beginner’s look at Pinterest possibilities for your business:

About.
Warning: Not every business should add Pinterest to their list. By the visual nature of the site, it works best for services that may benefit from others seeing pictures of what you have to offer. Think restaurants, home decor, general retail, the wedding industry and travel.

Benefits.
There are a few benefits of Pinterest. Number one is that each image is automatically imbedded with a link back to the source. If that source is you, your site will see an increase in traffic as more people click on the image. Another benefit is that Pinterest images are easily shared, so the potential reach could be quite high if the picture is interesting.

Go the Extra Step.
Once you get the hang of Pinterest and start to get comfortable with it, try experimenting and thinking outside of the box. Try getting creative with contest ideas that get people to pin your images or consider adding a “Pin It” button to your blog.

Have you tried Pinterest yet? What are your thoughts?

Written by: Maribel Guiste

WSI Consultant 

Secrets of Social Media PR

Careful! That thing you’re typing on is a powerful, one-stop PR weapon. Your laptop holds the key to press releases, e-mail marketing, social media marketing, event planning and press kit design. In fact, much of your PR strategy can be formulated and executed online through popular social networking sites. Here are four easy ways to become a digital PR superstar using social media.

1.Say it with Facebook:

The world’s second-most-popular website is quite literally the best way to keep up with your clients. Use Facebook’s event calendar to schedule your events and let your friends know about them. Start dialogue with customers and use the page to collect thoughts and suggestions. Post how-to videos on your fan page for your products. Promote your company’s pet causes through Facebook notifications. The list is endless. Facebook requires only daily updating and your imagination.

2.Back Up Your Press Releases:

Once you’ve distributed your press releases to media outlets, take the message to social media. By conveying your latest press releases via Twitter and Facebook, you are essentially doubling your audience. Social media provides that extra, round-the-clock push your press release needs. Plus with social media, if the story is good it gets re-tweeted or re-posted at the speed of light. Adding your Twitter and Facebook info to your press releases additionally provides all the information news outlets need while mutually back scratching your social media strategy.

3.Expand Your Professional Resources:

A Digital Marketing Consultant can show you ways to multiply the number of followers you have by using certain tools to hunt down Tweeters who have similar backgrounds, interests and professional connections. Following others in your industry is a great way to spread the word about your business while getting some tips from others in your field.

4. Website Promotion Done Easy:

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all have spots to prominently display your website. What’s more, they have a built-in audience to market it to! Updates to your website can be sent through social media instantly. Also, if 

your site houses a blog or videos, social media can alert visitors whenever new content is added. 

Written by: WSI Corporate

The Social Media Landscape

With the ever rise of new social networks, blogs, social bookmarking and other social media related channels, it has created a new source of traffic to your website and blog.

A top story on Digg can drive much more traffic to your website than a top search engine ranking could ever do. This has created a new process to this trend called SMO (Social Media Optimization).

Social Media Optimization

SMO is a form of word of mouth marketing through the use of media sharing (photo, video), social bookmarking and social networking sites. The essence of Social Media Optimization is giving people a  reason to visit and link to your website because of its great informative and original content.

You can use social media to build your reputation and brand, never to sell products. Brand yourself as the leader and become the expert in your industry. Your brand is what you represent and stand for. You can be the persuasive and unique voice in your market. The goal with social media is to build a cultural following.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is quite different from Social Media Marketing (SMM). With social media you can market directly to targeted audiences and with SEO you are marketing to the search engines.  SEO is a slow process and can usually take a long time to get good results as you have to wait for the search engines to discover your content. There are ways to speed up this process but with SMM, you can market directly to every corner of the world. SEO is about building good rankings on the search engines while social media is about building relationships and a community.

The online shift towards social media

We live in a world where we cannot hide anymore.  The online business world has become more transparent. There is really no more lurking in the shadows. Social media shines a light on everybody and everything as most content and news can be shared immediately without using traditional marketing methods.

The online world where marketing plays a big role has changed tremendously in the last few years. It is really getting increasingly chaotic.  The old style of controlling and owning your market is dead. It is now all about conversing and interacting with your market directly.

by 

Francois Muscat

WSI representative for south Africa