How to use Pinterest for Business – Hubspot e-book

Pinterest is still new enough for me to think not everything has been said, but “old” enough for it to make sense for marketers to take a look at it for their own brands. In Sweden it hasn’t really hit home yet, but in US most brands you would expect have already adopted Pinterest as a new channel.

Hubspot is a though leader in all things online marketing and I decided to write an “exective summary” of their Pinterest guide to help myself and hopefully you. Please note that the facts are from Hubspot, but that the wording and thoughts are my own, and therefor nothing Hubspot can be held accountable for.

The basics
The goals of Pinterest use is brand recognition, driving traffic , new leads
If you brand is design related it’s possibly even more important that you check it out.

Register your Pinterest account with the same email address you use for your Twitter account, to easily share your pints through Twitter too.

Choose your username and complete your profile information. Company name and logo is good to use, and don’t forget a link to your website.

Make sure not to hide your Pinterest profile from search engines. There is a choice to do so in the Settings, and it’s automatically set to off.

If you use a “Pin it” button on your pages, it’s easy for visitors to share your content. However, these are no-follow links, so they won’t affect your SEO. But will probably affect your website visits.

Since you will be curating content, make sure you’re citing the source of the pins. The picture will link back to the site you found it on and/or the pinner you pinned it from, so that should be easy enough

Create a few boards before you start to build your following, otherwise ppl won’t know why they should follow you or your board.

Cross-promote your pins through your website, blog, Facebook and Twitter etc But, as always, don’t overdo it

Create boards based on keywords in your SEO strategy, and make them GOOD! Basically this helps you position your brand as a thoughtleader in the field.

Remember
Don’t forget to measure impact with your analytics tool!

What pictures/topics/boards send more traffic than others?

Try to become the go-to pinner for a certain topic relating to your industry (remember those keywords)

Whenever possible, inclued links back to your website and LP’s in your pins. The combined impact from clicks and re-pins will give you some good traffic.

Use hashtags – preferably the same ones you use on Twitter (and Instagram)

Board ideas
Employees, with short bio
Executives ,with short bio, media mentions, interviews, etc
Images from your blogposts (around a specific subject)
Infographics (your own or those you find interesting)
Book covers (that you’ve written, around a subject dear to you etc)
Photos of smiling customers using your products
User generated board (host a contest)
Create a video gallery (yes, it’s possible!)
Behind the scenes (helps make your brand relatable and humanized – therefore interesting)

Lessons learned from other brands
It’s all about what you share, not necessarily what you sell
Think outside the box of how you typically use social media to market your brand
Follow Pinterest’s lifestyle credo & make your brand page personal for your fans
Even if your company isn’t exactly devoted to “pretty things”, it doesn’t mean you can’t be on Pinterest

I want it all
Download the Hubspot e-book for more juicy info on Pinterest for Business
and follow Hubspot on Twitter while you’re at it!

Filter or #nofilter – that is the question

Do you use Instagram?
I don’t. That is, I didn’t until earlier today. But recently I’ve noticed that several of my “late majority” friends seem completely hooked. And we’re talking ppl who don’t really use Pinterest, Twitter and other fairly common social media communities.

That got me thinking… Why Instagram is such a hit? And how can I, as a marketer, use it?

Can I create a more professional looking site just by adding instagram pics?
Is it simply a lazy woman’s Photoshop?

Let us compare:

Poppy flower. Pic taken with my Motorola Atrix a few days ago. Not a bad picture, but it could do with some cropping and tweaking.

Same picture Instagram-style. Can’t tell you which filter I used, I simply picked the one that “felt right’

Pretty much a tie in which one is “prettiest”, don’t you think?

Let’s do another one!

My balcony plain and simple. No editing, not even closing the windows.

Instagram earlybird filter with extra sunlight.

The latter one is definitely the more artsy and professional looking one, wouldn’t you say?

Ok, one last one then.

No filter, no editing passionfruit flower (also located on my balcony)

Instagram version.

See, now I’m getting annoyed that ALL photos are square. But sure, Instagram might win over the non-edited one if looking for a “professional” photo. While I still feel you’re missing something of the of the original feeling.

I guess Instagram can stay in my phone for quick editing purposes, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone interested in pictures to use it exclusively. After all, how many 1977 pictures can you take before you feel like a broken record?!

Are you using LinkedIn the way you should?

Do you consider yourself an average user of LinkedIn? Chances are you do! And yet, there are so many angles to the networking community left to investigate.

Down to basics
Name, title, picture, education, earlier work – its all very basic really. And yet, it took me 5+ years to fill in my profile to 100%. How many % complete is your profile?

What’s in a name
If you’re lucky you have a name people remember after hearing it once. If you’re like me, you have a fairly common name. But maybe you have a specialty? Some creative individuals add that right after their name (in the same field), ensuring it shows up everywhere your name does. A bonus is it supports the title section of your profile.

Your title, sir
Does your title and company say enough about your skills? Or are there other keywords that should be included? At first glance your name and title section is all another member can see, so make sure it reflects your areas of expertise (especially useful for groups and discussions)

Bells and whistles

• Even though you might not use LinkedIn at work, make sure to link to any website that relates to what you know. Work website or blog, you own blog related to your line of work, whatever fits the bill really
• Add your areas of expertise as short keywords (but many of them). It helps people find you in general search as well as get a quick overview of what they could ask you about
• Explore the add on’s. You can show a custom reading list, your latest tweets, presentations or a feed from your blog. All this will help you build the personal brand you want and it can act as a conversation starter
• Join groups that are in your area of interest and join the discussion

 

Last but not least
Interact with people! Find ppl you know, but also ppl you’ve only met once or twice. However, unless you know them really well, make sure to change the standard message to something a bit more personal when you send a contact request!

Happy networking!

What’s your email situation

Just read a short article in HBJ on handling your email load. It’s an always aktuell topic, isn’t it.

This guy realized he could go through weeks of emails in 3 hrs after returning from vacation, while he normally spent 3 hrs per day doing the same.
His solution: email time; 30 minutes, 3 times per day. No more!

Could you do that?
I think we all would love to spend less time reading, answering, searching for and sending reminders on emails. But could you start doing that in an organization where everyone else answers emails every second of their workday and some event every second of every day? Would it take a decision by the whole organization for someone’s “email time” to not become a workplace problem?

Read the article in Harvard Business Review

Do I have to…use a computer

I hardly use a computer anymore*. 99% of what I need to do I’ll use my iPad or even mobile for.
I admit, surfing the traditional web is sometimes a hassle on iPad (need I mention Flash), but most really interesting places have found a way to make it work without scaling to an old school mobile design (not Google, but them putting up a fight is understandable)

On the other hand you can imagine how much more effort the 1% is requiring nowadays – my computer is 5-6 years old at this point. Eventually I’m sure I’ll see the benefit of spending money on a new one.

My camera is basically replaced by my phone, and the result – I actually take pictures! It’s not really that I don’t like my camera (Sony Cybershot in hot pink). It’s actually awesome, but it’s over 4 years and the screen is a bit hard to read by now. If I didn’t love so much I’m sure I’d get a new one, but for the last year I’ve just replaced it more and more with my phone (Motorola Atrix 1). Since I use the camera so little I just recently realized that a big upside to it is that I can load my pictures straight on to my iPad, which it won’t let me do from my phone. Luckily sharing from my phone is idiot proof and covers every direction I’ve ever wanted to go in.

So what is the 1%?
Word-processing and saving documents as PDF
Watching tv-shows if I miss them (I’m traditional when it comes to watching TV)
Surfing certain sites that just don’t get it
Backing up my phone (honestly, I just don’t do it)
Creating presentations, PPT and Prezi (my pet peeve, should be so much more fun on iPad!)

What do you use your computer for? And better yet, which one should I go for when I just can’t take the 10 minute start-up process and the 1-minute-to-change-program anymore?

*At home that is. When it comes to work my laptop is glued to my fingertips!

Just watch it!

Found this video on a blog and it just hit the spot! Much like the Swedish book “Boxen” by professor Micael Dahlén.

Tablet living

On habit changing tablets

Early summer in the middle of Sweden. There’s six of us sitting on the front porch of the summer house. Two laptops with tonights Icehockey game is placed in front of most of them. Me, I’m watching the other nights gardening show on my iPad. I admit it, I never watch TV except for on TV before I got my iPad. It was too much hassle. The only reason I do it now is because it’s sooo easy. I have it next to my bed, I bring it to the summer house and watch it in the sun.

Later the same summer heat and humidity makes it impossible to be in our apartment. Having looked forward to finally watching a summer tv-show I simply placed the iPad on a table on the balcony and both me and my boyfriend could watch the show quite easily.
Granted it’s a bit silly to watch a 10″ when we have a 32″ and a 40″ in the apartment – but still!