“Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections and/or ‘like’ photos. Pinterest’s mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting”^[3] via a global platform of inspiration and idea sharing. Pinterest allows its users to share ‘pins’ on both Twitter and Facebook, which allows users to share and interact with a broad community.”

What we know so far is that the social web has gotten even more visual with Pinterest.  It’s unclear if Pinterest will end being a short lived fad (some indicators that traffic is falling) but for now pins are having an impact on what we cook, wear, make and even what we buy.

This is a call-out to all the influencers out there that have added pins to their daily to-dos.

Come share what you think and earn some coin, apply here: http://gigcoin.com/cuser/gig_d/260/

——————

Interested in sponsoring a community check-in? Like to get influencers to weigh-in on your product or campaign?  Contact us at info@gigcoin.com to get more information on our influencer research services.

Well, not quite.

In order to be successful, bloggers need to consider a number of other factors. In this post will go over some of the more important considerations including: community & networks; blogger groups; twitter chats; social networking; in-person conferences; optimizing posts for SEO;  share buttons and social media.

Blogger Communities & Networks

Many influential bloggers (mom, dad and bloggers of all types of content creation) today take advantage of a whole host of communities and networks to find camaraderie, job boards, and opportunities in brand programs.

In recent years, the number of communities and networks have grown by leaps and bounds. And while the following list is not nearly a complete representation of what’s available for bloggers, it should help the beginning blogger identify some great resources.

• b2b business blogger
• blogfrog
• café mom
• chicalogic
• circle of moms
• clever girls collective
• fitblogger
• global influence network
• lowe’s creative ideas
• mamavation
• Mom Bloggers Club
• Mom Central
• mom spark
• Mommy Public Relations for Moms
• moms connect member
• My Blog Spark
• one2one network
• pitch it to me
• savings.com deal pro
• sits girls
• social fabric
• social revup
• splash creative media
• team mom
• The b-Link
• The Mom Blogs
• The Motherhood
• US Family Guide.com

Blogger Groups

Blogger Groups are also terrific resources. There are many groups available for bloggers but a few worth noting here include:

• 5 Minutes for Mom.com
• Type-A Parent
• Latina Bloggers Connect
• Blogalicious

 Twitter Chats

Bloggers often seek online learning opportunities and social networking via Twitter chats. In a recent post on BloggingPro, they suggest 5 chats for bloggers:

• BWE Chat “Using the tag #BWEchat, you can join in on various topics, with guest speakers from around the blogosphere. Their chats are every Wednesday, so you can just jump right in. Or, you can check their official chat page to see what topic they are discussing for the next several months worth of conversations.”
• Mack Collier BlogChat “Popular blog consultant and social media guru Mack Collier has been holding Twitter chats for awhile now, under the hashtag #Blogchat. Using a tracker, he was able to count more than 8,200 users participating in blog chats under that hashtag.”
• MyBlogGuest “Weekly guest blogging Twitter chat every Thursday 11 a.m. EDT (3 p.m. GMT) under #MyBlogGuest.  The Twitter chat evolves around content creation, brainstorming, guest post link tracking tips, etc.”
• BrandChat “Using both the #BrandChat hashtag and TweetGrid (which they have set up already to allow you to use by clicking the link featured on their page), this site does a weekly chat on Wednesday mornings, starting at 8 AM PST.”
• CommentHour “If you are a blogger who wants to potentially get some visibility, this is a good way to go. You sign up with your Twitter ID and blog link. Twenty five blogs are randomly featured from the applicants. On Wednesday at 6:30 PM PST they will post the first selected link and you go to the blog, read the post and comment. Then go back for the next. There will be an hour of this until all chosen blogs are there. Not only will you potentially be featured, along with the hashtag #CommentHour, but you will be seen as a commentator which can help build a reputation over time.”

Blogging Conferences

Bloggers also benefit from attending in-person events. Michelle McGraw shares 5 solid reasons why you should attend a blogging conference:

1. Because you are not alone. No matter how much social networking takes over our lives, there is no substitute for networking in person.
2. Because you will learn a lot. No matter how long you’ve been blogging, you do not know it all and you will learn from others at a conference.
3. Because you deserve a break. Attending a conference is an excellent excuse to get out of the house and away from your kids.
4. Because you will meet new friends. You will meet a lot of new friends and find new blogs to read. The more people you know, the more opportunities will come your way.
5. Because it will force you to get out from behind the computer.

SkinnyScoop has a good list of 2012 Blogging Conferences. While we’re quickly approaching the half-way point of 2012, there are still many great conference opportunities for the second half of the year!

SEO and Blogging

Most people wouldn’t doubt that blogging is a an artform consisting of carefully crafted articles, but it’s also most definitely a science. A science that relies on the power of search engine optimized (SEO) content.

Personally, I love what Rand Fishkin has to say about SEO: “SEO, when done right, should never interfere with great writing.” Rand links to “The Bloggers Guide to SEO” by Aaron and Giovanna Wall which offers an array of tools and SEO guidance. Sound advice from the Walls  includes these great tips:

“It is crucial to use your keywords in your page title, preferably near the start of your page title. You may want to use your keywords, related phrases, and popular keyword modifiers in your page content a couple times, but with an emphasis on writing natural. Make sure that your content reads well to humans, as that matters much more than what a robot thinks of your content. If people like your content and link at it that is more valuable than getting on page optimization down perfect but sounding robotic in the process.”

Their document is chock full of good SEO advice and more than we can go into in this post, but I’d recommend checking it out to see more about how to write clear and compelling headlines, highlighting your best content, and much, much more.

**Recommended Resource: Check-out Rand Fishkin’s 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic for other great tips and considerations.

Social Media to Promote Your Blog

Noah Mark Rodolfo writes, “With the presence of Web 2.0 platforms such as WordPress, Weebly, Typepad, Blogger and many others, blogs can be created without any problems of coding or too much web designing. Like blogging, social media sites are today’s trending tools for communication. It is an easy and quick portal to share content, connect with other people and create a “network” or community. Noah offers these suggestions:

• Link your posts on your social media profiles.
• Post your individual blog posts into your Facebook page or group.
• In Twitter, it is better that you tweet your post with different messages each time.
• Use enticing descriptions for your posts e.g. research reveals that a question heading better attracts reader than just title of your blog post.
• Re-post other people’s content.
• Don’t force yourself to acquire more followers.
• Readers will more likely share your blog content if your offer plugins or social media share buttons at the end of each of your posts. This will make it easier for them to share your blog posts on their own social media profiles, giving your site a big boost to exposure.

Final Thoughts

While we’ve covered a lot of territory in this post, it’s also in many ways only the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully it will present new opportunities and insights for bloggers who are looking to expand their reach. As always, please feel free to add your comments and suggestions in the space below.

photo credit: Ed Yourdon via photo pin cc

Recent figures report: “Google+ has 100 million users, and has grown in popularity recently, with growth spurts of daily users hovering around 625,000 per day.”

With businesses finding the need to be in multiple places online, the question eventually boils down to the basics, e.g. why this platform? How will the experience be different? Do we really need another social media page?

Josh Lloyd, offers three reasons why you should use Google+ in your business:

1. Better social search rankings. Google’s greatest power is search rankings, so to entice online retailers to adopt and promote Google+ and the social search evolution, it developed into its search algorithm higher search rankings when the “#1″ button is used.
2. It broadens your consumer appeal. Unlike the Facebook Like button, the +1 button is not limited to use within the confines of the social network, but rather it’s open to anyone searching on Google.
3. Potential to upsell, cross sell and just sell. Hitting the +1 button is a direct action that enables you to have a direct response. Consider this: You can offer a consumer an incentive to +1 your product and to buy by offering a discount on their next purchase or free shipping.

The Brand Experience
In our recent post, 10 Brands Who Stand Out on Google+, we took a look at big brands who had a large number of followers and how they go about representing themselves with their about statement, photos/artwork and the types of information they share.

For this post, we’ve gleaned insights from a number of small businesses and non-profit organizations about their experiences with Google+. We also had an opportunity to speak with Kevin Purdy, author of Google+ The Missing Manual, for his perspectives on the platform for businesses and examples of companies who he thinks are doing a good job on Google+ .

Why Google+?

Google+ is very powerful for creating connections with people in your related industry. I feel like it’s a combination of Twitter and Facebook; allowing for a more personal sharing of information with a professional feel.
Lindsay Wiffen, Adaptalift Hyster Forklifts
Adaptalift Hyster Forklifts – Google+

I like Google+ for a business presence because I can post the full text of our blog posts along with the direct links, and I can include hashtags and directly refer to vendors’ Google+ pages…and, Google+ is ideal for a business presence because it allows you to really focus on a relevant audience.
Yvonne Miaoulis, Baroan Technologies
Baroan Technologies – Google+

There are a lot of things we like about Google + for business. You can target your posts to certain audiences, so it’s great to not have to post something that you only want a certain portion to read. It’s also very easy to search for topics.
Rachel Hutman, Clearpoint Agency
Clearpoint Agency – Google+

While we 
currently share articles and photos (as it seems image-heavy posts do 
quite well on this platform), we have been evaluating the platform’s 
offerings such as “Hangouts,” that could provide our community with live 
interaction between themselves and cancer survivors, doctors, etc. This 
opportunity to truly connect personally with a community is an 
invaluable opportunity, as it would certainly set any business apart 
from its competitors if used to its full potential.
Emily Walsh, Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance
Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance – Google+

We aim to actively engage with our followers on Google+ …We tell them about things going on at the company 
and very often ask their opinion on everything from what products we should
 buy and what we should do with our latest jingle. Likewise we’ll tell them about latest offers or products we have ‘coming 
soon’. It’s not all sales though! We’ll ask them what their favourite cake filling
 is or likewise tell them about how some of our staff got involved in ‘wear
 your pj’s to work day’. 
It’s about fun.
Zak Edwards, Prezzybox.com
Prezzybox.com – Google+

I like Google+ for business because it is creating its own niche…It is a great place for businesses to gain credibility with other businesses with posts, commenting, people in your circles, etc. It also has a much better platform than Facebook business pages especially with hangouts and larger high-resolution pictures. As a whole Google+ business pages have developed better interaction between companies and media than any other social media site.

Terms such as: “private jet charter” “jet charter” Private flight”, etc. are all high conversion terms in a Google search, so anytime we make a post with those terms and it is “liked”, commented on, or shared,  we will have a higher ranking in Google.
Michael Maguire, Private Flight Advisors
Private Flight Advisors – Google+

ScanMyPhotos.com has been posting to and 
moderating our Google+ page since November, when Google+ started business
 pages. We post articles pertaining 
to our industry (photo scanning) as well as postings about topics our
 customers are interested in, including digital photography, consumer 
technology, apps, social networking, and interesting art.

ScanMyPhotos.com uses Google+ to interact with our customers. We also occasionally offer specials to our Google+ audience to help everyone professionally digitize their photos, slides, negatives, and transfer video to DVD.
Greg Barco, ScanMyPhotos.com
ScanMyPhotos.com – Google+

Thank you to all of our contributors for sharing their experiences with us.

Q & A with Kevin Purdy, author of Google+ The Missing Manual

What do you see as the benefits of using Google+ for a business?

Overall, the quality of discussions on Google+ is higher than on other platforms. People don’t treat Google+ as a place to stop by, deliver a few Likes, leave a snarky LOL and head off. Google+ tends to draw people into a place where they feel as if they can be part of the conversation with famous figures they have in their circles, friends they don’t get to chat with in other situations, and companies using real people to post messages.

Having that kind of conversation with customers is, as most brand managers and marketers could tell you, very valuable. But most normal humans without a lick of SEO sense could also tell you how nice it is to be able to weigh in on the brands they identify with.

Here’s a weird little side bonus of Google+. If one of your posts is a big hit, it might land in the “What’s Hot” feed. That feed goes out to everybody on Google+, and lots of tech and media types watching that feed. It’s aggressively calculated compound interest paid on your time investment.

What kinds of posts do you find most effective?

Calls for comments, thumbs-up-or-down, and big images of new releases or behind-the-scenes videos always do well, it seems. Generally, anything that lowers the corporate front and allows some personality to come through.

How do you differentiate Google+ from Twitter and Facebook? How should businesses think about using the platform?

Think about how Google+ works from the single user side. If your posts are not too frequent, don’t come off like a free medium for advertising, and involve real people discussing things that most people would want to get into a conversation about, then people will keep your business Page in their main stream. Otherwise, it’s very easy on Google+ to move your business into one of their Circles, like “Brands” or “Companies,” and then literally dial back the frequency with which your company shows up in their stream (using a slider seen when you click on an individual Circle from the main menu).

So unlike Twitter, where people are either following you or they aren’t, or Facebook, where people Like you and then decide if they want to adjust a setting (if they know about it) or un-Like you, you have more of a chance to prove how interesting your business can be on Google+. You know the work you do is interesting, and you’ve got a chance to prove it in a less noisy environment. Part of that is just the nascent nature of the Google+ audience at this point, and it may change; for the time being, it’s a positive.

Are there any examples of businesses who you think are doing an exceptional job at using Google+? What do you like about what they are doing?

Apologies in advance, but the publisher of Google+: The Missing Manual, O’Reilly, has a great Google+ presence. It aggregates posts from individual employees, highlights good news and blog posts in its wide-reaching fields of interest, and picked the right logos for its profile page.

They’re not quite businesses, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the company behind the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu strike a nice balance of “Hey, look at us!” and “Hey, let’s talk about something besides us!”

Volkswagen USA has a traditional mix of discounts/offers, aren’t-we-cool videos, and discussion starters, but they’re attentive to their audience. DeviantArt  plays well with one of Google+’s key strengths: big images. And Google’s own Think with Google is a great stream for any marketer to follow, both for the post topics themselves, and to see how Google+ marketing can be done well.

Thank you, Kevin for taking the time to speak with us at GigCoin and for your extremely helpful book on Google+!

Kevin Purdy is a former contributing editor at the productivity and software blog Lifehacker, a freelance writer and the author of Google+: The Missing Manual and The Complete Android Guide. He lives in Buffalo, NY, but works and writes anywhere he can access Google’s web tools. Follow Kevin on Google+, on his website and learn more too on the Google+: The Missing Manual Google+ page.

Feeling Motivated to Get Started on Google+?
If you’re not already on Google+ and are looking for some guidance on how to set-up your page, we recommend a couple of good sources–posts by Kristi Hines and Zach Bulygo.

And to keep up-to-date on issues related to Google+ and business, you may want to check-out and subscribe to the Google+ Magazine published by Andre.

New Google+ Developments
Thank you, too to Cindy King for bringing to our attention the new Google+ share button, which can be used to encourage visitors to share your content with their friends.

Is your business on Google+?  Let us know about your experiences in the comments below.

Through a well-designed social media campaign, Shot@Life’s messages will be communicated from Monday, April 23^rd through Friday, April 27^th, through an integrated approach that maximizes the benefits of social media. The campaign encourages participants to spend 15 minutes or less each day during World Immunization Week to help spread the word about the importance of global vaccines to give every child a shot at a healthy life.

For social media beginners and enthusiasts alike, the Shot@Life campaign offers insights into the strength of social networking platforms and is a great model for marketers in the public and private sectors who are looking for creative ways to develop a social media campaign.

Shot@Life’s communication strategy employs written posts and updates, photos and videos and encourages the use of a number of platforms and components including: blog carnival, Facebook, Twitter Party, Flickr, Pinterest, 15 second videos recorded with Tout, a smartphone video app, bitly shortened url, SMS text message abbreviated words, infographic and a list of prepared statement/updates which can be shared easily on Twitter and Facebook.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the campaign and are pleased also to welcome Elise Glaum, Online Communications Associate at the United Nations Foundation, to GigCoin who has taken time out of her busy schedule in a Q & A.

A Closer Look at the Shot@Life Campaign

1. Online Participation Guide
Shot@Life developed a document, Shot@Life Launch Online Participant Guide, to guide interested participants through a week-long calendar of social media events from Monday April 23^rd through Friday April 27^th. In addition to the daily listings, the guide includes sample Facebook and Twitter updates with information about vaccines, Shot@life, and how to act now.

The guide is a great tool to help get participants on the same page, introduce them to messages and tags. While participants can still be as creative as they’d like, the guide makes it easy and efficient for users to get involved.

2. Blog Carnival
To get the campaign started, Shot@Life has encouraged bloggers to submit posts on Monday April 23^rd to the shot@life blog carnival where posts will be featured throughout Immunization week.

Blog carnivals are defined as “a particular kind of blog community. There are many kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on many kinds of topics. Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

3. Twitter Party
Shot@Life is hosting a Twitter Party on Thursday, April 26 from 9am – 12pm ET via #vaccineswork. The Twitter party will be projected on screens at the national launch event at the Georgia Aquarium and across the country on billboards in select cities.

A twitter party is defined as “a fast and fun virtual party, using the twitter platform. Usually held in the evening, twitter parties typically last 1-2 hours and are a wonderful way for people to connect and discuss a topic of choice. Most twitter parties have an expert panelist and party host to keep the party on topic.”

“Twitter users tweet with a specified Hashtag (#) for the party. The party host will announce the hashtag prior to the event. If you look at the twitter party calendar, parties are listed by the hashtag (#). Users use their tweet chat client to search for the hashtag and join in the conversation.”

4. Flickr
Shot@life has set up photo albums on Flickr  and encouraging participants to “choose a photo from the Honduras, Myanmar or Mozambique album. Post the picture on Facebook and Twitter along with a caption that says your wish for that child.”

5. Facebook
Shot@Life has crafted 12 Facebook Messages that participants can use in conjunction with photos from the Flickr photo album. The messages vary in character length. And because Facebook has a much larger limit on characters, allowing up to 63,206 characters per update (compared to Twitter’s 140 character limit), Shot@life is able to say a lot in these messages. For example one update is 434 characters (a good length):

“Around the world, some moms walk as far as 15 miles to reach lifesaving vaccines for their children. They know the power of vaccines and are willing to walk miles to get them. We should be willing to take the necessary steps here in the US to make vaccines easier to access. The healthy futures of millions of children depend on it. Are you willing to take the necessary steps? Like this post and join Shot@Life at www.shotatlife.org”

6. Twitter
In addition to the Twitter Party that Shot@life is hosting they have crafted 21 Messages that include facts and figures, use of hashtag #vaccineswork, via @shotatlife, and creative use of updates such as a quiz. To conserve on the number of characters they are using the bitly url shortener which is a great choice since not only can you shorten the url but you can also track and analyze your links.

7. SMS Text Message Abbreviated Words
When you’re faced with the challenge of conserving character space it’s sometimes necessary to abbreviate words where you can. One example that shot@life has used is “Ur” instead of the word “your”. Looking to abbreviate?  Check-out common abbreviated words.

8. Tout Video App
Shot@life has encouraged users to use the smartphone app, Tout, to record a 15 second video and share on Facebook and Twitter mentioning @shotatlife and tag #vaccineswork. Tout is a great choice since it’s a free ios and android app that links easily to a user’s Twitter and Facebook profiles and makes sharing videos very easy.

9. Donations
Shot@life has created a creative way to ask for donations with an example of how to convince friends, and an easy to use donation page: “Take a picture of something that you recently spent $20 on and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Convince them that $20 really isn’t all that much. Ask your friends to help Shot@Life reach our fundraising goal by Mother’s Day! The clock is ticking! Donate now: http://shotatlife.org/donate.”

10. Photos with Instagram App
Shot@life has also encouraged the use of Instagram a popular smartphone photo app to take photos.

11. Pinterest
Shot@life has encouraged the use of Pinterest for pinning your photos:
“Are you on Pinterest? Pin your photo and tag Shot@Life.”

12. Crowdrise Online Fundraising Site
Shot@life has recommended use of Crowdrise with this message:  “Get credit for your friends’ donations! Start a Crowdrise page! http://www.crowdrise.com/shotlife/fundraiser/unfoundation.”

13. Infographic
Infographics are an excellent way to visually represent information and are shared on a number of social media platforms. Shot@life has recommended that participants share the infographic, The Power of Vaccines on Twitter:

“[Infographic] The Power of Vaccines via @shotatlife! Did u know vaccines save 2.5 million lives a yr? #vaccineswork http://bit.ly/ydtVvd”

Q & A with Elise Glaum, Online Communications Associate at the United Nations Foundation

How long has the planning for the Shot@Life Social Media campaign been in the works?
The majority of the Shot@Life campaign social media channels were in full force by September 2011 in time for our soft launch of the campaign at UN Foundation and Mashable’s Social Good Summit. The planning started in early 2011.

What was it about a multifaceted social media campaign that most appealed to Shot@Life?
We knew the power of social media could be used to build and activate a grassroots movement. The power of these platforms allows individuals to get active and help deliver vaccines to children who need them the most.

What advice would you give to other non-profits?
Don’t be scared to try new things, and develop an online personality. We try to use our team along with moms who work at the UN Foundation to build a personality that fits our target audience. We’re working with rock star moms and helping really cute babies – there’s nothing boring about us!

How many staff people will it take to monitor the shot@life social media campaign?
We have an online team of about 8 people who will be providing support as we launch this campaign over the next week.

What metrics/analytics tools will you use to measure its effectiveness and success?
Google analytics, Thrive, HootSuite, Convio, Facebook and Twitter analytics, as well as bit.ly link tracker. We’re measuring the success of each of our ad placements. For donations, we’re measuring how our donors find out about us to report back to partners. We also have surveys for our partners to report back on what they do to help promote us online. It’s a lot of numbers, but the analytics really help tell the story.

Will you be reporting on your findings?
Our findings will be shared with our friends and partners as well as organizations that have offered us pro-bono advertisements. We are also happy to share information with others about the success of our campaign.

Thank you, Elise and we wish you all the best of luck!

Closing Thoughts:
Shot@life is a great case study on the use of social media for communicating information, raising awareness and fund-raising, and offers great ideas for your next campaign.

While we’re at it, we’ll do our part too by encouraging GigCoin readers to head on over to the participant’s guide and help bring awareness to global vaccines, tweet a few messages, spread the word on Facebook, or the other myriad ways that you can participate in the campaign. And of course, donations to @shotatlife, #vaccinesweek cause will be most appreciated, too.

What can you take-away from the Shot@Life social media campaign? And, what will you do to help spread the word about the importance of global vaccines? Share your comments in the space below.

But before now, you may not have heard from the people behind the business profiles; the people behind the pins, boards, likes and comments.  In short, why Pinterest? Why would a business decide to go the Pinterest route and attempt to represent themselves visually with such an economy of words?

We had a chance to check in with a number of businesses from a wide spectrum of industries; some businesses who were among the early Pinterest adopters and in other cases, businesses who created their profiles as recent as the past few months.

Later in this post, in a Q & A, we’ll introduce you to Kelly Lieberman, a Pinterest user, social media enthusiast and the creator of the Pinterest board, Brands on Pinterest. Over the past few months Kelly has pinned over 400 entities to the board and has had her eye on the Pinterest brand experience and offers some great perspectives.

Why Pinterest?

Pinterest [can work] as a Focus Group.
–Jen Farkas
Hammer and Nail Exteriors

Building brand and watching products go viral right in front of your eyes.
–Jenny Ford
Monkey Toes

Pinterest is in my top 10 sources of referral traffic at this time.
–Teajai Stradley
Ideas That Work

Pinterest has the Potential to Have Greater Value for Brands Than Any Other Social Media Site.
–Marisa Brayman
Stadri Emblems, Inc

Pinterest Helps Build Brand Identity.
–Marta Segal Block
GigMasters

Visual Approach and Feminine Demographic.
–Bethany Allen
Threadless

A Fantastic Research Tool.
–Joel Chudleigh
Deep Footprints

Photos Say More Than My Words Could Ever Convey.
– Jeanette Simpson
KidSpace Interiors

A Great Way to Communicate to Our Customers the Way We See Ourselves.
–Kathy Seal
The Quilt Patch

Provides Another Way to Spread Brand Awareness and Show Your Company’s Personality.
–Jerian DiMattei
BluChip Marketing

Pinterest is an Easy Way to Drive Customers to Your Website–a Pin Can Become Viral.
– Jill Homiak
Presenza

Pinterest Offers the Categorization that Allows my Content to be More Readily Found.
–Nicole Perri
Diapers.com

Pinterest is Our Number One Referrer for Web Traffic Right Now. It’s Hot, it’s Easy, and it’s Where You Want to be Promoting Your Brand.
–Janver Natlas
The Motr B

A Perfect Fit Right Now for Our Content and Our Demographic Goals.
– Michelle Magoffin
Edmunds.com

Pinterest Allows the Entire Team to Contribute to the Overall Success.
– Jacob Cross
Puccini Group

Pinterest Can Reach Out to an Audience that was Unreachable on Facebook and Twitter.
–Lynn Steinberg
Goodies For Gifts

Pinterest has Exploded and Added About 28% New Traffic to Our Site that Converts.
–Jason Lazarus
Gadgets and Gear

A Quick and Easy Way to Distribute Information to a Large Number of People –Thanks to the Social Sharing Nature.
–Alison Pruett
Baylor University Libraries

Brings a Freshness to the Term Branded Content, as Businesses Can Now Share and Showcase Company Culture and Incentives in a Creative Light.
–Ashley Ranger
Excelamktg

Pinterest is a Way to Build Your Brand That is not Blatant Self-Promotion.
– Cynthia McCloud
Mountain Mamas Retreats

If a Brand is Just About Selling Their Product it’s Not Going to Work, but if it’s About Selling an Experience That is What Will be of Interest.
–Katie Noonan
Tolosa Winery

When I post on Facebook, I posture informative, when I tweet, I want to be a quick attention getter, and when I put something on Linkedin, I want to be professional/strategic. But Pinterest, in my opinion, is all about inspiring people with your creativity.
– Shelley Hunter
Gift Card Girlfriend

Q & A with Kelly Lieberman

1. How long have you had your profile on Pinterest?

I was invited to Pinterest last May, but I honestly did not get pinning then. I was overwhelmed by how creative everyone was. A friend suggested that I check Pinterest out again and so I revisited the site in August. I began to  think about what really interests me and used the categories as prompts. I’ve been happily pinning every since.

2. You have located and pinned over 400 “Brands, businesses, blogs, and orgs from different markets” who are using Pinterest to your board, Brands on Pinterest. What made you interested in pinning brands?

I was really curious as to what brands would pin. How were they going to use this new platform? Will they just pin directly from their websites? How will they share this on Facebook, Twitter, their websites? So I started the Brands on Pinterest Board to be able to easily catalog and follow brands.  I am also curious about how users interact with brands pins. It has been amazing to see the numbers of brands that are now pinning on Pinterest everyday.

3. How long have you been working on the board?

Since late October to early November, 2011.

4. How have you gone about locating brands, businesses, etc. to be included on your board?

Sometimes I just type in keywords and use the search box on Pinterest. Also from Facebook, Twitter, blog announcements about brands now having a presence on Pinterest. I also have been following Mariam Shabab. She and Emily Spicklemire have created a fantastic collaborative board as well Brands, Businesses & Blogs on Pinterest. Also brands have begun to send me tweets on Twitter, Facebook, and email to let me know that they are now on Pinterest.

5. What brands/businesses do you think are doing a particularly good job of representing themselves on Pinterest?

Some brands that I think are really doing a particularly good job are:

• Mental Floss
• Mod Cloth (They have a great Pinners Gallery Board)
• HGTV
• WSJ (Especially their New York Fashion Week Board)
• Scholastic
• Chobani

6. From your experiences as a Pinterest user and social media enthusiast what tips would you give to businesses and organizations who are thinking about creating a profile?

Take a quick peek at the site and see if you or your industry is being Pinned. Here is a quick way to do that, http://pinterest.com/source/ after source type in the name of your website (without the www) to see what has been pinned. Think about the overall lifestyle your audience, not just your product but HOW your product fits into their life and how it is used. Promote others pins do not just pin everything from your website.

Another fantastic way to use Pinterest is for research, finding trends, even reputation management. Because users can catalog their pins it is a fantastic way to gain some insight into consumer sentiment based on how something is pinned – is it on the I Want This, I Love This, etc board. Pinterest allows brands to easily and creatively engage with customers and build brand awareness

I have a weekly chat that I host on Twitter, #Pinchat, on Wednesdays at 9PM ET.  I have guests including brands (Scholastic, ModCloth). We also discuss best practices for individuals, professionals, and brands using Pinterest.

In addition to Kelly’s Brands on Pinterest Board, you can follow Kelly on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook Group #Pinchat.

Thank you to all of the contributors to this post, who you can find together in one board on Pinterest, Blog post contributors–Brands on Pinterest.

If your business has a profile on Pinterest, tell us why Pinterest? And if you’re just thinking about getting started, why now?

In this post, we’ll also demonstrate landing pages through helpful pointers made by: HubSpot, Ann Handley, Copyblogger and Robert Boman.

Landing Pages Defined

Wikipedia defines landing page as a single web page that appears in response to clicking on an advertisement. The landing page will usually display directed sales copy that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link… The general goal of a landing page is to convert site visitors into sales leads.

HubSpot takes it a step further by suggesting that by “creating a landing page it allows you to target your audience, offer them something of value, and convert a higher percentage of your visitors into leads.” HubSpot says too that a good landing page will target a particular audience e.g. traffic from an email campaign promoting a particular ebook, or visitors who click on a pay-per-click ad promoting your webinar.

Build a unique landing page with a distinguishable headline for each of the offers you create. Here the operative words are building a unique landing page versus relying on a link to a homepage or generic contact us page. Make sure that once the person has clicked that you have thought about the place where they are going to land and the next steps you’d like them to take by using action-oriented language.

Headlines: An example of a Landing page headline with action and value-oriented language, e.g. “grab” and “no charge” from Copyblogger:

Ann Handley makes a critical point about landing pages. She says, “Match the message to the promise.” And most importantly, make the offer happen immediately. Ann refers to this as “message mismatch” which she says is an all-too-common occurrence.” She cites research that Silverpop did when they found that the most successful landing pages match the promotional copy of in an e-mail’s call to action—what yield the click in the first place.  Yet 45 percent of the landing pages evaluated failed to repeat the e-mail’s promotional copy in the headline. If you sell someone on a promise, make sure that the first thing they experience doesn’t tell a whole other story.

Spell out the benefits of your offer–allow your users to understand the benefits of your offer on the landing page. Here you can see the way Copyblogger has listed out the key benefits of their offer:

Influential Images–with only a few seconds and a short amount of content, landing pages must also capture the user’s attention. Images should be influential and tie-in to your offer. Here you can see how Copyblogger has used an image of Einstein.

Meta description–HubSpot suggests having 5-7 meta keywords that are highly relevant to your page content. Use a meta description to give a short and clear explanation of your offer. “Meta descriptions and keywords are both factored into Google’s ranking algorithm to help determine the relevance of your ad to your landing page, and  higher relevance means that your ad is more likely to be displayed. Another reason is because the meta description is the text that is shown when someone sees your page in search results or shares it in social media. You want this text to convince viewers to visit your landing page, so keep it short and simple, but use it to convey value.”

Below is an example of Copyblogger’s meta description and keywords:

Ease of Use Robert Boman suggests that businesses should make it easy for people to access their offer and that users shouldn’t have to hunt to find it.  Below you can see how Copyblogger spells out what the person needs to do, e.g. click on the link below.

Test Your Landing Pages– Ann Handley advises too to test your pages, a simple A/B test in which you try different versions of an offer to see what performs better.

In summary: Make your landing pages work for your business by paying attention to headlines and action/value-oriented language, benefits, images, meta descriptions and keywords, making your offers easy to use and by testing your landing pages.

Useful resources on landing pages:

The 7 Point Checklist for Powerful Landing Page Copy
Closing the Click: Eight Tips for Creating Landing Pages that Sell
How to Get Your Landing Page to Land More Sales
An Introductory Guide to Building Landing Pages
The 10 Commandments of Landing Pages that Work

photo credit: blueforce4116 via photopin cc

It’s hard to keep up these days with all of the changes social networks throw our way.  YouTube is no exception. They recently made some changes, aka YouTube Channels 3.5, with a redesigned homepage and channel layouts.

We thought this was a great time to revisit YouTube, to discuss why it’s a key player in a company’s social media marketing mix and how to ensure that you get the most out of it as a channel for your content, and to go over the changes you’ll see in 3.5.

For those who would like to learn more about the nuts-and-bolts regarding YouTube, we also highly recommend checking out an excellent resource from MakeUseOf with their manual Using YouTube: From Consumption to Production by Matt Smith.

Why YouTube?
To start with, let’s review some key statistics to help us to understand the far-reaching possibilities of YouTube:

• 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute, or one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second.
• Over 4 billion videos are viewed a day
• Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month
• Over 3 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
• More video is uploaded to YouTube in one month than the 3 major US networks created in 60 years
• 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
• YouTube is localized in 39 countries and across 54 languages
• In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or almost 140 views for every person on Earth

Impressive! So, how then should brands think about content for their videos?

Brand Channels and Content
Eric Meyerson, Head of Video and Advertiser Marketing at Google recently stated at the OMMA Global conference that some of the most successful brands on YouTube have build audiences three ways, drawing from: 1) content they produce on their own, 2) content they curate and 3) content from fans about the brand.

Meyerson pointed out how travel brands have been particularly good at these three sources of content and also used Lowe’s as an example of a brand that has done a good job populating its YouTube home page with hundreds of how-to videos. “The how-to nature of the content helps ensure that consumers find Lowes through organic search.”

Ensuring sure that your videos get viewed can be seen as both an art and a science. YouTube offers some great suggestions in their extensive Creator Playbook. We’ve extracted nine of the key points and have used Lowe’s as an example to demonstrate how to put these suggestions to use.

1. Write detailed and comprehensive metadata following proper formatting and strategies.

Here  you can see how Lowe’s has added a title, category and multiple tags to their upload.

2. Create and upload a great, eye-catching thumbnail that is high resolution.

Below you can see how Lowe’s has utilized thumbnails.

3. Analytics was one of the improvements made in Channels 3.5, allowing a broader assortment of metrics including one that will tell you where there was a drop off in video play (essentially where did users stop watching).

By reviewing your analytics on a regular basis you’ll have the ability to assess your channel’s performance and can make creative decisions based on your data assessment. So let’s say that in Lowe’s case they find for example that “How to Build a Deck” was a successful series but that their “Business Rewards” video wasn’t getting as many plays, they might decide to spend their resources on creating more how-to videos.

4. A very important suggestion in the Creator Playbook is to “make the beginning of your videos compelling to your viewer.”

“Branding, flashing intros and packaging can create professional quality to your content, but it’s not the star of the video. Let the content or the personality be the star upfront; then the viewer has a reason to watch past the intro and continue with the video. Place compelling content first.”

5. Calls to actions

Direct viewers during the video to take actions that can build audience. Annotate the live video with community CTAs, subscribe button and links to related content. Here you can see how Lowe’s added the URL of related content to the intro of their video:

6. Add the video to a relevant playlist on your channel. Below you can see how Lowe’s uses playlists to include a number of related videos.

7. Regular schedule and frequency–release content frequently on a recurring schedule and maintain activity on the channel.

Here you can see the regular frequency that Lowe’s uploads videos e.g. 6 days ago, 1 week ago, 3 weeks ago, etc.

8. Tent-pole programming–create, release, and/or package content that is themed around tent-pole events. The cultural events that promotion, sponsors/advertisers and viewing trends orbit around throughout the year.

Below is an example of tent-pole programming that Lowe’s used for “Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day.”

9. Set a social media strategy for your YouTube content. 
As always it’s a great idea promote your content from one platform to another. And one enhancement in YouTube Channel 3.5 is enhanced social media integration where you can show social media buttons and external links to share with viewers.

Here you can see how Lowe’s added the link to the following pages: website, Facebook, Twitter and Lowe’s Creative Ideas.

What Else is New in YouTube Channels 3.5?

So far we’ve discussed social integration, enhanced analytics, a new homepage but there are some other important changes, too:

New channel size
The channel size has been increased to 970 px wide from 960 px. Some background images may need to be readjusted.

Featured Tab
You can select which video to feature on your channel.

Templates
There are four template choices: blogger, creator, network and everything.

Learn More
To learn more about the changes and what you need to know before migrating to 3.5 you can download the document, YouTube Channels Migration Document.

How can you maximize your experience on YouTube? What tips would you add? Let us know in the comments below.

For this post, we took a look at ten brands with extraordinary numbers on Google+  (via stats available on Zoomsphere) and paid attention to how they represent themselves with an about statement, the photos/artwork for their profile and the types of “shares” (posts) they make to help them stand out and drive user engagement.

The company pages include: ESPN, Cadbury UK, ZAGAT, Glamour Magazine, WIRED, H&M, Android, Starbucks Coffee, Pepsi and Coca-Cola. We think you’ll be able to glean some insights from their presences and how utilizing a variation of different types of updates will keep your users engaged.

Before we begin, we’d like to offer two valuable suggestions from Guy Kawasaki who offered these tips in a recent interview. Guy suggests the following:

Tip #1  “Make sure that people feel like they’re interacting with a person, even if your Google+ page represents a company.”
Tip #2 “Adopt what I call the NPR model. NPR provides great content 365 days a year. The content is so great that we tolerate the telethons and fundraisers.  The content you share on Google+ should provide value: information, analysis and assistance. Your content should be so great that you earn the right also to promote your product or service every once in a while, like 5% of the time.”

A Look At 10 Businesses on Google+:

ESPN

Numbers: +910098
About statement: We +1 Sports
Artwork: Five photos that represent the diversity of sports they cover
Why we like them: Creative Engagement
A unique share we liked:
We’re hosting a Google Hangout with Colin Cowherd on Monday, March 26 at 1:15 EST to talk some college hoops.
Comment on this post if you would like to join our hangout.

Cadbury UK

Numbers: +744807
About statement: Official Treat Provider to the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games
Artwork: Demonstrates products and includes a call to action
Why we like them: Speak to users and solicits their ideas
A unique share we liked: Catch up on our Triple Chocolate Tasting Hangout from earlier this week… then let us know what would you like to see in the next +Cadbury UK Hangout?

ZAGAT

Numbers: +723881
About statement: Trusted ratings & reviews for restaurants, nightspots, hotels and more
Artwork: Creative use of space by using all five photos for one panoramic image
Why we like them: Use survey as engagement tool
A unique share we liked: Have you dined out in the Bay Area in the last year? Check out our photo album of San Francisco’s Best Restaurants by Neighborhood.  And don’t forget to vote in our San Francisco Bay Area Restaurants Survey: http://zagat.bz/GRHqSE

Glamour Magazine

Numbers: +669862
About statement: Welcome to Glamour Magazine on Google+
Artwork: Show five different magazine covers
Why we like them: Follow-through and continuation of a theme
A unique share we liked: To continue our The Hunger Games celebration–check out (and send!) some of these hilarious ecards from someecards! Celebrate the Opening of Hunger Games By Sending Your Friends One Of THESE: Obsessed

WIRED

Numbers: +615790
About statement: Wired Magazine and Wired.com Official Google+ Page
Artwork: Each photo is a letter to spell out their name
Why we like them: Share cool and different types of information
A unique share we liked: Someone created an algorithm that automatically solves “Where’s Waldo?” puzzles using the Mathematica programming software.

H&M

Numbers: +555452
About statement: Fashion and quality at the best price
Artwork: Each photo demonstrates commitment to fashion
Why we like them: Share photos of their merchandise available in selected stores and online
A unique share we liked: Would you like to win a fabulous new spring wardrobe? Find our three photo locations in central Los Angeles for a chance to win a $1000 H&M shopping spree. Join the competition at http://on.fb.me/wJ4gFy

Android

Numbers: +586479
About statement: A place for Android fans everywhere to meet, share and get the latest on all things Android
Artwork: five photos, eye-catching animated gifs
Why we like them: Cool use of photos for photo contest
A unique share we liked: Looks like there’s a lot of love for +Angry Birds! Show us the best proof of your fandom (fan art, wearing an Angry Birds costume, etc) and we’ll put our favorite pics as our scrapbook photos in time for tomorrow’s Angry Birds Space launch.

Starbucks Coffee

Numbers: +533597
About statement: Our mission to inspire and nurture the human spirit–one person one cups and one neighborhood
Artwork: Five photos demonstrate products and mission
Why we like them: Speaks to and celebrates world community which ties in with their mission
A unique share we liked: It’s the year of the Dragon!  Happy Chinese New Year!

Pepsi

Numbers: +505072
About statement: Where there’s music, there’s Pepsi
Artwork: five photos create panoramic view
Why we like them: Integrate Google+ update with traditional media
A unique share we liked: All I’m askin’ is for a little R.E.S.P.E.C.T ! Check out our Super Bowl spot featuring Melanie Amaro, Elton John, and a surprise guest ! Pepsi – King’s Court Super Bowl

Coca-Cola

Numbers: +499442
About statement: Open Happiness. The official Coca-Cola page on Google+
Artwork: Five photos demonstrate the light touch of Coca-Cola and happiness theme
Why we like them: Unique tie-ins with their happiness theme.
A unique share we liked: The opposite of a frown, Turns a bad day upside-down.
There are more than a million,
And less than a trillion.
So many people with so many styles,
You can be part of the O _ _ B _ _ _ _ _ _ S _ _ _ _ _ .com

Final thoughts: Make good use of your about statement, artwork and most importantly engage users with fun and diverse types of shares on Google+. And when it comes to information to share, Guy Kawasaki’s suggestions are worth repeating here again:
“The content you share on Google+ should provide value: information, analysis and assistance. Your content should be so great that you earn the right also to promote your product or service every once in a while, like 5% of the time.”

Are you on Google +? What content drives engagement on your page? Let us know in the comments below.

The first milestone on your story journey will be about your beginnings–when you were born/founded/started/opened/created or launched. 

 Your beginnings can be both described in words and with a photo.

Where did you get your start?

A garage? Spare bedroom? Small office? A renovated gas station like Ben and Jerry’s? Showing a photo of where you began can be quite humbling! Note too that it’s good to add text for the event, year and place. And of course, some words about your story.

Next, you have the option to add new milestones–

and/or to change existing stories on your Facebook page.

It’s very easy to change the date to place the story somewhere else on your timeline.

What kind of photos work well to tell stories?

Here are a few easy to implement ideas:

Founders:

Maybe your founders didn’t get their start as early as Richard Sears did but how about adding a photo of your founders?

News coverage, headlines: Were you in the media?

New product/service offerings:

Logo changes:

An older document– that portrays an important date and/or event in your business history:

Happy Customers:

Charitable/Special Events that your business is participating in:

Think about the history of your business–the people, places and dates that best capture your story. Go ahead and add them to your timeline.  A picture is worth a thousand words (but don’t forget to add the words, too)!

The new Timeline for Facebook Pages are here.

We’ve also taken a look at the Starbucks Facebook page to demonstrate the new features and different kinds of Facebook updates that work well to communicate your brand story. Let’s begin!

What you need to know to get started:

• Timeline for Facebook Pages will automatically go live for all brand pages on March 30^th.
• Timeline milestones can go as far back as January 1, 1800.
• Cover photo, dimensions 851 by 315 pixels. call to actions are not permitted in the cover photo. Rather it should be a representative photo of your business and be aesthetically pleasing
• Profile picture, dimensions 180 by 180 pixels, can be your logo or another representative photo.
• Two versions of “About statements”: 1) can contain up to 255 characters, 2) And for businesses associated with a physical location your about statement will include: category/subcategory, address, telephone number and hours of operation.
• Tabs have been replaced with Apps: brands have the ability to choose four apps to showcase on the top of their page under the cover photo. If they are using more than four apps a drop down menu will appear to the right with a number indicating how many more apps they’re utilizing.  While call to actions are not permitted in cover photos, an image can have a call to action within one of the apps. Important to note: you no longer have the ability to select a “default” landing tab for your page.
• Analytics: Additions to pages insights are expected to roll out over the next few weeks. Todd Wasserman writes, “The analytics will be available to all Page administrators globally. Such administrators will have instant access to real time results for People Talking About This, and Page post metrics including Reach (Organic, Paid, Viral) and Engaged Users.  The upshot for marketers, media outlets, public figures and organizations is that they can now see what’s going on on their Pages and tweak their content and advertising. They can also see if a post is performing poorly and then replace it if that’s the case.”
• Stats visible on page: Users can see a brands # of Likes, # of People Talking About This e.g. the unique people who have created a story about your page, posted to your wall, liked or commented or shared one of your posts, answered a question, responded to an event, mentioned your page, tagged your page in a photo, checked in at your placed, recommended your place.
• Users can send a private message to a brand: Brands can interact with users via private messages.
• Pin: You can now choose to pin particular posts to the top of your pages for up to seven days. This makes it easier to highlight important, newsworthy topics to the top of your timeline for longer promotion and visibility.
• Highlighted post: Doubles its width across the page
• Timeline Milestones: Milestones are the key moments you’ve decided to highlight on your Page. Milestones are automatically expanded to widescreen and are visible to everyone visiting your Page. Milestone photos display at 843 pixels wide and 403 pixels tall.
• Facebook Ads: Picture in the ad, Width: 110px, Height: 80px, Size: 5MB
  Text in ad, Header: 25 characters, Body copy: 135 characters
• Changes in Ads: Barbara Ortutay reports these significant ad changes:
  “Brands you’ve endorsed by hitting the “like” button will now be able to push deals and other updates right into the news feeds that show your friends’ updates, photos and links. These posts could also show up if one of your friends has interacted with a brand…Rather than bombarding people with flashy ads, Facebook is urging companies to integrate themselves into what people are already doing on the site – talking to their friends and family, commenting on photos or posting news links. but brands will now be able to push updates right into the news feeds. Facebook’s challenge will be to keep these ads as unobtrusive as possible so that users are not alienated or driven to “unlike” brands.”

  “The company will collect feedback and test out how its users respond to the changes. It will also roll out the changes slowly. At first, users may see just one message from a brand inside their news feed, or even less. And they won’t see messages from random companies they are not connected to in some way – directly or through a friend.”

• Guides for getting started: At the end of this post we’ve included links to some very useful guides for step-by-step directions.

Facebook Pages for Telling a Brand Story
via Photos, Timeline Milestones
and Status Updates

With the new Facebook Page, brands now have more of an ability to tell their story and communicate with users.  One early adopter of the new page is Starbucks who has done a great job integrating the new features and expanding on the features they had already been utilizing. To help give you ideas of how to approach your page, let’s take a closer look at Starbucks’ page.

Learning About Facebook Time Pages via Starbucks

Cover photo: with the about statement, apps, # of likes, #people talking about this, messages.
Starbucks has selected a highly representative cover photo of their business. While they had up to 255 characters to describe themselves in the About statement, they said it very succinctly in 84 characters with the statement, “We are the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world since 1971.” They chose to show the apps: photos, likes, starbucks card, and International. You can see that there are four additional apps on their page. We can also see the number of likes and people talking about this. In Starbucks case, we can see how many people have checked in at their locations.

Telling Brand Story with Timeline: Events by Year
The timeline begins with now and will go back as far as January 1, 1800. In Starbucks case they chose to begin with a photo of 1971, the year they opened their first store. Milestone photos can make a very big impression, they display at 843 pixels wide and 403 pixels tall.

Timeline milestones can also be added without pictures. Here they’ve created the milestone for 1982 when Chairman & CEO Howard Schultz joined Starbucks. And note that at the time he was the director of retail operations and marketing.

Timeline milestones will automatically show the year when you first started to post on Facebook. In Starbucks case this was 2008.  Note too that you have the ability to hide any posts you’d rather not show.

Engaging Users with Content
Content has always been at the root of the Facebook Page, and still is. As you prepare to update your page for the new look it’s a good time to re-visit your Facebook content strategy. In this section of the post we’ll take a look at some of the types of content that Starbucks uses to engage users: pinning a post, sharing a link, sharing a video, making an announcement, asking a question, using a fill-in-the-blank, highlighting a post.

Here, Starbucks pinned a post which means that it was brought to the top and will stay there for up to a week.

Starbucks shared a link

Videos and photos are very well received on Facebook and here they’ve shared a YouTube video of the Beatles.

In this post, Starbucks made a product announcement.

Polling users is a great way to engage people on Facebook.

Fill-in-the-blank is an excellent means for eliciting responses from users.

Highlighting a Post–a highlighted post doubles its width across the page and receives more attention. Starbucks highlighted a video.

Messaging: Users now have the ability to direct message a brand.

By clicking on Message, a screen pops up where user can write their message. They also have the option of adding a link, photo and/or video. Below, is the private message I sent to Starbucks! Note: users must initiate the conversation between brands, and brands can only send two messages to a user for every one message received from them. It’s a great opportunity for brands to personally speak to users.

User can see an account of the private messages they sent to brands on their Facebook profile just as they would see messages from friends.

Wow! Look at this. Within a few hours, Starbucks responded to my message. (Starbucks does a great job managing their page!)

Guides:
Since the new page launch on February 29th, many great guides have become available to help get you started. Here are some of our favorites:

• Facebook Cheat Sheet: Sizes and Dimensions
• Introducing New Facebook Pages
• Facebook Timeline for Brands: The Complete Guide
• Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs to Understand
• The Complete Guide to Facebook Timeline Pages
• 7 Crucial Things About Timeline For Facebook Pages

Next Steps:
Before rushing into creating your new page take some time to think about the following things:

• photo you’d like to use for your cover photo
• re-visit your About statement and make sure you’re getting as much bang for your buck as you can with 255 characters
• apps you would like to showcase and in what order
• milestones you’d like to add to your timeline, and whether you’ll include any photos
• posts you’d like to pin and highlight
• existing Facebook updates that you’d like to hide on your page
• use this as an opportunity to refresh your Facebook presence and the types of content you post
• have fun

Have you created your new Facebook page yet? Tell us about your experiences.