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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Pinterest is one of the hottest social media platforms of 2012.  If you have a good idea, cool product or unique service with a   quality visual to accompany it — you have an opportunity.  The Pinterest community will help to spread the word.

Pinterest is a visual sharing community.  People pin items they find interesting to their personal digital bulletin boards.  Members often have multiple themed boards.  Some people will collect ideas for their new home, create a visual grouping of material goals or collect craft ideas.

Community members may follow other members or boards they find interesting. They can repin or share their favorite pinned items found within the community or around the web.

One nice side effect of your images being pinned within Pinterest community are the search engine optimization (SEO) benefits.  Pinterest links to the original webpage the photograph or graphic is located.  Pinterest also delivers traffic from activity on their website from people interested in more information about the subject.  For marketers and business owners that is good news for their product or service.

Other websites such as Quora are experimenting with similar bulletin board features.  As with any new social media concept you never know what website will be the last standing, but for now Pinterest is worth your attention.

Rosh

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In the early days of current social media we really didn’t know what to think of Twitter. For most it was a great new chat platform.  Over time we discovered Twitter is not about chatting.  Twitter is a media stream.

Twitter is the people’s AP wire.  With the New New Twitter the company is beginning to show more signs that it is truly  embracing its media stream role on the Web.

The new hash tag symbol section Discover is the first easy to use function on Twitter designed for following what’s news.

You can set up the left column to follow trends based on location such as your city, country or worldwide.  The page displays top comments, blog posts, videos and photographs related to your selected subject.  A new feature suggests specific people to follow most closely related to the topic. You can use the search box at the top of the page to find just about any public information desired on the planet.

When the next disaster strikes all you need to do is flip over to the discover tab and click the related #hashtag or trending topic to keep up to date on the most current information in the world.

Twitter is by far the fastest source of news and information anywhere.  Now that they have a tab for that, it will help to secure Twitter as the go to source of information.

Rosh

Rosh Sillars Social media and digital marketing for photographers.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Most business owners seem to know their industry and the basics of running a business.  Unfortunately, many are clueless about how to promote their company with the latest marketing techniques.

Some businesses are lucky.  They have a great product, share their story with the right people and the company grows via word of mouth (marketing).  Sadly, it doesn’t work that way for all businesses. Fortunately, podcasts can help.

To win in your industry continuous education is a must.  Podcasts are like going back to school.  There are thousands of amateurs and experts who share helpful business, marketing and industry information that can support the development of new ideas and business growth.   Many of these people blog.  Blogs can offer great information, but they take a lot of time to read.   Podcasts may be listened to while doing something else.

Business owners and marketers should listen to podcasts during their commutes, while working on repetitive tasks and during down time.  iTunes is an excellent source for podcasts.  Below is a list of a few good marketing podcasts to get you started.

Marketing Podcast List:

Marketing Offer Coffee

Six Pixel of Separation

The Bean Cast

Duct Tape Marketing

Managing the Gray

The Driven Business (Our Podcast)

Rosh Sillars Social media and digital marketing for photographers.

1) Whats new? News, updates and releases related to digital marketing:

• A) Foursquare rolls out new buttons
• B) New Facebook insights
• C) New YouTube Design
• D) New Google Drop-down menu

2) Topics of the week – digital marketing and social media.

• A) Social media – You are talking but are you listening?
• B) CEO bans email and encourages social networking

3) The Driven Business Tips: Create a list of blog, or social media topic to draw from.
4) App of Week: Mixtab
5) link of the week: The Top 25 Social Media Terms You Need To Know
6) Action item: Take a look at the new insights for Facebook and Linkedin.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Below are six recent updates and announcements that every web marketer and business owner should know about.

1) YouTube has updated their design to integrate (like other Google properties) with Google+.

2) Facebook has updated their insights (analytics) improving content effectiveness tracking.

3) LinkedIn added group demographics statistics to better understand the quality of each of its groups.

4) FourSquare has created its own button for publishers. The button is aimed at supporting retail websites.

5) Facebook increased status updates to 60,000 characters.

6) Google is replacing the account black navigation bar with a new drop-down menu.

What would you add?

You can make a good argument about many things being the biggest social media mistake.  obviously, the biggest mistake is the mistake you make. Being too aggressive is certainly a big mistake, talking about yourself all the time tends to hurt your chances of success and believing it’s all about how many people are following you will generate poor results.

It really doesn’t matter what mistakes you make and who you offend if you are not focused on the right target.

You need to know who your audience is.  Too many professionals focus on connecting with people in their industry.  It’s not a bad idea to practice social media with people you know or members of  your community.  You can certainly learn a lot from experts in your field.  When it comes time to develop business relationships you need to leave the nest and knock on doors that are not as comfortable.

The people who need your product or service are generally not leaders in your field.  You need to ask yourself: “Who is your target market and what would they type in Google to find you?”.  Once you answer that question you should start blogging about it.  What topics would your target market talk about to people in their industry?  Can you add to the conversation?

Adding to the conversation is not immediately placing a link in a specialty group declaring you have the answer.  Adding to the conversation starts with listening.  Then begin asking questions, answering questions and sharing helpful examples other than your stuff.  When appropriate, after earning a little credibility and trust you can share some of your solutions.  I say that with caution because every group and social media platform has different tolerance levels.

If you feel you don’t have the time and patience for this, then social media is not right for you.

Building relationships takes time online or off.  Make sure you are spending your time wisely with the right people who may actually buy your product or service.

Rosh