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

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)

A core goal of marketing is to deliver the best message or impression to the right people.  Google circles support your effort to accomplish this goal.

Many social media sites deliver the same message to all followers. Google plus allows people to easily segment their followers into circles.  General messages may be delivered to all circles. Unique messages can be sent to people within circles who would care the most about the topic.

The tools available to segment social media followers will continue to develop and become standard.  Google has circles and recently the blogging platform Posterous updated their system with squares.  Squares allow you to share blog posts with all or specific followers you place in your customized squares.  Last year Facebook changed their groups , with much less success, to help people segment their friends, family and associates.

Whenever you begin using a new social media platform. Check to see if there are segmentation options.  It is much easier to start the process early rather than working through your entire list later.

Rosh

You may find more of these videos on our facebook page.

For a long time Facebook has required mutual acceptance for a connection to be made.  Twitter allows anyone to follow an unlocked Twitter media stream and the new Google plus offers the same non-mutual follow system.

If you go to https://www.facebook.com/about/subscribe you can activate the subscribe button so anyone may follow your updates without requiring your to follow them back.

If you are using Facebook for family and friends communication it may not be in your best interest to active the button.  Your friends accounts will have the their subscribe button available to you. Accounts that don’t follow you will not have access to a subscribe button unless you activate it.

The subscribe button is perfect for personalities, marketers and people who wish to increase their social reach.  Your personal account is limited to 5000 connects. This option opens the door to an unlimited number of followers to your account without mucking up your status wall.

According to early tests by various bloggers, the subscribe button is offering solid new traffic to their blog posts and social media content.

Rosh

Now that Google wallet has been released, this new system has set a new bar standard for easy retail transactions.  Customers will expect fast.  If you have an Android smart phone all you need is the application, a few dollars in your Google account and your transaction is quick and easy.

Today I used Square to receive a payment for a photography assignment.  It was easy.

My photo clients rarely request to pay via credit card. It is nice to be able to accommodate the occasional client without the cost of a standard processing system.  I was able to go to my client’s place of business and swipe the card personally (customer service).  These types of personal trans actions will continue to become commonplace. Especially for high dollar accounts who expect service.

How are you making transactions easier for your clients?

I was reviewing the statistics for the Synectics Media main office and found some interesting information.  I knew three people in the office were publically fighting it out for mayorship.  What I didn’t realize is how many clients, partners and associates were checking in too.

Synectics Media is a  business office and doesn’t received as much traffic as a retail establishment. But, a quick review of our account does prove the point that foursquare statistics offer actionable information at any level.

Above are some of the statistics available through Foursquare. As you can see most of the check-ins are made by younger females – usually around lunch time.

If we were a retail establishment looking to target men between the ages of 45-65 we would have a problem.

Currently, based on our stats, if you wish to meet a nice young lady – 9AM at Synectics Media just might be your place.

Rosh

What is organic growth?  I consider it growth without additional promotion needed. This includes adding new followers without recent action or posts.  When you post an update such as information, photos, videos or links, the update travels through your followers’ news feeds. This often prompts and encourages more followers.

Early in the process it usually takes more activity, such as the use of other social media to gain additional followers – until the page reaches its critical mass.

Critical mass is different for every client, but 100 seems to be the average.  Some companies are more engaged with the their community than others. If a business has a popular webpage or famous brand name, the growth process happens much faster.

At what point did your Facebook page take on a life of its own?

Rosh

The answer to the question depends on your target.

The main general difference between Google and Facebook is that  Google AdWords target search results and Facebook targets demographics and interests.  Both are valid methods of advertising.

Few people list their interest as the law unless they are a lawyer.  If someone is searching for a lawyer specializing in Real Estate law than a law firm targeting search with AdWords is a smart move.

If the advertiser is targeting lawyers – than Facebook may be the best advertising avenue.  You can target the 12,120 people who Facebook lists under Lawyer in the United States.  More key words such as law or legal would increase the number of prospects.

The Facebook ads we have managed for clients have worked well to drive traffic and convert to sales.  Like websites the better and more targeted the landing page the better the conversion rate.

If you use Facebook as your landing page a custom Facebook page using iFrames is worth your consideration.  Earlier this year Facebook opened up their system to iFrames giving marketers, designers and developers new opportunities.

Gateway pages are also a good option if your goal is to increase the number of Likes on a Facebook page.  A gateway page requires the visitor to like the page before they can get to the goodies on the other side.  Targeted Facebook ads leading to such pages seem to be effective.  More data is needed, but the case studies seem encouraging.

Facebook Ads will work if you have great headlines to attract the clicks and a valuable well presented relevent offer on the other side.

Rosh