3 Brand New Ways Your Business Can Use Pinterest

Did you know that, on average, the half-life of a single Pinterest pin is three and a half months – more than 1,600 times longer than a Facebook post? Or were you aware that 84% of female Pinterest users who signed up for the service four years ago are still using the site – and are apparently growing more active over time?

As Shareaholic’s most recent Social Media Referral Report showed, Pinterest is still the reigning queen of social traffic, second only to Facebook. But in my opinion, second place is a small price to pay for content that lasts forever and users that grow more dedicated as the years pass.

If there is any lesson your business can learn from these statistics, it is this: If you are not already using Pinterest to your advantage, you should start now.

There’s a stigma that Pinterest is only for wedding planning or cupcake recipes, but it is not. Pinterest is for anyone who wants to create a collection. And that collection can serve several purposes – it can be for future purchases, inspiration or recommendations for others.

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“But I don’t want another social media account!” you may say. “I have enough as is!”

Surprise! You’re Already on Pinterest

Even if you do not already have an active presence on Pinterest, chances are high that your content has been pinned there anyway. You can check this out for yourself by accessing the following URL: http://www.pinterest.com/source/YOUR-URL

For example, this is what I see when I search the WebpageFX site on Pinterest:

If I wasn’t monitoring our Pinterest presence, I would have known about only a few of those pins – three of which I pinned myself, either under my personal account or our brand account – but none of the others. What if someone had asked a question or pointed out a typo on an infographic and I wasn’t paying attention?

Since your content is already on Pinterest, my suggestion is this: Invest the amount of time into the platform that best suits your needs. You don’t have to use it as a social media platform, setting up boards and pinning your own content. Instead, you can use it to reach your customers, strengthen your content marketing, or even do a little research.

Here are three unique ways any business can effectively harness the power of Pinterest.

The First New Way to Use Pinterest: Brand Strengthening

Establishing a profile and boards on Pinterest is one way you can strengthen your brand. However, you do not necessarily need to establish an active profile, pinning your content day and night, to improve your Pinterest presence.

Honestly, if you are really busy, you can let users do the pinning for you. But pay attention – and step in to say thanks, address problems, or just be an all-around awesome person.

This is what I recommend for every business:

1. Set up an account for your brand and populate as much or as little content as you like.
2. Bookmark the URL search I mentioned earlier, searches for your brand name, searches for your product names, and so on.
3. Check these bookmarks regularly.
4. Comment on pins where your brand is mentioned.

I don’t see a lot of brands doing #4 even occasionally, and I have to admit… it drives me kind of crazy. Why would you not thank someone for going out of their way to pin something from your site, along with a nice, thoughtful comment?

I poked around the feeds and site searches of a bunch of brands I follow until I finally found a local company, Havahart (they make humane animal traps, a must-have for someone whose backyard is full of raccoons that like to scare their dog and knock over trash cans at 4am), that regularly does this on user pins:

This kind “thanks!” message probably went a long way. Yet I don’t see enough brands thanking even 1% of their customers for spending hundreds of dollars on clothing or shoes.

This is an under-utilized strategy that can really pay off in the long run. Customers appreciate being acknowledged and appreciated. You do not have to populate your profile to use Pinterest – just be there and pay attention.

The Second New Way to Use Pinterest: Content Curation

“Content curation” is one way brands choose to supplement their existing social media or blogging activity. Basically, share content created by others so your audience does not get bored or annoyed reading your content all the time.

Pinterest can be an absolutely amazing source of content. Whether you’re looking for a cheerful image to share on your Facebook page or something to help fill in an empty spot in a blog post, the site’s search tool is bound to dig up an excellent image which is linked right back to the source.

Let’s say you write about DIY phone accessories, but you are fresh out of ideas. If you hop on Pinterest, you may see this:

Perfect, right?

If you click through from this pin, you’ll end up at the source, and you can include the blog post this pin is from as part of your curation on Twitter, Facebook, and so on. (Remember: Always credit the creator, not the pinner!)

The Third New Way to Use Pinterest: Market Research

This was honestly my favorite way to use Pinterest for the first year or two of its existence, just around the time it began exploding as a mainstream social network. Everyone pinned everything. The site was full of products, recipes, ideas… and people.

Pinterest is, even for the most boring, dull and super-niche B2B manufacturers out there, a prime opportunity to conduct market research.

You can accomplish in minutes what some formal research projects might take days, weeks or months to do. Armed with a hint of knowledge, a short block of time, and an interest in what your customers or leads want and need, you can discover spectacular things that will help grow your business.

Think of it this way: You run an e-commerce store and are deciding where to place remarketing ads, but you have no idea where your target audience shops, other than with you. To find out, you simply need to:

• Find one of your customers — or someone who looks like your ideal customer — on Pinterest.
• Review the sites they consistently pin from.
• Identify sites that align with your marketing messages and goals.

Simple, right? So if your store sells baking supplies, you may repeat this exercise 6-7 times to discover that your customers frequently pin content from from Modcloth. At that point, it is worth investigating whether or not Modcloth sells ad space with which you can run a remarketing campaign. Note: Modcloth does not. Back to the drawing board, then.

You may also do informal research related to users’ wants, needs, and desires. Sticking with our baking supplies example, if you are on the hunt for ideas for new mixing bowls, you could search Pinterest for “mixing bowls” and read the user comments. These can sometimes be an absolute gold mine for user feedback, or pain points that can lead to you making an amazing new product.

Perfect example:

“Anyone know how to fix a bowl that has lost its color?” Right there is a pain point, a customer problem, that you might be able to fix.

If it looks like a lot of users are complaining about the color chipping or scraping off their bowls in the dishwasher, you can try to develop a solution. This is the kind of complaint you might only find on Pinterest, where users seek help from one another in an honest and true fashion.

Pinterest Can Be Beneficial to Everyone

Although some businesses may be tempted to dismiss Pinterest as a run-of-the-mill social site, or have spent the last few years just scraping by with the occasional pin or new board, there are many amazing opportunities for brands that take the time to realize its full potential.

For starters, you may choose to jump in and interact with users pinning your products. Others would find it worthwhile to use Pinterest’s powerful search to strengthen content curation strategy. Many businesses may benefit from real-time market research.

Ultimately, there is a lot to gain by trying any of the above methods. Which one sounds most appealing to you?]

Have any ideas for another new way to use Pinterest? Have you tried any of these tactics in the past? I would love to read your thoughts in the comments!

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6 Qualities to Make Your Videos Go Viral

Viral content is highly coveted, but getting your videos to go viral is no easy feat. Highly sharable content can give your business a lift, leading new people back to your site and increasing conversions. Creating a viral video, however, is far from easy.

Having a piece of content go viral is like winning the Internet’s version of the lottery. It’s incredibly difficult to achieve and often hard to replicate. For every viral video success, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of failures. Even Upworthy, the king of virality, only has 0.3 percent of posts going viral.

But there are still actions you can take to improve your odds of viral success. Help your company reap the benefits of video with these six tactics to help your videos go viral:

Be Short and Sweet

Keep in mind, you’re creating content for the 140 character Twitter generation. Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, which means it’s time to tighten up your video content. A survey published in The New York Times found more than 19 percent of people had left a video after only 10 seconds. By a minute in, the video had lost a staggering 44 percent of viewers.

Since you’ll lose almost half of your audience by the end of minute one, put your most interesting, fascinating, funny, or surprising information first and foremost in your video. Creating viral video content is one place where you never want to save the best for last.

Be Upbeat

Jonah Berger, author of the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, found the most highly sharable content tended to evoke strong emotions in the reader or viewer. And of those emotions, the most sharable content tended to be that which had a positive or upbeat note. Using empirical research, Berger and UPenn Professor Katherine Milkman found happy emotions tended to outperform sad emotions in the realm of sharability.

To be sharable, content needs to strike an emotional chord in viewers. These same viewers are more likely to share upbeat content, so if you want your videos to go viral, it’s important to strive for a positive spin.

Be Timely

If you want your videos to make the jump to virality, it might be time to brush up on your current events. By hooking into an existing Internet meme or popular topic, you increase the odds your content will be viewed and shared by those already interested in the topic.

This can be anything from a current event in the world, to a pop culture topic dominating the news. For example, just look at how many parodies of popular entertainment like Game of Thrones and Frozen exist on video channels. If you speak the same language as your target audience and present interest in the same topics, they’ll be more likely to share your content.

Be Involved

One of the keys to virality is engagement. Engaging with an audience can lead to loyalty and interest. After all, everyone likes to be heard. This is the approach taken by companies like Old Spice in several of advertising campaigns.

At one point, the Old Spice man, played by actor Isaiah Mustafa, answered fan questions on social media in short YouTube videos. Adding an engagement portion to your videos, like answering viewer questions, can give your content a boost and make it more sharable.

Be Informative

Your audience is always searching for new information and better ways to perform everyday tasks. If your video content is interesting and informative, it is also highly sharable. Everyone wants to learn something they didn’t already know, and videos can be a great tool for curating top-notch information.

At my company Pluto.TV, we curate the best videos for viewers, whether they’re looking for world news or cat videos. You need to take a similar approach to your videos, and curate the best and most informative content to surprise and inform your viewers.

Be Inspiring

By now, the incredible story of Upworthy’s success is old news. The site skyrocketed to more than six million unique page views per month in its first year, thanks in part to its famous (and infamous) headlines. Another reason is because the site looks to find inspiring stories to share with their large readership.

To get the viral edge you want, look for stories to inspire your readership, whether it’s a story of overcoming struggle, standing up in the face of adversity, or just finding success. Audiences love a good inspirational story, and the more inspirational it is, the more your audience will want to share it with others.

Creating viral videos isn’t easy — if it was, every business would have a few viral hits. These six pieces of advice can help you improve your content’s sharability and quality, improving your odds at viral success. See more:

What are your tips for creating viral videos? Share in the comments!

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6 Things You Should Quit Doing To Be More Successful

 

If you haven’t seen it, I’ll describe it for you. In a now viral video, writer Marina Shifrin turns the camera on herself at the office around 4:30 a.m. She then proceeds to dance herself out of a job. Throughout the video, words splash across the screen explaining her reasons, then at the end we read, “I quit.” Then one more time in caps for good measure, “I QUIT!

You know what I thought about as I watched the video? I wish more people did this.

We humans (that means me included) often get stuck in a hamster wheel of habit. We do things that aren’t good for us, remain where we shouldn’t and put ourselves through voluntary suffering all in the name of comfort. We don’t know these things are damaging, because it’s normal to us.

But a rare few, like Marina, snap out of it and quit before it’s too late. Here are six things you should quit doing today, before it’s too late.

Quit Stopping – I’ve completed six half marathons (13.1 miles) over the past few years and each one has been an emotional experience for me. Here’s how it usually goes…

The gun goes off: “This is great! Today is gonna be a personal record, I just know it.”
Mile 5: “Am I sane?”
Mile 10: “You want this, ouch, you want this, ouch.”
Mile 13: “Where’s the dang finish line!!!!”
Finish line: “That. Was. Awesome. When’s the next one?”

They say that at the very moment you want to quit, you’re actually almost there. It’s the stupid human in us…we go so far and then our brains take over and tell us it’s too hard. When did we get the memo that life was supposed to be easy all the time?

Think right now about something you keep stopping. You committed to it, but then you suddenly quit because it started to require a little extra elbow grease. A project at work, a relationship, a fitness goal. Remember why you started it, then push onward. Because the more you stop and think about quitting, the longer it’ll take to get to your desired result. Or worse, you’ll never know what it feels like to reach the finish line.

Quit Saying Tomorrow – You know the saying, “Yesterday you said tomorrow?” Seriously, stop that! Delaying or procrastinating around something that you think is important means one of two things. You’re either scared to start because it means your life will change or you want it for the wrong reasons (i.e. someone else is encouraging you to do it).

So yes, that new healthy eating thing you want to do will be very difficult and possibly unpleasant. But every day you wait to start is another day you’re not helping yourself. And you keep telling yourself that you’ll wait until the kids are a certain age before you finish your degree, but is that really the main reason you’re waiting? Or is it because studying is not nearly as exciting as all the other options you have right now? And while you’re at it, why are you donating free money to the gym? They haven’t seen you in months.

Quit Being A Victim – When people tell me they’re doing something or making certain choices because they have “no choice,” it makes me want to bang my head on the table…and then put that on repeat. You have a choice in everything you do. Barring a few really crazy exceptions, no one holds your hand to the fire on anything. And if you’re choosing to remain in a place that isn’t positive, you’re victimizing yourself.

You are not so worthless that you have to keep dating that person. Obama and the economy are not forcing you to stay in that career. There are other places you could live. And it’s not your schedule that prevents you from being healthy.

Our social groups are great for complaining. We all discuss our problems with our friends and that’s ok. But there are limits. Everyone gets a few opportunities to complain about a particular hardship, but if you seek advice and respond with “but I can’t” (said in whiny voice) too many times, you officially become a victim. Eventually, you’ll have to ask yourself whether you even want to fix the problem.

Quit Saying Yes – My yoga instructor, Angela Wagner, reminded me recently that anytime we say yes to something, we’re saying no to something else. So when you say yes to a happy hour, you’re saying no to <insert your choice of workout>. When you say yes to a crappy review from your boss, you’re saying no to getting acknowledged for the great work that was overlooked. When you say yes to watching pointless reality TV shows, you’re saying no to doing the dishes. Or if you say yes to staying late at the office, you’re saying no to your relationship.

It could be you don’t need to entirely quit saying yes. You may just need to analyze when you’re saying yes and what you’re trading for it. You might find yourself saying yes to things you don’t even care about and no to things that could make your life better in some way.

Quit Expecting – I got an email the other night from someone looking for advice after reading this article. He told me that he’s been working for the same company for his entire career, rising through the ranks and loving it. But recently he realized he’s hit a wall – he’s had many reviews and each time he meets with management, they’re not giving him the promotion he knows he’s ready for. My question to him was, “Have you asked for it?”

It’s very rare for a company to proactively promote someone at a fast pace. Especially true in older organizations, if you expect your company to promote you when they feel you’re ready for it, you’ll be sitting around waiting for about 10 years to reach the next level.
Your boss is like your significant other. Don’t expect them to read your mind. They’ll only know what you need when you tell them. If you really have your heart set on something (like a promotion), you must be vocal about it. If you don’t speak up, you’re leaving the translation up to them. Expect at your own risk.

Quit Avoiding – Suck it up. We all have things we don’t want to do, but we have to do them because we’re adults. (Should I have started the paragraph with, “Dear Congress”?)
I once managed a team responsible for a corporate-wide project with a lot of moving pieces. There were some majorly miserable elements to that project and there were some really sexy parts (i.e. things you put on your resume) too. As I sat with my boss reviewing progress one day, she asked why I hadn’t finished one particular task (a task that couldn’t be delegated). I responded with, “It’s boring me!” Her response was, “Your point?”

Yeah, life doesn’t work that way. You can’t pluck the fun parts out and leave the tough parts on the table. You take all or none.

If we didn’t have to work hard to reach success, we wouldn’t appreciate it. If there’s something you’re putting off because it’s boring you, it’s hard, physically demanding or tiring…just get up and get it done. Quit avoiding it. There will be rewards along the way and there will be a great sense of accomplishment at the end. See more

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Entrepreneurs Need to Brand Themselves First

Starting a business is usually the result of a personal dream or need. Investors tell me that they invest in people, more than the idea. Customers buy from people, not from a company, at least at the startup stages. That’s why it’s important to build a personal brand, in parallel and before your business brand. This will kick-start your business, and improve your odds of success.

So what does it mean to “brand yourself?” Branding yourself means making yourself visible, and communicating via all avenues your personal value and what your stand for, with total clarity and consistency. It’s especially important to highlight your uniqueness in some easy to remember way, so people will think of you and what you do, in case they need your product or service.

Then do the same to brand your company. Branding guru Catherine Kaputa, in her latest book “Breakthrough Branding” says that branding is all about building a recognizable identity, and associating it with benefits and positive consequences. She outlines some positioning strategies, with seven key drivers of brand growth:

1. Brand boldly – for your business and you. A common way to position your personal and business brand is to boldly “own” an attitude on a key attribute. Every product or service has specific attributes that are important to key customers, like integrity and trust, or customer focus. Craft a simple message to make that your identity.
2. Dominate the category (even if you have to create a new one). Small brands that break through to grow big find a “small” idea that fills a gaping hole – a need in the marketplace that wasn’t met before – and they keep filling that need better than anyone. If you dominate the market, competitor copycats will only amplify your positioning.
3. Figure out how to grow and scale the business. Businesses that scale have leverage and more rapid brand growth. Technology businesses can be very scalable because you can develop a core set of assets, such as software systems, and then you can monetize them at low additional cost. Build your business model on systems, not on people.
4. Enchant your customers. At the end of the day, you’re only as good as your customers who love and appreciate you. That’s why having a special customer relationship model that’s hard to copy can propel your business growth. According to Guy Kawasaki, enchanted customers elevate your brand, like advocating a good cause.
5. Put “growth agent” in everyone’s job description. Growth means change, and that doesn’t come naturally to most people. Keep everyone focused on one key objective and three measurable key results, so “business as usual” is not an option. Find people smarter than you in each aspect of the business, and hand if off as you scale.
6. Strike the right balance between innovation and staying true to the brand. Ignore innovation and your competitors will quickly pass you by. Too much innovation will confuse your customers, and drain your resources. To stay true to the brand, use open innovation, and see the power of involving customers in the process of innovating.
7. Take advantage of good luck and bad. Sometimes a sprinkling of good luck after bad, along with pluck, can propel your business idea into a breakthrough brand. The early startup period (“valley of death”) is your most vulnerable time but also your most opportunistic, because it is the time when you can create tremendous brand value.

As much as we might like entrepreneurship and branding to be a science, because it would be simpler that way, it is not. Being a brand entrepreneur, both for you personally as well as your business, requires learning, and is an ever-changing art without easy formulas.

An entrepreneur these days can’t afford to hide behind an impersonal website or hole up in the corner office. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, connect your customers to one another, and you, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you don’t take charge of your brand, someone else will – and they are not likely to brand you in the way you want to be branded. Do you want the impossible task of undoing a negative brand?

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Why You Need to Brand Yourself in Network Marketing

One of the most important tips I received as a new network marketer was that I needed to brand MYSELF and not my network marketing company. There are many reasons you need to be doing this but the most important reason to brand yourself is to build trust with your target market.

People do not join network marketing companies, they join people.

Would you buy anything from someone you do not know, like or trust? Of course not.

This is one of the main reasons people struggle in network marketing. They are too busy trying to promote their company’s brand (their products, compensation plan, leadership etc.) and not themselves.

This is not their fault. The moment they signed up with their network marketing company they were told by their leaders that the best way to build their business was to shout their company’s brand from the rooftops. The problem with this strategy is that this is what EVERYBODY is doing. When you do this too, it makes you look like an amateur and very few prospects will be interested in you.

Why Brand Yourself?

Everyday there are thousands of network marketers on the internet searching for tips and strategies to help grow their business. They are searching to see how others are having success so that they can copy them. If you have yourself branded on the internet, these people will eventually find you. When they see you as a leader or a network marketing expert they will want to work with you. Remember, people do not join companies, they join PEOPLE

How To Brand Yourself

To effectively brand yourself you need to become a leader. To become a leader you need to provide value to other people. To provide value, you need knowledge. To obtain knowledge you need to do research by reading articles, watching videos, attending webinars, etc.

When I was brand new in network marketing, I was quite the amateur. The important thing to remember here is that everyone is an amateur in the beginning. No one is immune. Everyone must put in the work to obtain the knowledge necessary for success in this industry.

As you acquire the knowledge you will be able to share it with others. You can do this by publishing articles for article directories, writing blog posts, recording YouTube videos etc. The more information you put on the internet, the more people will find it and in turn find YOU.

When you are branded all over the internet, people will see you as an authority figure, and building your business will become much easier.

I hope this tip on branding yourself provided some value for you. If you would like

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