Social Media Snapshot: Pinterest for Business

According to Pinterest.com...."Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes." Users share visual images from the web by "pinning" them on to a series of virtual PinBoards.

It's All About Visual Connections!

So How to Get Started?
FIRST: Our first suggestion is to RESEARCH what your ideal client is pinning. Search the keywords and categories on the Pinterest Dashboard. Create your business boards with your ideal client in mind.
* Provide answers to their questions
* Feed their inspirations.
* Solve their problems.

SECOND: Setup your first boards by choosing topics or categories that reflect your business values, culture, interests, products and services. Tip: Be creative with your board names!

THIRD: Pin ethically. Read the fine print and pay attention to copyrights. When re-pinning, check to see if the pin is linked to a legitimate website. If it hasn't report it or leave a comment suggesting for the original pinner to update the source.

We Suggest a Watermark...
When pinning original content to Pinterest - we suggest you add a watermark of your logo or website to the image to preserve integrity. This way, the image will always stay connected to your website and continuously promote your brand.

Add Prices & Links when Appropriate...
If you are pinning images of your products, add the price into your pin description. Pinterest will add a price banner automatically! You can also add live links to your descriptions which will continue to add brand identity to your pins.

Follow & Engage!
Start pinning across a range of boards but also spend some time following and engaging with other users and boards. By doing so and repinning their content, you will gradually build your own community.

Watch what others are doing...
Again, Pinterest is a very new social platform but there are some brands that are already doing very well. Search around and see what others are doing and how users are responding. Brands like Oprah, McDonalds and Mashable are going strong.

Plan and Execute
Create a plan what and when you want to pin and then track how things go. You may have to try several strategies to find the one that works best for your brand. Click here to read 6 Pinterest Tips from Power Users from Mashable.

Conclusion
Be prepared for learning and change when it comes to Pinterest. It's such a new social media platform that we guarantee you - they're not even close to offering services that they will offer 6 months from now. Be willing to spend the time doing research and creating original content and be prepared to learn something new everyday. It just got Pinterest-ing!

Facebook Page Admins - New Roles

Facebook is an ever-changing forum of capabilities for business owners. In a interesting twist of events, admins of Facebook business pages now have tiers with different capabilities for each role. There are five different types of admin roles: Manager, Content Creator, Moderator, Advertiser, and Insights Analyst. Having the option of these different roles and responsibilities can be great tool for you, as an admin, and for your business page. Instead of all admins having the SAME options to create content, remove and invite other admins, and change Page settings - admins can split up the responsibilities. Think of the possibilities – different tasks for different roles.

Managers have the widest range of capabilities for the business page. Not only can they edit and create posts, but they can manage the Business Page’s admins, create ads, edit applications, and view the Business Page’s insights. It’s the most powerful tier of the five apps. All admins will begin as managers untilyou assign a different role.

Content Creators have all the functionalities of the Manager, except for being able to manage admin roles. Content Creators can post as the Page, respond to comments, and view insights.

Moderators are great for managing the business Page’s fan base by responding to Page comments, likes, and messages. Community managers can devote their precious time to interacting with what really drives a Page: its fan base. Interacting with a fan base is key and lending a personal touch to your posts in the form of responses to fans is invaluable in creating your brand as one that fans can really interact with.

Advertisers can create ads which will in turn drive fans to your business Page and hopefully become fans – perfect for a brand’s marketing team.

Insights Analysts are limited to viewing the business Page’s insights and interactions with fans. It’s ideal for someone who needs to learn the ins and outs of FB, such as an intern or a social media volunteer. It can be overwhelming to get thrown into FB’s admin panel, so let’s slowly wade in.

Facebook’s new admin roles allow admins to divide and conquer when it comes to managing the diverse elements of your Facebook Business Page.