FREE from PoLR…
Our social media guide has been updated for 2013 so if you’re unsure what Twitter’s all about, think Facebook is just for teens and don’t quite know what to do with Linkedin then this is the guide for you.
Reading the BBC site tonight I was interested to read about a Dr Sigman who today published a report stating that social networking could have a detrimental effect on a user’s health. The paper which is called Well Connected?: The Biological Implications of ‘Social Networking’ aims to show that the decline in face-to-face interaction could contribute to health issues such as stroke and dementia amongst others!
Given the sheer amount of time that the PoLR Team spend online and in particular, on social networking sites it looks like we could have a shorter lifespan than we initially expected (wonder who’ll be first!)
Anyway, much as we know his paper is not as cut and dried as saying Social Networking is bad, it’s still giving us some food for thought (and most importantly the basis of a blog post).
Speaking for myself alone, the amount of time I devote to Social Networking sites is huge and one quote from Dr Sigman’s paper that made me laugh is the one below:
Couples now spend less time in one another’s company and more time at work, commuting, or in
the same house but in separate rooms using different electronic media devices.
Quite a familiar scenario in our household and I have had my leg pulled more than once in the past for using MSN to ask my Fiance if he’s fancies a cuppa (he was in the next room – OK!).
Joking aside though, I have found Social Networking to be a great tool and far from reducing social interaction it has enabled me, through Facebook, to meet (face-to-face) with old friends. I have used LinkedIn and ecademy to meet business contacts and through Twitter and Forums to (in the very near future) attend conferences where we hope to make some new acquaintances! So for us, far from being anti-face-to-face it’s encouraging us to ‘get out there’.
Comments on today’s Twitter post on this very website threw up an interesting quote too:
Twitter has put me in touch of a whole new network of friends and professionals within my industry that I would never have come across…
Social Networking has been a great benefit to me both personally and to PoLR and we’re a pretty sociable bunch!
But, for now, I really must shoot, I’ve a Twitter update to do and some Facebook apps to play with before bed!
You may have noticed over the past few months that your social media accounts have been awash with mentions of Pinterest the hottest new thing in the world of social bookmarking. As I write this fittingly so Pinterest has just scooped the award at the Techcruch Crunchies for best start up of 2011. That’s right, start up; Pinterest only started in 2010 and has enjoyed a fantastic rate of growth over the past year with a reported 2000% increase in page views from November and in June 2010 had hit 421 million page views. Not bad for just under a years work!
Pinterest has amassed a phenomenal amount of traffic in the short time since it’s launch the important thing about those who use Pinterest is just that, they use it for it’s intended purpose. Fingers crossed it is spam free and full of quality, easily shareable content including back links to the site that it came from.
To describe Pinterest as social bookmarking doesn’t really do it justice I think, it’s much more, it’s a community of virtual pin boards, inspiration and sharing. Pinterest is your online scrapbook where you can organise and share anything that catches your eye as you browse the internet, images, recipes, infographics, products to name but a few. You see it, you like it, pin it onto a board you create, other users will come along and ‘repin’ sharing it to their followers.
How can I use it for my business?
You might be thinking that all sounds great for using it as a personal account and indulging my love of vintage tea cups but how can I use it to benefit my business?
Add a Pin It button to your website
Adding a Pin It widget to your blog or website is a great way to encourage users to share your content on Pinterest. Due to the huge amount of content added to Pinterest everyday the site will be crawled by Google frequently, driving traffic to your website. Things to be aware of when pinning your blog/website images to Pinterest is to always credit the images original owner if you sourced if you did not take or create it yourself.
How do you keep track of your images on Pinterest?
It’s is very simple to find out if your blog images have been pinned to Pinterest, all you have to do is enter the following URL (adding in your web address minus the www.)
http://pinterest.com/source/.your-url.co.uk
Create a Pinterest Brand Page
This is a fantastically easy way to establish your businesses’ presence on Pinterest. Create a Pinterest profile and use your company logo as you profile picture. Make the most of your Pinterest profile, take time over your biography and remember to put in your website or blog address! Then you can set to work creating some brand boards; pin your new or best selling products, your company graphics or anything that you feel would be suitable to share and will catch the attention of other users to encourage them to repin and share your content and link!
Another brilliant tip for your branded Pinterest board is to consider what people would search for on Pinterest or the keywords you optimise for and name your boards accordingly.
Get Pinning – Participate
As with all social media channels one of the keys to success is to participate in the community don’t just use it to push all of your own content, repin and network with other users. If you repin and connect with other Pinterest users the likelihood is that you will in turn attract other users to your content and they will hopefully share it on further.
I hope that this post has better introduced you to Pinterest and some of it’s brilliant features and uses. Pinterest is definitely one to watch as it is going to grow from strength to strength and I would recommend getting your business involved and keep your eye out for Pinterest in you traffic referrals in Analytics!
Excuse the title but this storm has honestly been christened #hurricanebawbag as the result of a rather imaginative Scottish public. Humour in the face of adversity and all that? As I sit here writing this blog post I do have to admit that I am slightly terrified the wind and now rain is battering off of my living room an kitchen windows. There is also an electricity box outside that looks on the edge of losing it’s roof, I’m now at the stage of just hoping it’s be over soon and hurricane bawbag blows over.
(I have to also say it is making me chuckle seeing my spell check angrily underlining the word bawbag in red…yes it thinks I mean ‘bean bag’.)
There is a point to this blog post although it is nice to have a little friendly conversation once in a while isn’t it? The whole hurricane bawbag moniker came to Lynne’s attention via Twitter. Twitter is the place to search for and communicate information to a wide audience, especially information that is likely to change.
On the part of the communicator it is quick and easy to release a 140 character update to all of your followers in seconds and to also quickly respond to resultant queries. On my behalf or for instance today those who commute to work it’s a brilliant place to receive and search for information. I also think Twitter is good in such situations because you know that there is someone behind the twitter account that is hopefully in the know. More so even perhaps than the local news/radio stations as I think they too glean a lot of information from Twitter.
In the PoLR office today we used Twitter to follow what was happening with the storm, to also have a little chuckle at the unique choice of hurricane name and to keep up to date with the travel situation. First Bus, Scotrail, Subway (transport not food), Councils and many other transport/service providers took to Twitter today to keep their customers up to date.
I often find myself using Twitter in this capacity and it shows how the immediacy of it is now taking over or taking on some part of the traditional communicative channels e.g. news and radio. As it happens those of us who had a slightly longer commute decided to carry on the days work from home and try and shelter form ‘el Niño bawbag’.
In what way do you use Twitter most? Did you use it to keep up to date with the movements of hurricane bawbag?
