Top Tips: Getting the most out of Pinterest

I love Pinterest. It is so my favourite social media tool. Lots of lovely style inspiration and an ability to curate all the things I'm interested in at the moment. If you haven't caught the Pinterest bug yet, why not try these top tips to help you pinning journey?

Install the Pinterest bookmarklet

Pinterest want to make it as easy as possible for you to pin great content to your account. The best way of doing this is to install the bookmarklet. You can get the Pinterest bookmarklet here. Good ole Pinterest shows you how to install this bit of technology and once you have, you won’t stop pinning. As Pinterest is still in beta (the testing) stage, you might find this bookmarklet a bit buggy but it’s an easy way to add things to your mood boards and when things are easy, you’re more likely to update them.

Add another pinner

Did you know you let another pinner have access to certain boards? This is a great thing to do if you’re preparing a wedding mood board (add your groom) or perhaps part of a craft group (add your fellow crafters). It makes it feel even more of a community thing when you’re actually pinning with a real friend or colleague.

Hashtag it!

Who used the humble hashtag before the birth of social media? Just like Twitter, adding a hashtag to your pin categorises it and by clicking on the hashtag, you can discover similar pins. It’s a great way for people to find something of niche interest for them. Never underestimate the power of the #!

Follow Pinterest etiquette

Each social media medium has it’s own house rules. It’s a bit like being a guest at a friend’s house. Follow the rules and no-one will kick you out!

1. Give credit where credit is due
Do you know who the photographer is? Or the name of the website/blog were you found the image? If so, quote them in your text.

2. Be original
Make sure you pin the original source image. Don’t use images from Google as Google don’t own them.

3. Keep it short, sweet and original

Don’t copy all the text associated with the image. It’s a bit naughty, but more than I find it boring. I want to know why the pinners I follow like something – not what the original website said.

Space them out
Some people don’t visit Pinterest for a while and then do about 50 pins in one go. Stop right there! You’re overloading your followers. Space your pins out and add things on a regular basis, encouraging people to come back and see your new pins.

Six degrees of separation

I was on a photoshoot with legendary TV duo Richard and Judy (name drop!) yesterday and due to some strange co-incidences realised that we are all only a short step away from everyone. It turned out that two of the other participants in said photoshoot actually worked at the same place (at a different time) and had the same manager. Bearing in mind we were all picked randomly to be at the shoot, it was really quite freaky!

So I was interested to take part in a social media experiment being run by Yahoo! In their Small World Experiment they are hoping to find how closely connected we are by using the ultimate social tool, Facebook. As the blurb says "The Small World Experiment is designed to test the hypothesis that anyone in the world can get a message to anyone else in just "six degrees of separation" by passing it from friend to friend. Now, using Facebook we finally have the technology to put the hypothesis to a proper scientific test."

I immediately signed up and was given my person to track down via Facebook. The idea is you are located a random person and then through your contacts you have to try and connect with them in six steps.

I was all excited until I was told to locate Seunghee Jung from Korea... WTF?! I don't know anyone who lives there or has contacts there. It gets even more difficult as you can only choose one Facebook contact to carry on the chain, so the success of your hunt depends on whether they want to participate in this piece of detective work or if they have something better to do.

I've now also signed up to be a target (I hope it doesn't literally mean someone is going to take a hit out on me?!) so it will be interesting to see if I get found. Ooo, it's just like playing Peekaboo with my little boy...

Let me know if you've signed up and whether you've managed to track down your target. I can't wait to see the results. In the meantime, I'm off to find another target - perhaps I'll get Kevin Bacon this time?

Facebook launches new privacy settings... again!

Is it just me or does it seem that Facebook like to change their privacy controls every so often. The cynical part of me thinks it makes good publicity, but the other part likes to think they really have listened to their users and given them what they want.

This time, the main change is centred around tagging. From now on, if you tag someone in a post or a photo, they will have to approve the said tag. Apparently users have asked for more control over this and I can see their point. While it's fine to be tagged in a photo looking OK (like the one below), it's another thing to be tagged in a photo with your knickers on show while you puke in a bush - especially if your boss is one of your friends on Facebook!

Insiders say this move, along with more other more transparent privacy controls of limiting who can see individual posts and images, was probably brought on by the fast-growing service by Google +.

So has Facebook lost it's edge? Is it now going to be playing catch-up with Google +? We'll see how this social media showdown plays out - who knows maybe the next big Oscar movie will be have Google in the title?

The Ten Social Media Commandments

I’ve been working online for the past 11 years (yes, I really can’t believe it either) and active within social media for work and fun for the last 4 years, so I thought I’d share some of my learnings along the way. First up, The Ten Social Media Commandments...

1. Thou shalt find the right social media network
Different social media platforms suit different customers. I’ve worked with brands who a presence across all social media however, you need to tailor campaigns to suit the audience. Plus, social media, even though it’s pretty cheap to run, is resource heavy so it’s better to participate fully in a couple of platforms, rather than across the board.

2. Thou shalt listen
Monitor what people are saying about you and /or your brand. Whether it’s Google Alerts or searches on Twitter and Facebook, ensure you know what people out there are saying about your brand. If it’s good, great, if it’s bad, listen and see what you could change.

3. Thou shalt engage
Social media is a two way conversation – if people are talking to you, you need to respond in a timely manner, otherwise they’ll think you’re ignoring them. This goes for Facebook, Twitter and for comments on blogs or your You Tube videos. You don’t want to be rude after all!

4. Thou shalt promote
Don’t expect people to just stumble upon your social media offering – promote elsewhere online and offline.

5. Thou shalt update regularly
Social media is 24/7 so if you only update once a week, you’ll lose that engagement. This will mean updating out of office hours and having some strategy in place to deal with comments outside of the 9-5. Social media never sleeps. The thing that annoys me about some brands who have Facebook/Twitter pages is that on Friday afternoon, they say ‘bye, have a nice weekend’ but the social media user is probably more active at weekends and evenings due to a lot of offices banning social media sites.

6. Thou shalt recruit advocates
Make friends with users, get talking to bloggers – these people can spread the word. Invite key tweeters to events, give bloggers an exclusive – make them your friend and they will reward you with a positive response. 

Savvy fashion houses understand this well – Burberry for example invited bloggers to their Autumn/Winter show earlier last year. They weren’t necessarily the most glamorous blogs, but they were influential and well read. It gave them lots of free positive publicity.

7. Thou shalt not ignore negative criticism
Deal with it quickly and without attitude. Sometimes the criticism can actually be useful and help you fine tune your customer service or whatever your particular brand offering is.

8. Thou shalt be active within social media
The more you participate in it, the more you’ll understand it. I’m always surprised when people who update social media profiles for businesses, don’t participate personally! How can you understand the mediums unless you use them regularly? 

9. Thou shalt create engaging content
Give people a reason to visit you social media offering. Create bespoke video and run it on You Tube and Facebook, create exciting interactive competitions. They don’t have to be fancy, sometimes the simple things work best.  I once ran a tagging competition on some photos uploaded for an event – we had over 25,000 tags in just 2 days. Simple, but effective.

10. Thou shalt admit their mistakes
It’s OK to muck up, as long as you admit to them and apologise – I’ve found that consumers of social media are very forgiving people! Hold your hands up, apologise and move on – and always apologise publicly. People are a lot more forgiving when you admit to your mistakes rather than deny any wrongdoing.

Any more social media tips? Share them in the comment box below!