All posts by Pierre

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How to Make Images Stand Out on Pinterest [INFOGRAPHIC]

Do you want your Pinterest images to stand out and get repinned? With more than 12 million users posting pictures to the image-based social network, it’s important to make sure images grab the attention of fellow Pinterest users. A properly optimized pin can make all the difference between 50 repins or no repins.

This infographic from Pinnable Business gives you information to optimize every pin you post — it includes best practices for sizing, linking, sharing and repinning.

Give these tips a try and let us know if they make a difference on your Pinterest boards.

via How to Make Images Stand Out on Pinterest [INFOGRAPHIC].

As seen on the web

New Online Timeline Tool Available For Everyone

Following in the footsteps of Storify, a new free, open-source online timeline tool is innovating storytelling on the web.

Timeline, created by Zach Wise, a multimedia journalist and journalism professor, was developed in partnership with the Knight News Innovation Lab at Northwestern University, where Wise teaches. The interactive tool allows users to generate timelines on the web by curating content from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, Google Maps and SoundCloud.

via New Online Timeline Tool Available For Everyone.

measurment

Beyond Likes: How Google and Adobe Aim to Measure Your True Social ROI

Over the past month, Google and Adobe have attempted to answer that question. Both companies have released tools that let marketers track their marketing spending through social media. Such data aims to provide some concrete ROI behind the touchy-feely world of Likes, retweets and +1s — data that, on its own, amount to what Phil Mui, group product manager for Google Analytics, dubs “vanity metrics.”

via Beyond Likes: How Google and Adobe Aim to Measure Your True Social ROI.

community management

10 Ways to Humanize Your Brand on Social Media

Marketers are suckers for a catch phrase, from “join the conversation” to “think like a publisher.” Now, thanks largely to Facebook Timeline for brand pages, the new marketing slogan has quickly become, “humanize the brand.”

Humanizing a brand simply means trying to interact with each customer on a personal level. But for a company to implement that style, there needs to be a shift in how it responds to customers, particularly via social media. Here are 10 ways to get started.

via 10 Ways to Humanize Your Brand on Social Media.

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6 Ways to Acquire New Customers via Social Media

Different brands have different challenges when it comes to customer acquisition: “If you’re our customer, you’ve signed up for a year-long service, unlike the Starbucks of the world, where you can be a customer by coming in for a cup of coffee one day,” says Lisa D’Aromando, social media community manager at Equinox. Whether you’re a clothing shop, a restaurant or a subscription service, you must tailor your strategy so that it makes sense for your brand. That said, there are a few universal ways to help your company attract new faces on the social web.

via 6 Ways to Acquire New Customers via Social Media.

Reading

Will Sound Ever Be More Popular Than Web Video?

There’s no denying that the Internet is already a very social place, but it’s positioning itself to speak up even more in the next few years.

According Alexander Ljung, the co-founder of Berlin-based Soundcloud — a social platform that allows users to create and share their originally created sounds online — the Internet is readying itself to become a much more audible medium.

“In time, sound could become even bigger than video on the Internet,” Ljung told Mashable. “It’s bizarre that the web is virtually silent, and we want to unmute it.”

via Will Sound Ever Be More Popular Than Web Video?.

community management

Are Brands Ignoring Facebook’s Interactive Potential? – eMarketer

While brands are reaching more and more consumers via their Facebook pages, companies are not realizing the full potential of engaging and interacting with these brand fans.

In December 2011, consulting firm A.T. Kearney analyzed the conversations happening on Facebook between 50 of the world’s top brands and their fans, comparing their interactions to those in December 2010.

The study found that in 2011, 94% of the 50 top brands’ Facebook pages directed users to a one-way communication page, such as a tab or a closed Facebook wall that didn’t allow consumers to initiate a conversation. This was up from 91% of the top 50 brands’ pages in 2010. Additionally, 56% of those brands did not respond to a single customer comment on their Facebook page in 2011; the same percentage of nonresponses as in 2010.

via Are Brands Ignoring Facebook’s Interactive Potential? – eMarketer.

Reading

Hispanics More Active on Social Media than Other Ethnicities – eMarketer

US Hispanics are more active on social media than the average US internet user, and are logging in more frequently to a wider variety of social sites.

The February 2012 “American Pulse Survey” from BIGinsight of US adult internet usage found that, while greater percentages of black internet users spent larger blocks of time online than the other groups studied, Hispanic internet users spent more of their online time on social media sites.

via Hispanics More Active on Social Media than Other Ethnicities – eMarketer.

trends

What Marketers Should Know About Brand Advocates – eMarketer

Brand advocates are consumers who actively promote the brands, products and services they love and provide marketers with a volunteer army of supporters who disseminate recommendations to friends and family.

Social media influencer and advocacy company Zuberance found, in a January 2012 study, that US internet users are making more recommendations than ever before, across a variety of industries. On average, the US internet users studied by Zuberance made 9 recommendations per year.

via What Marketers Should Know About Brand Advocates – eMarketer.

Facebook

Facebook’s US User Growth Slows but Twitter Sees Double-Digit Gains – eMarketer

As recently as 2010, growth in US Facebook usage was well into the double digits, at 38.6%, eMarketer estimates. But with 116.8 million US internet users already logging on to the site at least once monthly that year, growth rates were bound to plateau.By 2011 Facebook user growth rose a comparatively small 13.4%, and this year will be the first when growth rates drop to the single digits. Rates of change in the US will continue to decline throughout eMarketer’s forecast period.

via Facebook’s US User Growth Slows but Twitter Sees Double-Digit Gains – eMarketer.