The Benefit of Using Triberr for Your Blog

Every day, thousands upon thousands of interesting, creative, and newsworthy stories are written by bloggers from around the world. But with so much content circulating in the blogosphere, often times those wonderful stories get buried in the archives, ceasing to reach the great potential they’re capable of achieving.

Fortunately, there’s a social networking secret weapon that can help you take your blogging power to all new heights: Triberr. (more…)

Pinterest Etiquette: 5 Things Brands Should Never Do

Pinterest is one of my favorite social media platforms for retail businesses because it offers an excellent medium for them to market their brand in an aesthetically pleasing way. Not to mention, it’s a whole lot of fun.

However, the number of brands that pin and populate boards without putting a strategy in place has become rather painful to witness.

As much as we all love drooling over “Yummy Recipes” or repinning pics of cute, cuddly critters all day long, let’s face it: that’s not going to get your brand any feasible recognition. In fact, brands should take due diligence to make sure they’re always pinning properly and following the right etiquette.

With that being said, I’m here to give you 5 quick tips to help you improve your Pinterest marketing strategy so you don’t wind up looking like a total social media noob.

#1: Don’t Use Default Board Titles

One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing businesses that don’t take the time to come up with unique names for their boards. Picking one of the defaults like “Food” or “My Style” looks incredibly lazy. Not to mention, it’s not going to make a consumer want to engage with your brand.

One of my favorite examples of creativity comes from Whole Foods.

Aside from my major affinity with cheese, I absolutely love this board because it’s so fun and clever. They could have taken the easy route and simply named the board “Cheese,” but how would that have set them apart from any other grocery store chain?

Moral of the story: Before you rush to throw up a mess of random boards, take the time to get creative. If you come up with something fresh and fun that your consumers can relate to, you’re guaranteed to keep their interest.

#2: Don’t Have a Hodgepodge of Illogical Categories  

Unorganized, chaotic boards that have zero relation to a brand are stressful. Being that Branding Personality is a marketing agency, we would look pretty silly having Pinterest boards labeled “Good Eats” or “Wedding Inspiration,” wouldn’t we? Sure, it would be fun, but it doesn’t relate to our brand strategy in any way whatsoever.

As with all marketing endeavors, you want to make sure your marketing strategy is cohesive across all channels. Never confuse your audience with the irrelevant. Offer them valuable content that is compatible with your brand and they will be much more encouraged to repin.

#3: Don’t Leave the Descriptions Blank

Imagine putting a visual on Facebook or Twitter and not including a description with it. It would look ridiculous and rather insufficient, wouldn’t it? Well, the same etiquette goes for Pinterest.

Pinners want to know exactly what it is they are looking at. Otherwise you chance losing their attention. Your descriptions don’t have to be a mini novel (in fact, you shouldn’t do that because it comes across as spammy), but you should always take the time to write out a short, informative description that encourage Pinterest users to click on the address of the pin.

#4: Don’t Go Pin Crazy

Trust me, I of all people know how fun (and extremely addicting) Pinterest can be. But that doesn’t mean you have to take it to the extreme. In fact, it’s counterproductive for your brand.

How would a pinner expect to know what content is truly important to you if you’re overloading their feed with a gazillion images every hour, on the hour? Even if the content were super awesome (and by awesome I mean a half-naked-Ryan-Gosling-riding-into-the-sunset-on-a-real-life-unicorn-awesome) no one would want to be bombarded with something over and over and over. Space it out and give people time to absorb information before you pin something new.

#5: Don’t Be a Bore

I think we can all agree that Pinterest is a place to have fun. Yet, it surprises me how often I come across brands that completely forget this absolutely crucial factor.

One brand that I absolutely love on Pinterest is Random House, Inc. Not only do they have a whopping 1.4 million followers, they also know how to create a wealth of fantastic content to keep those followers entertained. From Bookish Nooks to Novel Nail Art, their content is extremely creative and unique. Not to mention, they take the entire book literary experience to fun, new heights.

If you’re still feeling overwhelmed about getting started with your Pinterest marketing strategy, we’re here to help! If you have any questions, comment below or send us an email. We’d love to propel your brand forward and help you reach your social media marketing goals for 2014.

The Social Media Championship: How NFL Teams Stack Up

Super Bowl XLVIII is only a few short weeks away and I couldn’t be more excited. And it’s not only because I’m a major football fanatic (#GoBroncos), but also because it’s one of the biggest social media events of the year.

Real-time marketing has become an absolute necessity not only around the Super Bowl, but the entirety of the NFL season. In recent years, teams and players have caught on to the importance of social media, harnessing its power to dig deep and capture the emotions of their fans and consistently engage with them all year long.

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Why You Can No Longer Ignore Google+

I recently read an article on why you can no longer ignore Google+ and I think it’s well worth sharing some important points. The discussion around whether Google+ can be ignored has caused some heated arguments and people have differing opinions on the validity of this particular social media platform, and whether it is really necessary to be on it. So let’s discuss this from a marketing standpoint and let’s see what your opinion is. (more…)

5 Reasons to Use Pinterest for Your Business

Since the beginning of 2012, Pinterest has gained a large following of users and continues to grow every month. It has been used to share images across the Internet for a variety of reasons from entertainment value to advertising campaigns. Millions of users frequent the website on a regular basis looking for images that peak their interest so that they may “repin” those images to share with their own followers. With more than 25 million unique visitors, Pinterest can be a great method to generate interest in your business practices. Here are 5 reasons to use Pinterest for your business. (more…)

Why You Should Engage with Google + Communities

While you are sitting at your desk, pondering the ways to break into social media so you can make that conversational mark for your business or company, you should think of  Google + Communities, Robert Frost, and his famous poem, The Road Not Taken. Maybe you first saw the poem in an English classroom in high school, or on some motivational poster that was hanging like a beacon of hope for all to see; and just maybe you remember the last few lines, the ones that strike home, the ones you won’t be quizzed on but should write down in your journal for rainy-day reflection: (more…)

How to get others to buy into what you believe #tosellishuman

I read Dan Pink’s books Free-Agent Nation and a Whole New Mind and became a fan of his work. Dan Pink’s books have been bestsellers, so when I found out he had a new book coming out: “To Sell is Human”, I immediately pre-ordered his book on Amazon. Then Dan Pink announced in his newsletter that he was looking for members for his launch team, I put my application in right away and I got accepted! I’m so excited! (more…)

OH CANADA! How our neighbors to the north feel about Social Media!

Looking to expand your business “near shore”? Canada is a great market to start. Our neighbors to the North are more like us Americans then many think. Here’s the run down – InternetWorldStats.com estimated Canada’s total population in 2011 at 34,030,589 million and about 79% of those Canadians are Internet users (26,960,000 million internet users). Canada’s high online activity, cultural similarities to the U.S., and close location make it a great market for your business to connect with Canadian consumers, but that’s just it. A recent report by Edelman.ca shows us that although trust in social media has increased in Canada, it is still low. Companies should use Social Media as a way to bring Canadians together around a common interest and not a channel to implement traditional marketing campaigns. (more…)

The Rise of Facebook in the “BRIC” Nations

Until recently, Facebook has been in the shadows of other social media sites within the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations. Brazil and India favored Orkut. While Russia has Vkontakte and China has Weibo, Qzone, and Youku. With world dominance in every other international market, Facebook is slowly taking over each major market – one by one. (more…)

How To Increase Your Twitter Followers

Increase Your Twitter Followers

Alongside Facebook, Twitter is the largest, most impactful of the social networking sites that are slowly taking over the world. Whether you are a private user or a business service, Twitter has become an essential platform for speaking your mind and making yourself heard. But finding people to follow you is not always an easy task. Luckily, there are a couple of ways in which you can make sure that your tweets reach a bigger audience. You need to keep your tweets: (more…)