For those who are unfamiliar with the fledgling community, Pinterest is a effective marriage of social bookmarking and visual curation with an extremely fervent user base.

Essentially, people create a series of pinboards for areas of interest where they pin relevant snapshots with commentary to serve as both a reminder for later reference and also as a tour guide for visitors to learn more about each object.

Many consumer brands are also experimenting with Pinterest, using pinboards to present complementary products, ideas, and imagery to inspire consumers to visualize and remix new possibilities. From fashion to interior design and home to retail to entertainment, brands are using Pinterest to thoughtfully assemble a curated lifestyle. And, they’re packaged for the social and mobile web and optimized for driving actions as part Facebook’s new frictionless sharing ecosystem.

Some initial brands to watch include:

- Whole Foods
- Martha Stewart
- Better Homes and Garden
- Real Simple
- west elm
- Bergdorf Goodman
- Today Show
- Travel Channel
- HGTV
- Nordstrom
- Gap
- Birchbox
- AMD

In addition to soaring traffic, Pinterest is also rising as a bona fide referrer of notable Web traffic. According to a new report published by Shareabholic, Pinterest drove greater traffic than LinkedIn, Google Plus, Reddit, and Youtube…combined. Additionally, Pinterest was just .01% shy of tying Twitter for the 4th spot and .02% behind Google, which currently sits in 3rd place.

It should be noted, that Facebook is clearly the dominant player here, accounting for 26.4% of all referring traffic with StumbleUpon sitting far behind, but firmly in second position.

No report can be fully appreciated at face value. The data as packaged is extremely flattering. Shareaholic based its findings on the aggregated data from over 200,000 publishers that reach 260 million + unique monthly visitors. Publishers using Shareaholic are not reflective of worldwide internet web trends or everyday activity, but they do provide a relevant snapshot of the digital lifestyle within the social web.

What’s most remarkable is that Pinterest is still an invitation-only network. This of course lends to its desirability and mystique. Certainly, as anticipation builds coupled with creative and compelling use cases that continue to emerge, Pinterest shows only signs of remaining #pinteresting and relevant to visualized + curated storytelling and driving meaningful clicks for some time to come.

So what are your thoughts? What do you love about Pinterest? Are you a brand finding success or looking for guidance? Share your stories, experiences and questions below…

Brian Solis

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest

Permission Marketing puts the power in the consumer’s hands, by requiring that the marketers send promotional messages only to consumers who have given marketers permission to do so, whether explicitly (opt-in email list, for example) or implicitly (internet search).

On one hand this is fantastic because it gives marketers a chance to provide relevant information to interested parties, but on the other hand, brands need to pay all kinds of attention to how they’re using Permission Marketing, because the consumer can pull their interest plug in a heartbeat.

So how can we keep consumers from “opting out” of our brand messages?

It’s only fitting that part of the answer comes from Seth Godin’s definition of Permission Marketing:

“Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.”

1.     Permission is a privilege, not a right.

Consumers do not owe us their attention, and they certainly do not owe us their permission.  We need to EARN their permission, and that’s not done by a gimmick or a flashy set of ads.

Permission is earned through quality offers, genuine interest in and deep understanding of consumer preferences/needs, and a consistent track record that builds trust.  Keep the trust à keep the permission à keep the consumer.

2.     Relevance is king.  

We all hear daily that content is king – so let’s take that one level further and point out that it’s not just the volume or brilliance of content that matters to your consumers, it is how that content relates to them.  If content is not relevant to your consumer, it is nothing more than a waste of your time and a reason for the consumer to take away permission for ongoing interaction with you.

3. It’s all about relationships.

People must come first – in your growth strategies, in your marketing plans, and in every social media interaction that you have.  When you place highest priority on people, you take the time to do all those hugely important things that build relationships:

• You operate from a mindset of SERVICE
• You think about what you can GIVE TO your consumers, rather than take from them.
• You ask them questions, listen to and clarify their answers, and get to know their pain points and what delights them.
• You base your innovations on what CONSUMERS actually need and want.

And the result?  You get and keep your consumers’ permission to continue and build your relationship with them.   In other words, permission is your ROR (Return on Relationship™).

As you head into 2012, remember that Permission Marketing is a two-way street, and the traffic signals are controlled by consumers.  Be their Green Light… not their stop sign!

Ted Rubin

Originally posted at CollectiveBias.com

Every brand manager and product manager in the world wants more loyal customers, right? Well if they can master the art of one-simple 6-letter word they would be well on their way to achieving their goals.

This seemingly innocuous or harmless word can be very harmful and quite damaging to a brand’s long term success if not done properly and consistently.The word is “engage” or “engagement” if you prefer. No matter what you call it interacting and engaging with your customers and prospects is the key to establishing, fostering and maintaining brand loyalty. However as know from a recent post, Engagement Is The Most Important Digital Challenge For Marketers… “According to a recent McKinsey quarterly report, having the ability to engage their customers and leverage those relationships is the number one digitally-related challenge facing marketers today.”

In its findings from a recent report, the Top 12 Customer Loyalty Trends for 2012 - Loyalty 360, the loyalty marketer’s association made it perfectly clear that brand managers and product managers and all digital marketers better meet that challenge head on.

“Customer engagement is the journey, loyalty is the destination. Loyalty is a much bigger, broader, richer and growing ever more complex idea than it has been in the past. Loyalty is no longer about points, discounts, miles, rewards; it is about the way the processes, technologies, ideas, interactions engage an individual with the brand. The only way to achieve loyalty is through deeper engagement.”

That last line is very powerful indeed if for no other reason the use of the word “only.”

More from their report:

• Marketers are being distracted by daily deal sites and need to refocus and get their eyes on the ultimate prize. “While daily deals like Groupon, LivingSocial are generating lots of buzz, marketers are realizing that these price-based technologies have taken their focus away from the real prize: customer loyalty.”
• The issue of Big Data is all-too real and knowing how to use it effectively. ”Study after study is showing that marketers are struggling with mining this data and analyzing it in order to derive valuable insights and actionable intelligence from it.”
• Marketers will seek out brand ambassadors. ”Social personalization will increase. Marketers will harness the power of recommendations and referrals to persuade customers and prospects to follow their friends’ leads. They will become more proactive in encouraging reviews, implementing refer-a-friend programs, etc.”

These are just some of the loyalty trends Loyalty 360 identified and you can read the full report here.

It is clear, now more than ever, that engaging your customers and your prospects in a deep and meaningful way is paramount to any company’s success. Consumers want to engage their favorite brands, they want to know you are listening, they want dialogue, two-way conversations.

How do engage your customers now?

What other ways can you engage them?

As a consumer, which we all are at the end of the day, how do you want your favorite brands to engage with you?

Steve Olenski

Sources: Loyalty 360, Google Images, Star Group

Steve Olenski is the Creative Director of Digital Services for Star Group, a marketing communications firm dedicated to driving engagement with B2B and B2C brands operating in today’s hyper-competitive, rapidly evolving digital marketplace.

In my mind, this was the art of communication!

Today, thanks to social media, every one of us has easy access to a “microphone.”  Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, YouTube, Google + — these new media make broadcasting a message as easy as hitting the ENTER key.  Every few days the blogosphere grows exponentially as thousands of words slip from the confines of an imagination onto the broad expanse of the information super highway.

Untold creative genius is invested in producing and delivering messages — in everything from 140 characters to blog posts — from podcasts to YouTube videos.  Any one can be an “announcer” in any of a growing number of channels.

At this point it is important to note that sheer numbers (followers, fans, friends, views) indicate that many of these messages are entertaining; some even provocative or compelling.  But one can’t help wondering whether much of this is infatuation with the proverbial announcer’s voice; or, to be more pointed, is social media marketing in danger of being more about creating, crafting and delivering a message than it is about connecting, communicating and ultimately selling?

Blanket pronouncements like this are, of course, unfair; and creativity will almost always find a target.  But a cautionary note seems appropriate for all of us who believe in the value inherent in social media.  The thing that makes social different from most, if not all other media is the fact that dialogue is a critical cornerstone.  This is not just about the capacity for give-and-take; conventional broadcast and print have the capacity via letters to the editor and other feedback mechanisms.  The distinction is that give-and-take — conversation – is a basic ingredient in the foundation of social media.

In fact, it is the voice of the marketplace that is the fabric of social media.  Any who would succeed long-term in social media marketing cannot ignore this fact.  To do so — no matter how masterful the message — is to relegate social media to little more than another one-way message distribution channel.

Successful social media marketers listen, instigate dialogue, and focus at least as much on conversation (and what can be learned) as on a pitch or presentation.  Probably more.

Put another way — the reason social media is such a robust marketing tool is that it provides for — indeed, at its best, it becomes — a shared experience.  And it is within the comfort of shared experiences that real connection is made and communication occurs.

In retrospect, this was the dynamic at work when, as a teenager, I listened to those announcers.  Resonant voices and production quality aside, the radio experience was, simultaneously, intensely personal and shared.  Social media affords a dimension that makes it possible to couch every marketing effort in the context of shared experiences.  Perhaps the most difficult part of the job is being less concerned with announcing and more focused on dialogue.

Master this, and any questions of ROI will likely disappear.

Eric Fletcher

Every social complaint or question is the “low hanging fruit” of a brand’s chance to interact with consumers.  But it’s not just ANY chance – it’s a chance to interact when you have the consumers full attention “and” PUBLICLY, to engage in a way that can, and often will, catch the attention of an entire audience. These kinds of comments are visible, relevant and actionable, and brands need to have a plan to engage.

Unfortunately many brands are ignoring or simply not taking full advantage of this opportunity and falling into one of the biggest social media mistakes… Not Being Social.

Makes me think of the old adage “if a tree falls in the forest…” except here the problem is that people are hearing the tree fall but no one is responding (or even aware)!  Consumers are speaking their mind, asking for answers or information, and they won’t wait long for you to pay attention before going elsewhere. The effects of this negligence can be detrimental to the brand at best.

Brands and retailers need to recognize this fundamental shift in consumer expectations – the expectation that their comments/tweets/posts will be noticed, acknowledged, and addressed.

I admit it is a challenge to see the “raised hands” of the tough-to-track Google searches, but let’s not use that as an excuse to not try!  Use this an incentive to get to know your consumers better by building relationships with them BEFORE they “raise their hands” in a Google search… so your brand will be a step ahead as the answer consumers will select first in a list of Google search results.

A raised hand is a request for attention, which, last time I looked, was exactly what we marketers want.  Start calling on your consumers who raise their hands before it is too late.

Ted Rubin

Originally posted at TedRubin.com

A significant event for me in 2011 awakened fresh clarity in my business. My father died in May, at the age of 90, and as our entire family surrounded his hospital bed, I was struck by the preciousness of time. It’s the ultimate non-renewable resource.

I spend a fair amount of time reading and working with clients in the energy industry—energy services, renewables, and LEED. One of my sons works in the lumber industry—renewables. Timber is harvested and new trees are planted. Unlike the email sign-offs that tell the recipient, “Save a tree, don’t print this,” trees are renewable. Time is not. America is spending billions on discovering the next best affordable and renewable energy resource. And we’ll find it. But we won’t find more time.

Holding my father’s hand, I recalled the time he spent with us four children, the time he spent with his grandchildren, the hikes, the beach trips, the hymns he sang, the letters he wrote to our boys while they were at church camp, Boy Scout camp, and wrestling camp. He never hurried us.  As a business owner, he understood the value and price of time.

Knowing where we spend our time is critical to business success (and marriage and family success). Looking forward, here are 5 tips to help us finish well in 2012. They may add value to your work too.

1. Be clear on 2012’s endgame, and write it down. Where do you want to be this year with your business, clients, and employees? Who do you want published and sourced? What are your fresh angles for media attention? What type of blog post will attract a new client? What skills do you need to hone to take your business to the next level? Have you defined your next level?
2. Establish personal relationships with business leaders and the media. For me, this means flying to seminars and conferences to meet face-to-face. And it’s a significant investment to attend the best seminars. At the Ragan Social Media Summit in Las Vegas last February, the information was aggregated on Twitter with the #RaganSM hashtag, but the relationships established, the interviews and videos I shot, the emails I exchanged, the sources I met, and the opportunities to work together are priceless. Twitter led me to Mark Ragan, but meeting him could never be captured in 140 characters.
3. Make good social media connections for yourself and your clients. Quality time spent on Twitter can be incredibly resource-rich when you’re learning from industry experts, asking research questions, and following successful campaigns.  Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for a phone call or a Go-To Meeting. While working on a marketing campaign, I was following The Ford Story closely. From Twitter, I met Chris Baccus, who was digital strategist at time of creation of The Ford Story. (Chris has since left the agency world to head up AT&T’s social media.) We had a phone conversation, and he answered several questions on how I could leverage the same idea on a smaller scale. There was no case study or white paper on this concept. And to look for one would have been a waste of valuable time. Thanks to my Twitter connections, I was able to reach out directly to the campaign leader. That’s priceless.
4. Take time to understand your profitability. How do you make money—writing, strategizing, creating content, tweeting, hosting events, managing social media, pitching media? Once you clarify this, commit to reducing the amount of phone calls, meetings, tweets, and lunch dates that steal time from your real talents and productivity. Ask your colleagues for help and accountability with this.
5. Take time to write an opinion editorial and submit for print publication. That’s 800 words of your own influence. Newspapers are dead you say? The Wall Street Journal remains number 1 in average weekday circulation with 2.1 million readers as of November 2011.  You can take yourself or your client to new marketing and public relations levels with a strong, focused op-ed. And then supersize it on social media using trackable links. One op-ed can even become the foundation for an entire marketing strategy and yield serious return on time and return on influence.  Once the op-ed is printed, break it down into social media bites and add an illustration or video component to post on a blog.

In my last moments with my dad, I was reminded that there are no do-overs.  I have challenged myself to contemplate my business purpose and how I spend the moments that make up my workdays. In every project, every tweet, every blog post, every opinion editorial, I want to finish well!

Anne D Gallaher

Is social media really a new function in organizations? And if not do we really need a CSMO, Chief Social Media Officer? Knee jerk reactions aside, more and more CEOs are instead recognizing the power of personally leveraging
social media to lead their socially networked organizations.

The most effective leaders throughout history have been great communicators.

• Monitoring activity and accomplishments of individuals at all levels of the organization to recognize them. Understanding the power of recognition both monetary and non monetary to encourage and reinforce desired actions and admonish or discourage negative behavior.

• Communicating and engaging in active company wide social dialogues across the organization at all levels.

• Fostering collaboration on platforms that allow junior employees to tap into the tribal knowledge of those more experienced to meet and overcome challenges.

• Giving all employees a voice to make suggestions or speak out against potentially bad policy decisions and changes.

• Experimenting and shifting to new forms of more effective models of collaborative leadership. Consider the power of “Leading from the Middle”

But don’t take our word for it, hear it directly from the below CEOs who share their positive socially enhanced leadership experiences.

Next meet a CEO who’s already become a Chief Social Media Officer, Giam Swiegers, CEO Deloitte Australia reviews every Yammer conversation within his organization every 48 hours. Seventy-five percent of their employees are digital natives and social tools are how they communicate. Specific examples of rapid collaboration and how the organization has been flattened with first year Analysts already challenging and refuting bad policy changes already emerging. Giam believes that within a few years you will not be able to be an effective CEO without engaging in social dialogue.

Last but certainly not least John Chambers, Chairman and CEO of Cisco shares some great social leadership approaches that have evolved at Cisco. “Leading from the Middle” versus a “Command and Control” mentality have proven fruitful at this networking leader.

Most importantly these messages aren’t coming from social media gurus or software start up hucksters. Instead these are seasoned business leaders who have recognized and latched onto the power of these tools. As social CEOs they have already recognized and harnessed the collaborative, connective and communications benefits of social for their organizations.

The short answer to our question is yes! CEOs can, should and in many cases have already become Chief Social Media Officers.

For those CEOs still sitting on the fence the time to engage is now.

Embrace the use of social tools to listen to your organization.

When you’re finally ready to engage be authentic, be social and lead.

Jeff Ashcroft

It’s true that the best salespeople seem to be ‘hunters’ and not ‘gatherers’. But it’s also true that the most valuable hunters are the ones who hunt for the good of their tribe—not just for themselves. In sales, these hunters remain true to their mission. The needs of their tribe take precedence over their personal interests.

[Cut to scene in forest clearing, as the famed hunter returns to village with his kill.]
Hunter: “Chief, I bring back this white crow. What a great challenge it was to stalk and kill it. What perfect aim of my arrow. My skills as a hunter are unsurpassed!
Chief: “There are fifty mouths to feed, and you call this dinner?”
Hunter: “Ingrate!”

There’s more to being a great salesperson than closing deals. Let’s suppose that sales dollar volume is being met, but most of the ‘wins’ are on low-margin existing product, or product that is in short supply, when the company really needs to move the new high-margin product line, or to reduce excess inventory. Where does that leave you? And what if you have a sales ‘superstar’ who surpasses quota by telling customers just what they want to hear, without a care that the Support, Tech, and/or Production teams will have to miss deadlines and burn up time and cash trying to meet unrealistic expectations.

The complete picture of what if means to ‘team well’ in sales goes well beyond short-term relationships and results. To be a high-quality team player, a salesperson must remain in alignment with, and committed to delivering on:

• Customer needs and concerns
• Product ‘fit’, functionality, and roadmap
• Support team availability and capabilities
• The company’s short-term management and financial objectives
• The company’s long-term marketing and strategic objectives

One of my colleagues knows a salesman who works for a very large company that markets enterprise software systems to manufacturers. This person has no crocodile cowboy boots and sports no Rolex watch. He’s actually a little scruffy—just a regular guy who will occasionally put on a sport coat. And yet, year after year, he is the company’s top salesman by a margin of two or three times over the runner-up. Why? Because—as anyone who has worked with this fellow will tell you—he knows the market, he knows the product, AND he is a phenomenal team player.

There is some irony in the fact that Sales Management always looks for people with the right experience and the right personality, when they really should be looking for people with the right experience, who also team well. There’s a big difference between the two.

Long ago, personality testing showed conclusively that most people in the sales profession have high levels of extraversion and aggressiveness. As a result, these traits are considered to be a sort of ‘pass-fail’ measure in hiring for sales. But if you look at most sales organizations, you find high levels of failure to achieve objectives, and high turnover. So while extraversion and aggressiveness have a lot to do with getting involved in sales jobs, they don’t seem to have all that much to do with selling successfully.

Could it be that the ability to ‘team well’ with others is the missing piece of the puzzle? Well, that’s one of the questions I had in mind over 25 years ago, when a colleague and I began our search for a way to measure what happens when people team together. And now that ‘teaming characteristics’ (and other closely related qualities of human interaction) can actually be measured and reported, it is possible to demonstrate just how much selling value a quality team player can deliver.

So, Mr. Sales Expert, it’s time for you to eat crow.

Dr. Janice Presser

For more information on The Technology of Teaming™ , contact info@thegabrielinstitute.com or visit https://www.thegabrielinstitute.com.

Your business is dying. You know it. Your readers know it. So what are you doing about it?

The belief that the Internet was the death knell of print – and maybe even cable news – was a bit of an exaggeration although your revenue statements clearly show it’s had a major impact.

I’ve seen attempts to move content online via tiered, paid subscription models, which clearly isn’t working to reverse your financial fortunes. I’m thinking you’re all sending Apple Christmas baskets to thank them for the iPad, which – for a time anyway – has enabled the sale of content via Tablet magazines. Still, adoption for paid digital magazines on tablets is a far cry from the heydays of the print publishing industry.

Lessons from the Music Industry

The music publishing industry took a similar, if not more devastating hit with peer-to-peer file sharing. Attempts by the industry to fight consumers in their revolution failed miserably and they finally had to completely reinvent their business in order to survive. Revenue is now bundled into “lifetime-contracts” that tie up a musician’s brand beyond their recordings to concert sales, endorsement, clothing and perfume lines, movie contracts and online activities. Compilation albums and digital singles have replaced traditional one-band album sales.

The Digital Pandora’s Box

If there’s one lesson we can borrow from the successful overhaul of the music business, it’s that consumers don’t want to be dictated to. Web and social technologies were the equivalent of a digital Pandora’s Box. Once subscribers were shown the free content possibilities accessible via blogs and peer-to-peer sharing, why would they ever go back to paying for a magazine?

The answer? Your audience no longer sees value in content so stop trying to sell it to them. Sell them what they really want and would be willing ot pay for: experience & choice…and the freedom to customize and access that experience across multiple channels from print to Web to mobile and whatever device the creative minds at Apple think of next.

Consider this future:

1. Content bundled with non-content products and services.
Imagine a fashion magazine bundling content with paid loyalty programs at top fashion retailers. Or bundling subscriptions with personal shopping or style consultation?  The same could apply to financial publications that provide content bundled with access to financial planning services. Or technology magazines that bundles content subscriptions with  access to conferences & trades shows or, better yet exclusive beta-access to new technologies.

2. “Content subscriptions” vs. Magazine subscriptions
The Web has opened up our views – and our demands – to limitless possibilities. We don’t want limits and a magazine’s covers and brand are limits. The past 2 years have seen unparalleled consolidation of publications and media yet why subscriptions are still fixed to individual publications is beyond me. Why can’t I subscribe to self-filtered content that pulls from multiple publications and pay for such a customized experience? Why can’t I have access to content about my beloved Maple Leafs only from Sports Illustrated and Financial News from the New York Post on the industries I wish to follow? Future publications cannot be defined by categories and themes created by you, but by me.

3. Master content licenses 
If you wish to charge me for content, you damn well better make that content available on whatever device or medium I choose, whenever I want. And allow me to syndicate content to whatever device I want in order to customize my own experience based on my needs.  Content should not be device – or print – specific

4. Interactive Content
Content is no longer static the way that advertising is no longer broadcast but conversational. Social Media has completed changed our expectations. So why is your content not more dynamic? I may value your article and its insights but I would more likely pay for it if I was able to engage a focused, private business group around the content. For example, why can’t I engage industry content along with a dedicated group of colleagues or industry execs to brainstorm how the theories presented could impact our businesses.   Imagine the impact on the evolving social enterprise!

You cannot win a revolutionary war against your customers.

This lesson should be heeded by all business leaders, not just the publishing industry.  The changes forecast by Web and social technologies require a complete deconstruction of your business model, culture and expectations, not simply a shifting from one channel to another. Leaders today cannot afford to be lazy in their creativity and certainly can’t afford to “stay in the box”.  More of the same will yield less than that which was previously achieved.

Are you brave enough to take that leap?

Signed,

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego
Follow on Twitter

However, with so much content to consume – through blogs, books and social networks – we’ve become bloated by digesting a bunch of stuff that’s not getting us any closer to our goals.

You see, we can read, scan and tweet all day long, but that practice will NOT help you succeed.

Before you jump on my case, let me explain.

A few years ago, before I started my business, I was in a job I despised and I was trying to determine my next move. During that time, I spent a LOT of time reading. I consumed blog posts and books. I immersed myself in social networks. I devoured everything I could looking for the answer….the yellow brick road that would lead me to a successful career.

But guess what? That answer didn’t come.

Sure, deep down I knew what I wanted to do. Yet, I wasn’t doing anything to make it happen.

I was stalling.

I have a feeling you might be too.

There are no secrets

While there’s nothing wrong with reading blogs or books, many of us do this looking for answers. We hope that there will be a secret magic formula or silver bullet that will help us grow our business or map out the path to success.

But, like most things, to achieve success, you have to do the work.

You have to put in the time.

You have to answer the tough questions.

You have to do the things you’ve been avoiding.

And, you have to apply what you’ve learned in all that content you’ve consumed.

There are so many fantastic, free resources out there today that can help you grow and market your business. However, if you don’t take the time and effort to actually implement what you’ve read, your business will never get anywhere.

As we get closer to the end of the year, you may be thinking about your New Year’s resolutions, the goals for your business or next year’s marketing plan (at least I hope you are).

As you embark on that effort, I challenge you to take a look at some of the most recent blog posts you’ve read and find one thing that you can implement TODAY. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. It can be as simple as tweaking your next blog post headline or signing up for an email marketing account.

The point is to take action.

And, as you continue to read various e-letters, blog posts and books in the coming weeks, keep a notebook handy and write down ideas and tips you’d like to try. From there, you can determine the actions you are going to take to grow your business in 2012.

Laura Click