Welcome to the team!

Pinterest is a site that allows users to “pin” images onto an online pinboard. As Oliver Blanchard over at thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com said, “It’s like advertising without the advertising. It’s word-of-mouth publishing. Compared with the relatively low cost of being there, a platform like Pinterest can yield enormous dividends.”

He’s right. While Fortune 500 companies spend huge amounts of money to find out what consumers are saying, looking for or talking about, you’ve got the 12 million consumers on Pinterest available to provide you with feedback – for free. It’s chock full of areas for trend spotting and is a hub of consumer insights. You just have to know where to look.

Consumer Insights:

If you already have a page, it’s easy to see what activity has been going on with your products and brands on Pinterest because every Pin links back to its source. If you click on the image of the pinned item, it will take you back to its original page; additionally, below each pinned item you’ll see the number of “likes” and “repins.” (If you don’t have a page… what are you waiting for?)

Use this information as great (and free!) consumer research. With those insights, you can now ask yourself questions like:

• Creative uses/new ideas: What types of Boards are people Pinning my items to? Home? Craft projects? Technology? Do my products end up in categories I didn’t expect? Why?
• Influencers: Who are my heaviest Pinners? Those are your brand advocates. Find them and reward them.
• Customer Service: What are Pinners saying about your products? Suggestions? Praise? Complaints? Be helpful; resolve problems and questions that you see in the comments.
• Trends: What are my most-Pinned products?

Market Research:

• Category Trends: Search Pinterest for product/service categories that you carry to see what’s popular overall. This might give you a heads up on the competition.
• Test New Products: Looking for feedback on a new idea or product? Create a “love it or hate it board” and ask Pinners for feedback.
• Revise/Enhance Existing Products: Use the comments section to engage with Pinners by asking questions like “Why do you like this product more than [that product]?” Or, “What other sizes/colors would you like to see this product in?” Perhaps they’ll clue you in to a tweak or a trend that might just help your product or business soar.
• Competition: See what’s being Pinned from your competitor’s offerings. How do you stack up against them? What is your price point compared to theirs?
• Surf: Pinterest lets you instantly “Explore” and search pins by anyone in categories like Art, Food & Drink, Hair & Beauty, Kids, and Technology. This helps you find what people are interested in throughout the categories that are most relevant to your brand. You never know what you’ll find, or what will inspire you.

• You can spread the labor across different departments of your small business
• You can ask and allow strategic partners to contribute blog posts
• You can recruit guest bloggers or thought leaders for better content mix
• You can have bloggers in different regions create more localized content

But if you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen, how do you manage all of the authors and content? Here are five tips to help you manage a multi-author blog:

1. Assign an editor: Assign one person to be the editor/manager of your blog who will edit, manage, and/or publish all blog posts. This person should also be in charge of the calendar (see #3) and keeping all authors updated (see #5).
2. Create guidelines: Every author should know the blogging specifics prior to writing. Let them all know about the keywords you’re targeting, the word length, photo/video requirements and format of the blog. Provide examples, if possible.
3. Create a Calendar: Make sure all authors are on the same page by creating a calendar for each author so they know what post is due when. This will ensure they’re on the same page as you, and that you get your posts in a timely manner.
4. Appropriate Access: Allowing every single author complete administrative access (and control) of your company’s blog isn’t necessary. In WordPress, there are several different roles that you can set them up with to help prevent someone from accidentally messing up your blog. (See below for plugins that will help)
5. Provide Feedback: It’s important that you provide consistent feedback to your bloggers so they know how they’re doing or and/or they can seek ways to improve. Let them know what their page views are and suggest ways they can up the numbers.

Helpful Tools

If you’re using WordPress, there are a number of helpful plugins that will help you effectively manage your blog. Give these a look:

• WP Biographia adds extra fields to the user-profile screen where you can enter bio information, social links, and if you add the User Photo plugin to it, writers will be able to add an image.
• Editorial Calendar and DivvyHQ help create a monthly calendar.
• Adminimize lets you hide unnecessary items from the WordPress administration menu, submenu and even the Dashboard, so your contributors only see what they need to see. (And don’t accidentally mess anything up in the process).
• Blog Metrics let’s you see your average number of posts per month, average number of words per post, average number of comments per post without your own comments and average number of words used in comments to posts. Great analytics tool!

Multi-author blogging is a great way to add multiple, fresh voices to your blog. Drop AdMix Social a line to find out how we can help you manage your users and get the most out of your blog!

“It’s just one more thing I have to update and manage.”

“I don’t have the time.”

“I don’t understand how it’s useful to me and my business.”

“I don’t understand how to use it.”

First, to better understand and utilize Twitter, look into these two dashboard applications, which will help you use Twitter to your advantage: Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. They both offer engagement, analytics, security, and collaboration tools that will greatly enhance your Twitter experience (and make you want to use it more often).

Once you’ve downloaded one of those apps, head on over to Hubspot to read their amazing Twitter Marketing Hub, which includes information about building your Twitter community, best practices for brands, Twitter dos and don’ts and much more.

Twitter truly is a useful tool for small business owners, so if you’ve long considered hopping on the bandwagon but haven’t made the leap yet, here are ten reasons your small business should be on Twitter:

 1.     Share information: This is the most obvious way you can use Twitter. Share the news about your new product, accolades, new hires, or general industry info. Tweet photos of your new office, videos of your recent conference, and more.

 2.     Increase brand awareness: Twitter is a great way to increase awareness about your brand (see #3 to reinforce this point). Being actively – and consistently –  engaged on it will pay off.

3.     Increase your Google indexing: Using Twitter as a way to get folks to your site is helpful and will likely give your Google rank a small boost, but also notice that small business’ Twitter pages are usually among the top ranked in a Google search.

4.     Drive traffic to your website or blog: As mentioned above, Twitter is a great way to drive traffic. Remember that consistently creating new content for your website or blog gives you something to share (and drive traffic back to) on Twitter. Don’t just blast out links– share information and be part of a conversation.

5.     Recruit new employees: You can boost your new talent search by targeting professionals on Twitter.

6.     Research: Twitter is a great place to see what your competitors are up to, keep track of trends, find out what the latest industry news is, and more. Tools like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are immensely helpful for research purposes (and more).

7.     Enhance customer service: Twitter is a fantastic way respond to customer service issues quickly. Check out what American Express does with their Twitter customer service feed @AskAmex.

8.     Find new clients and customers: Unless you protect your Twitter page (which is not recommended for businesses) users don’t have to ask your permission to follow you. Same goes for you—so use Twitter as a way to scout for people in need of your services.

9.     Stay informed: News travels quickly on Twitter. Stay up to date on information in your industry by following news outlets that cover the topics of interest to you. If you do, you’ll always be well informed.

10.   Connect: Say hello. Introduce yourself to people you want to work with, businesses you want to work with, and thought leaders you admir

Twitter is a fantastic tool for small businesses. Drop AdMix Social a line to find out how we can help you use it to its fullest potential.