Social network | Kimberlee Raymond

Pinterest is certainly one of the most time consuming social networks. I know I totally get lost looking up DIY projects and creating boards of mini decor for my fictional house. Pinterest was a big hit during the recession, as one may not have been able to afford the house of their dreams but they sure could have it all on Pinterest. Maybe after the economy started to turn around people started buying all their dream items stored away on their Pinterest?

That’s one of many benefits for brands on Pinterest: linking pins to the product pages for items, which drives traffic to websites. I know in my personal use of pinterest for brands in the workplace I’ve seen clients garner as much as 55% of their web traffic directly from Pinterest. It’s actually crazy when you think about it that such a silly thing as a fictional wedding board someone creates could be what gets a bride to hire your company to plan that wedding.

Another benefit for brands are hashtags or descriptions under pins on Pinterest. Those keywords can help your items show up in searches. I know I’ve started going to straight to pinterest especially to look for cute gift ideas or decorating ideas. If I have a particular color scheme or person I am shopping for it’s very easy to search and find relevant pins.

Speaking of shopping, Pinterest now has a great tool for e-commerce sites called “price drop.” Now when you pin something, perhaps a lamp you fancied but didn’t actually buy because it was a little pricey, Pinterest will alert you when it is actually in your budget. You’ll get a conveient email sent to your inbox telling you that it’s now on sale. In a product-based company this gives you a fantastic advantage because it drives customers to your site multiple times and gives them a call to action to purchase products.

As a brand your Pinterest page gives you a way to take customers inside your company. Personalizing boards with creative names and photos you can help give customers a better idea of the inspiration behind your brand. And then when they pin one of your products or images it typically stays on their board for eternity, so your brand repeatedly gets free marketing. Additionally all their followers see that pin as well, so that’s more impressions for you.

Happy Pinning 🙂

Let me start off by saying I know most people, especially young people are not on Google +, and I get that. However, I feel people overlook the importance and potential of this social platform. It took a really long time for me to understand the benefit of Google +, besides the fact that it felt less saturated that other social networks with cluttered advertising and posts from friends I found irrelevant. The Google + network has 396 active monthly users , which is significant but far from the 1.1 billion plus active monthly users on Facebook.

Understanding Google +

I often explain Google + as a hybrid between Facebook and Twitter. Google +’s layout mirrors Facebook, though it is considerably less cluttered. The Circles feature which allow you to group friends, coworkers, and family separately reminds me of TweetDeck, a free tool to monitor twitter activity. Obviously the ease of searching on Google + resembles the Google search engine.

As a social media user ,with many accounts, what’s the benefit of using yet another network that is arguably a hybrid of two of the major ones I already use?

An answer, in short: Google Authorship. It’s the one feature of Google + I think it is slowly going to become very important. It allows you to claim authorship over your content scattered around the web. The more content that is traced back to your common name will help you build authority on the web. You are able to also link your blog posts to your Google + account so that each time someone comments on your blog post the comment will appear on Google +. Google + will then also notify you whenever your content is shared or commented on anywhere the web.Google + is optimizing content marketing. It’s giving people more control over what they create AND share.

Why Google + Will Appeal to Younger Users

I predict that heightened level of control will appeal to younger generations. There is already some evidence of this, though indirect, in a recent story published by Mashable, written by 13 year-old Ruby Karp titled, “I’m 13 and None of My Friends Use Facebook.” In the article, which created a great deal of discussion at the time of its publication, Ms. Karp cites the fact that family members constantly monitor activity on Facebook to the point younger users, such as herself, are being held accountable for posts on the social network as one deterrent from using the network. Additionally, those same family members and other adults are limiting the access to social networks such as Facebook so much so that younger generations are adapting different networks instead. Design also plays a part, Ms. Karp mentions the fact that Facebook lacks the simplicity of networks like Twitter. Google + has the simplicity of Twitter and allows users to control which “circle” content is shared with, addressing the issues of concern with family members seeing everything on Google +.

So, will Google + be the social network of the future? Google + will reinvent social networks, in the same way LinkedIn has, at least in my opinion. LinkedIn has created a professional social network. Google + I see more in line with LinkedIn, it will be one of those things most will need to have to establish authority on the web. So no, Google + is not the new Facebook. Facebook is Facebook, it’s informal and candid. Google + aspires to be much more than that. It’s aspires to be the hub of all our activity on the web.