There is plenty of buzz circulating about Pinterest as the social network to watch in 2012.  I finally managed to sign up and have been finding my way around and creating boards to see for myself what the hype is all about.

So what is it?

Pinterest was launched in spring 2011 and is an on-line pin-board also known as mood board where you can share images you love by pinning them to your own board or liking others. Everything is sourced via websites, blogs and other Pinterest users. The boards are based around a theme or keyword of your choice.

It has a purpose for me

Pinterest has a purpose for me and is a tool I can see myself continuing to use. One of the reasons is I am currently half way through a 3 month creativity course and part of my coursework is to create mood boards and source images, sometimes just of things I like or am drawn to.

Only a few days in I have found plenty of images that have inspired some of my other project work, which would have taken me ages to find browsing websites or purchasing magazines purely with the intention to rip them apart for creative ideas.

A brilliant social tool for creative types

Pinterest can be used to market your business and I can see that it is a brilliant social tool for some Scarletta clients so I will suggest they check it out.  Particularly Interior Designers, Photographers, Image Consultants and any other creative types. Boards can be created and shared to demonstrate their own talent, ideas and style and also to source ideas quickly to pass on. And not forgetting it is a social network where you can follow your favourites and gain a following too.

Time for the ladies to catch up

This is an interesting infographic from Econsultancy that compares the trends from pinners in the US and the UK. In the UK there are more men than women using Pinterest, really? I am surprised at that and I am sure it won’t take the ladies too long to catch up.

Has Pinterest got your interest?

As with all these new things, they aren’t for everyone and it can be tempting to follow the hype of another social network where you should supposedly be. If you are interested in finding out more Pinterest is by invite only or you can sign up and wait to be given permission to access, mine took about a week to be granted.

Here’s a beginners guide via Mashable to get you started.

As I love seeing creative images and photographs Pinterest definitely has my interest. If you want to follow my boards here’s where you’ll find them  Scarletta on Pinterest

And as they say “Happy Pinning!”

I was invited to present a social media business support topic at a local networking event, and with just ten minutes to cover as much as possible I decided to focus on what I believe the priorities are for small businesses to consider.

Here is a summary of my top five social media marketing elements:

Number 1 Social Planning

Creating a social media marketing schedule and plan gives a basis and guide to work from. Without a plan there is no direction and many hours can be wasted on Twitter and Facebook chatting willy nilly. With a plan in place it keeps things ticking over nicely, maintains consistency  and clearly identifies how, why, when and where. This is otherwise known as a basic social media strategy but why over complicate things. Keeping things simple works.

Prioritising incoming content to avoid distractions and information overload. Segmenting in to must keep up with, nice to know and irrelevant. Focusing on tasks and being disciplined avoids social time wasting and a plan/strategy helps to focus the mind and keeps everything on track. A time limit on-line is very effective at getting things done.

Number 2 Social Influence

Sharing your own relevant content and opinions helps raise credibility and visibility, and demonstrates that you are an influential expert in your field. Sharing others content is nice and social too, but showing a bit of your own knowledge and personality definitely helps especially as people buy people. Joining in with conversations, participating with discussions and listening to others means it’s not just broadcasting.

Number 3 Social Community

Identifying in detail who you want to connect with to help build a trusted network and social community. Look up past and current clients, associates, local people and thought leaders whatever fits your niche. Consider who you know and connect with them where ever they may be.

Number 4 Social Results

Track the impact of social activity on your website with Google Analytics to understand where people are visiting from.  Ask the question for every new enquiry “How did you find out about our business?” And look at specific business metrics, if you have a plan/strategy as mentioned in number 1 you will have a starting point to measure results from the goals and actions set initially.

Number 5 Social Attitude

Are you using social media because someone told you to?  This is a biggie, as your attitude to social media is so important to your business. Are you serious about social media marketing or just dabbling when the mood suits?

Having the right social attitude and habits is imperative to success, it’s up to you how you use it and there are no set rules. If the tech is a barrier invest in a training course or outsource. And if you have nothing to say and struggle to find content start by listing five things about your business, products, services, industry news to kick start some conversation ideas.

Bringing together the five key elements helps justify the time and effort, gives tangible business results, markets the business on-line effectively and gives social media marketing a purpose.

With the best will in the world small businesses, particularly those run single-handed can find it extremely difficult keeping up social media marketing activity. And I speak from personal experience here too. When you’re busy working with clients and running a business finding the time to be active on social media isn’t always a priority.

Avoid Social Media Ghost Town

You need to turn up and take part to see any results and if your heart isn’t in it remember everything is visible on-line.  Even your current clients and prospective clients can see any lack of focus and activity and this will create the wrong impression about your business.

So if all is lost and you’ve lost the motivation and enthusiasm for social media it’s time to close the Twitter account and delete the Facebook business page, before it ends up looking like a social media ghost town.

Have you ever wondered what impact social media can bring to a community?

Over the last few months I have been amazed at the growth and social interaction of a local group on Facebook called “Wokingham Gossip Girls“. This is a great example of a real social community.

Wokingham Gossip Girls was created by Rachel Bradley, from local business Jon Bradley Photography. Rachel and her husband Jon had moved to Wokingham from the West Country with their young boys. Being new to the area Rachel found herself asking around for personal recommendations for local suppliers and trades like plumbers and electricians, to get ideas of where to take the boys on a rainy day and all the local insider stuff that is valuable when new to an area.

Rachel decided the ideal forum to ask and share information was on Facebook. Despite the word “gossip” being in the group title, this is not what it is about. Its purpose is for members to offer trusted recommendations, advice and to support the local community, businesses and trades. Since launching the group in March 2011, it has flourished with active membership of 850+ members and the buzz continues to grow on a daily basis.

I wanted to know more and managed to catch up with Rachel over a coffee to find out all about the Wokingham Gossip Girls.

What were your initial expectations when you created the group?

Being new to the area I kept asking the same people where to go for this and that, who were the best suppliers in the area and so on, my black book was empty. So I created Wokingham Gossip Girls and thought maybe it would grow to around 200 members.

It has totally exceeded my expectations and the activity and participation has been incredible. The group members started out mainly being other Mum’s and now includes all local women, regardless of age and what they do for a living.

What are your highlights?

Seeing new people join, the numbers have increased dramatically and of course the community spirit and participation. Without this it wouldn’t work. People really pull together to help one another out, support local businesses and have become friends. Even if they have never met the other person, everyone always offers advice and rally’s round. It’s incredible how supportive people can be. I am very proud of the group and hearing that people are talking about it and inviting their friends and connections to join makes it very special.

Being the group Administrator, what are the challenges?

There are guidelines and boundaries for members to follow and this does have to be adhered to, otherwise I receive a barrage of requests to send out reminders or remove posts. And that is something I really don’t enjoy or have the time to do. As the face of the group the responsibility often falls on my shoulders, especially if members feel a post is inappropriate or others are advertising when they shouldn’t be. But on the whole everyone has embraced the spirit of the group and has become very passionate about supporting it within the local area.

What do the members talk about?

Everything and anything including requests for recommendations or asking questions, members can take the opportunity to post items for sale and share a business update once a month. Responses are often very swift and you get valuable feedback quickly. Even a request for a Bagpipe player received a speedy response and two members recommended the same one!

Where do you see this social community heading?

I would like to welcome more members and to see the Wokingham Gossip Girls continue to grow. We are looking to bring people together in real life as well as the virtual one and discussions are taking place about holding a summer event. So watch this space.

What is  your advice to other towns and communities about creating a group similar to Wokingham Gossip Girls?

Every town should have one!

Incredible Feedback

Rachel asked the other members for their feedback about the group and I collated the responses in to the word picture.

Pretty impressive feedback isn’t it?

All the words that we associate with a social community including friendly, helpful, informative and trustworthy.

One of the best quotes I saw was “Feeling like you belong to a bigger community that you can call on is special”. It most certainly is and I believe this is social media at its finest.

And being a Wokingham Gossip Girl I can also highly recommend joining if you are female and live in and around Wokingham. (Sorry chaps, ladies only!)

Here are the details of the group and my thanks to the lovely Rachel Bradley for her time, a great chat and of course for creating Wokingham Gossip Girls!

Join here Wokingham Gossip Girls on Facebook.

Jon Bradley is a corporate photographer who has been working professionally for over 20 years. With an enviable list of clients Jon has a proven ability to translate client briefs into fantastic pictures. Jon specialises in corporate photography – press launches, conferences, parties, PR and marketing images, head shots, interiors, branding and portraits. www.jonbradley.co.uk

Whilst out on my travels over Christmas this QR code caught my attention. It was in a prime position on the building and immediately my eyes were drawn to it so I thought what a great bit of QR Marketing.

I scanned the code, the good news is that it worked and took me to the right website; however to a 404 page, with no contact details, personalised message or special offer. It felt like a pointless exercise and a wasted marketing opportunity.

What is a QR Code?

Now you may see these little bar codes out and about but have no idea what they are for. QR stands for Quick Response and QR codes are becoming more popular for marketing and advertising purposes. They are easy to use, you need to have a QR Reader application on your smart phone to be able to use them and there are several Apps that are free to download.

Scan away

You grab your smart phone, scan the code if you are interested and it stores the relevant URL web link so you can click immediately or save it to look at later. They are getting more sophisticated and can be a good marketing tool for small businesses too.

Create your own

My mission today was to see how easy it is to create my own QR code and I used KimTag  it was free to set up and you can download the code and share the QR links pretty easily. I have embedded the code within the Scarletta contact page for now and after a bit of faffing around it does work. Visitors can scan and store the Scarletta contact page.

However I feel there needs to be a bit more of an incentive to use them other than book marking a website and as a consumer I want to know where I am likely to end up by scanning.

Some are better than others

Some QR codes work better than others and it is a marketing area that is seeing growth however I think they do need a useful purpose for the consumer and business to be a success. The worst example I have seen is an ad on the London Underground, there is no signal down there therefore doesn’t work!

If you are thinking of creating your own QR codes here are some ideas of what to use them for:

• Special offers and incentives
• Links to blog posts
• Business cards
• Marketing materials
• Events
• Directions and maps
• Free downloads
• Something fun

QR Codes and Social Media

A site I have come across is Likify it enables users to like something directly on Facebook via the QR Reader. I haven’t tested this yet personally but I can definitely see the appeal of this tool for social media marketing.

What do you think are QR codes a good idea? Do you use them I would love to know your views. And just for scanning info here is the Scarletta QR code I made earlier!

Scan Me

Being a regular tweeter and Facebook user I am always amazed at the amount of personal data that people share with their on-line networks and openly on Twitter. It is almost as though social media is an on-line diary and thoughts, feelings and personal plans are shared on-line, often without any consideration as to whether or not it really should be in the public domain. And more importantly who could be reading.

Certainly with younger generations, who are now so used to being on Facebook and Twitter, checking in, sharing photos and up-dating their status several times a day has become a way of life. This is what they do. End of.

My Car, My Sanctuary

You know when you are driving along on your own and start singing along to some of your favourite tunes, thinking that as you are in your car and your own private sanctuary, that no one outside can see you?

Yes, you’re singing your heart out oblivious to outsiders, but sometimes you are seen!

In some ways, what I see on-line makes me wonder if people really think about what they have shared with all and sundry and if they regret it later.

Social media has become so familiar and comfortable that many have fallen into the “Car syndrome” with a false sense of security that it is absolutely OK to share everything with everyone.

It isn’t.

Say What?!

Yet again in the news was another high profile social media regular and MP Diane Abbott sharing an inappropriate tweet on Twitter. I won’t share what I really think about her comment. I guess everyone has different levels of what they feel is personally acceptable to share.

When working with clients brand new to social media, one of their top concerns is that they don’t want to feel exposed, are uncomfortable with the thought of over-sharing, and definitely don’t want the world to know the in’s and out’s of their daily lives. This is totally sensible to me. Even though I love social media and am a big advocate, I also am aware that sometimes people just don’t need to know everything about my life. And probably aren’t that interested either.

Tip No 1 – Create Your Own Social Content List

This is where a social content list is ideal for your social business, your very own guide which includes subjects that are up there to be shared and talked about and those that are definitely out of bounds. Just create a simple list with categories listed one to ten that you talk about and those that you don’t. This can be a part of a business social strategy, especially if there is more than one person representing the business on-line.

From a business perspective I talk about subjects usually related to my work or things I like including social media, marketing, small businesses, blogs, photography and so on. I rarely share my daily activity, my to-do list, who I am off to meet, where I have been and definitely not when I am off abroad on holiday.  And personally I am being more mindful about talking about others, I don’t talk about my family or name them.

Tip No 2 – Check your Facebook Settings

Check your Facebook settings regularly. Facebook makes new system changes and when I switched over to the new Timeline my account settings changed with it.

We can all say things that can be mis-interpreted, taken out of context, or could come back to haunt us in later life so it is worth remembering that data is stored somewhere on the web and anyone can read or listen in at any time.

Don’t get lulled into a false sense of security and think you can sing your heart out on Twitter or Facebook as you can in your car. It is an open forum and the world could just be listening in to your dulcet tones, now or in the future.

What do you think have you see things that you feel should remain private, or are you happy to share everything to your hearts content regardless? I would love to hear your views so do comment below.

When I think back over the last 12 months, the majority of work with Scarletta clients was predominately focused on creating and implementing social strategies. This has helped them establish a social presence with a clear, defined business purpose.

2011 saw a definite shift in the social world and small businesses really started taking social media marketing seriously and realised that the digital way of life is here to stay.

Keep Calm and Be Social in 2012

Looking ahead to this year I am not creating a long list of resolutions. For 2012 the top of my list is to remember the human side of social media.

It is very easy for businesses to fall back in to more traditional methods and habits of marketing and use social media solely to promote themselves and blast sales messages out to all connections. This approach rarely works and is one way noise.

Taking the time to nurture relationships as well as listening and conversing is what being social all is about.

Important People

Those all important people can turn into associates, collaborators, clients and even friends.

So this is what I will be doing more of building on-line relationships and adding more depth rather than stacking up numbers of followers and fans. The numbers are meaningless without the relationships.

I hope you continue to make new connections, have new adventures and explore new possibilities and of course don’t forget to Keep Calm and Be Social in 2012. Happy New Year.

It’s that time of year where people are expressing their views and predictions about what lies in store for social media in 2012.

Reality TV to Social TV 

The area that I am really excited about is social TV. And it’s this trend that I expect to grow and be the one to watch in the coming months.

Whether you’re a fan of the reality shows Strictly, X-Factor and I am a Celebrity or watch the news or day-time telly, you cannot fail to have noticed that there are more live TV programmes enabling audience participation via social media particularly for Twitter and Facebook.

The audience is involved

Viewers have the opportunity to share their thoughts with other fans, agree or disagree with discussions, talk about their favourites and dislikes and may even have an opportunity to chat to presenters during the show via a social network in real-time. And if you miss a show you just follow a Twitter stream and soon get the low down where ever you may be.

The producers of the shows gain immediate insights into what their viewers really think as the show is being broadcast, which feeds conversations, discussions and provides valuable input all gained from their target audience. The show lets you know where you can connect and participate via social media and you join in.

Immediate Points of View

This social activity means watching TV is no longer a passive one way communication and the days of writing to the BBC Points of View to express views are long gone.

Social TV is really social

A few weeks back I watched a show called Alone in the Wild on Discovery Channel. I decided to follow the hashtag on Twitter and just prior to the programme starting, they said you can follow the celebrity during the show to chat. So I did. It was Donal Macintyre’s turn alone in the jungle, as I followed him on Twitter, he soon followed me back (much euphoria, very sad I know!) and then after I tweeted that I would be watching the show he responded. What a nice man, and yes I am definitely sure it was him and he was sending his own tweets!

Social TV is a reminder of social media activity at its best

If you consider all of the elements that go into social TV the same concept should be applied to make your own social media activity a success. If you want to really understand social media for your business just observe and lurk during a popular TV show,  ideally on Twitter and watch what happens.

By following the relevant hashtag you can keep up with the chatter but also need to remember to keep one eye on the TV show. The ability to multi-task and watch and tweet at the same time does get better with practice, and if you do miss something crucial no doubt someone will be tweeting about it in seconds anyway.

I believe Social TV excels at these four key elements:

• Community Engagement  Social content allowing viewers to engage and converse with the show and other fans
• Listening and Monitoring  By actively listening and responding to the audience it encourages the feeling of inclusion
• Audience Participation  Asking for feedback encourages the target audience to participate and adds value by making voices heard and opinion’s matter
• Human Interaction  Real conversation with the human touch, and if presenters get involved and mention individuals even better they will be fans forever!

Social TV Platforms to watch

Are you in to social TV too?

Has it changed how you watch your favourite TV shows and do you regularly up-date your social networks with your views I’d love to know what you think?