Why Pinning is all the craze: Understanding Pinterest

By Helen Kruger (@Lanikruger)

There is little doubt that Pinterest http://pinterest.com/ is THE social media network of 2012. Suddenly it’s in every social media blog, is creeping into Facebook feeds and has been touted as the new social media addiction – all while brands are still trying to work out what it means for them.

Launched in March 2010 Pinterest is now the 3^rd most popular U.S. social networking site after Facebook and Twitter¹. It’s rise has been meteoric: 866% growth in unique visitors in the 6 months to Feb 2012, 50% growth in traffic from Jan to Feb 2012 and an average of 1.36 million users daily^2,3. And with a company goal to “…connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting…” it seems they intend to keep growing.

Unlike most start-ups Pinterest’s growth hasn’t come from a young male geek following; instead, its strength is in women. 68.2% of users are female, 50% have kids and 50% are aged between 25 and 44 years³. A staggering 97% of Pinterest’s Facebook fans are female³.

So what actually happens on there? The site is built on the belief that “…a favorite book, toy or recipe can reveal a common link between two people…” Acting as a virtual pin board it allows users to ‘pin’ and share images from the web they find useful, inspiring or interesting. And it is addictive! Browsing through other users’ ‘boards’ leads into a labyrinth of images, photos, ideas, recipes and products you can’t do without.

Reflecting its origins as a crafting and fashion site Pinterest’s top three categories are Home, Arts & Crafts and Style & Fashion. However it is the fourth category, Food & Drink, which is the one to watch. By far the most shared category it generates 50% more ‘repins’ than anything elseand is rated their main area of interest on the siteby 70% of users ^4,5,6.

Pinterest is seen as a source of inspiration and discovery, which means it delivers a very high conversion rate. It generates more referral traffic than LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube combined and almost a quarter of users have purchased something they have seen on someone else’s board^3,6.

But while there are exciting opportunities for brands that can align with users’ interests, Pinterest should be approached with moderation.

Some guidelines:

• Don’t treat your account like a sales catalogue. Set up boards on interests relating to your product but pin images of your products sparingly and, instead, add value with related topics. For example a winery may pin images of recipes to go with their Shiraz, or images of tourist attractions near their cellar door.
• When you do pin your products make sure you add a price banner. This is done by including a $ or £ followed by the number amount in the description.
• Make it look appealing! Pinterest is visual medium so if your boards and pins don’t look beautiful no one will look twice.
• Use the Pinterest Goodies on your website. The Follow Button invites people to follow your Pinterest account and the Pin-it Button invites people to pin images from your site. Codes for both can be found at http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/
• If you want to check whether people have pinned something from your website, or any other site, go to http://pinterest.com/source/yoursitename.com

Used innovatively Pinterest offers brands a uniquely powerful platform to engage customers. To show you just how powerful, we will leave you with the Kotex campaign – an impressive example of personalized marketing.

The Tools

How to Set-Up a Business Account⁷

In the social media space it is worth registering your brand name and claiming the real estate, even if you don’t intend to use it yet.

1. Pinterest is still invite-only so you need to either be invited by an existing user (the fastest way) or request an invite on the login page http://pinterest.com/. Let us know if you need an invitation so you can start pinning
2. Sign up is via Facebook or Twitter but as Pinterest won’t accept a Facebook page the only option for businesses is through their Twitter account.
3. In Settings enter an email/password login so future logins don’t have to be through the Twitter account.

Glossary of Pinterest Terms

• Pin: An image added to Pinterest. It can come from a website or an upload of your own images.
• RePin: Adding an image that is already on Pinterest onto your own board. The original pinner is credited as the source of the link and credit is retained no matter how often it is repinned.
• Board: A collection of Pins. Boards can be created for any topic and there is no limit to the number of pins they contain.
• Bookmarklet: Install the “Pin It” button on your bookmarks bar so you can pin directly from the web without going through Pinterest. http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/

A note on copyright: This aspect of Pinterest is still contentious. There are questions around whether a brand could fall foul of copyright law by pinning images that they do not own or reference properly. If you have any concerns it is best to seek legal advice before proceeding and where possible reference where you get your photos from if they are not your own.

If you love food and wine – join in the fun and follow Trish’s Food and Wine Boards - http://pinterest.com/trishbarry

References

1. The 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, Experian Marketing Services

2. http://mashable.com/2012/03/20/why-is-pinterest-so-addictive/

3. http://www.modea.com/blog/pinterest-infographic

4. http://go-digital.net/blog/2012/02/top-most-shared-category-on-pinterest-is-food-and-drink/

5. http://info.rjmetrics.com/blog/bid/53831/New-Pinterest-Data-What-s-Everyone-Pinning-About

6. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/03/28/survey-21-of-users-on-pinterest-have-purchased-an-item-that-they-found-on-the-site/

7. http://www.pinterestinsider.com/2012/02/how-to-set-up-business-page-on.html

Further Reading

http://pinterest.com/about/

http://mashable.com/2012/03/12/pinterest-food-marketing/ 8 Best Practices for Food Brands on Pinterest

What’s all the buzz about Instagram about?

There’s been lots of hype this week over Facebook’s $1billion acquisition of the 2-year-old photo sharing application Instagram. Whether the price tag is justified, this is one app to look further into. It’s been the #1 downloaded app on the apple istore this week and been an instant hit on Google play.

Over 30 Million people have used Instagram and download on their Iphone since the application launched in January 2011. It’s my favourite Iphone app by a long shot, but I know that for many of you reading this post, Instagram may not be an app that you’ve used as part of your social media tool kit. The good news is that Instagram is also now available for Android users too, so there’s a much greater audience who can use and share.

What is Instagram?

Instagram allows you to share your photos in a simple stream with friends to see. You can also play with the filters of the images to create better image effects and share instantly to facebook/ twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare, Posterous etc.

You can follow other users’ photo stream and once followed their stream will appear on your news feed. You can also browse through the “popular” section to find users with similar interests to look at.

It’s also a great tool for creating content for those who are not avid tweeters or facebook users. You can download instagram on the phone of your winemaker, chef or staff who have access to content that can be shared in a visual format. Connect up your social networks, given them some brief training on the messages you’re trying to convey and you have a rich stream of photo content to access.

It’s as simple as taking the photo, applying the relevant filters, putting a description and hash tags and then you can send to your social media networks. The integration of Instagram photos within a facebook feed is also a huge benefit – the photos display in a large format and much more of a feature than using twitpic on your facebook page.

Ways to get the most out of using the app

• Play with the filters – test out what different filters look like on your photos and work out which ones you prefer and which give the best visual effects.
• Add Hashtags to your posts – it’s a way of finding other like-minded people on Instagram, but be specific in your hash tags to make it easier to find.
• Follow people with similar interests
• Geotag your photos – Like using hashtags, geotagging provides another data point that can be used to categorize and display content.
• Pay attention to what works -occasionally looking at the popular photos gives you an idea about what people want to see and what is most popular.

Some other Instagram related tools/ sites you might not have known about.

There’s literally hundreds of Instagram related sites to help you manage and monitor your Instagram photos stream. Here’s just a few you may like to look into further.

• Searching for users or Hashtags – http://searchinstagram.com – Allows you to search for users, hash tags and display these images
• Viewing Instagram via the web and searching from your desktop (remember this was designed as a mobile platform) -http://extragr.am/ or http://web.stagram.com/
• Backing up Instagram Photos – Instatport helps you download to your desktop http://instaport.me/
• Photo Gallery – http://listagr.am – browse the life of your friends through a series of pictures on Instagram. It searches the Instagram user’s public photo archive from the URL of one photo and shows like Flickr’s photo stream.
• The analytics behind your Instagram Account – http://statigr.am/ – Allows you to look at some of the analytics of your account – who has commented, who follows you etc. There’s also a cool tool to allow you to create a facebook cover of your 50 last instagram photos.

 Why not follow me on Instagram?  Instagram.com/Trishbarry

Open Omrah and Discover the Pure Taste of the Great Southern Wine Region

We’ve been thrilled to be working with the team at Plantagenet Wines over the last few months to re-launch their Omrah range with new packaging and collateral to tell more of a regional story. Recognising that Omrah has a different consumer following to the more traditional Plantagenet  meant that a new design and story could be told. The new label (designed by The Collective) reflects the freshness and purity of the Great Southern region where the wines hale from and re-connects Omrah with its home as well as its promise to deliver pristine cool-climate wines.

The Great Southern region is full of natural beauty. The design focuses on the ancient forests, tall trees and bright blue fairy wrens that can be found in the Great Southern region. The aim is to conjure up images of escapism, relaxation and purity.

Omrah has a history tracing back over 30 years. The SS Omrah brought passengers from England to Albany in the Great Southern region of Western Australia in the early 1900’s. One of the early passengers decided to pay homage to the ship by naming his property Omrah. Vines were later planted and in 1989, Plantagenet purchased the grapes and made the first Omrah wine (Omrah Chardonnay).

In 1989, Omrah was one of the first Chardonnay’s in Australia made with no oak, pioneering a style that became popular around the country.  Now more than 20 years on, Omrah still makes an unwooded Chardonnay and also has a stylish new label and an energetic young team with a passion for Great Southern.

There are four wines in the Range with RRP of $18.99

• Omrah Chardonnay
• Omrah Sauvignon Blanc
• Omrah Shiraz
• Omrah Cabernet Merlot

A new dry Rose and Sauvignon Blanc Semillon will be released later in the year.

Watch this short video on why you should get ready to Open Omrah and if you find a bottle don’t forget to share your thoughts on twitter with #openomrah

For more information visit www.omrahwines.com.au or join in the conversation via social media

www.facebook.com/Omrahwines,

www.twitter.com/Omrahwines

www.youtube.com/Omrahwines

Love to know your thoughts….

Just who is your Twitter Audience?

There’s been lots of recent discussion about the relevance of Twitter for the wine industry, with claims that it’s not a consumer oriented platform and more relevant for the wine industry to talk to each other.

In many instances this may be the case. Wineries use it as an opportunity to connect directly with potential retail or on-premise customers, talk to wine writers and other influencers and have a dialogue that often is difficult to otherwise have within the normal call cycles.  There’s nothing wrong with this if it’s your primary objective and from a business perspective, it can be incredibly powerful to raise the awareness and distribution of your products.

However, it’s important to remember that you engage and build your twitter following depending on your own objectives and build your community of followers accordingly. If you build a direct relationship with consumers and regularly interact with them via twitter, there’s a great opportunity to change the mix of your followers.

There are many successful wine brands that use twitter as a medium to connect directly with consumers, helping to educate them about wines and get to know more about their brand. Some use it for tourism purposes, encouraging people to visit their cellar door when they are in their wine region, others follow consumer oriented hashtags and use it to get involved in conversations. For some it’s more of a customer service priority.

If you’re looking for some ways to change the mix of your followers here are some ways to get further consumer engagement

• Add the twitter follow button to your website http://twitter.com/about/resources/buttons#follow – so consumers who visit your website know you’re online and can easily follow
• Include your social media links in your signatures and communications
• Let consumers know that you’re active on twitter – put a sign up in your cellar door, include it in your newsletters and encourage them to follow
• Follow hashtags from events like Good Food and Wine Fair or Taste of Sydney and start to interact with consumers who are interested and involved in the conversations.
• Set up a twitter list for consumers who you start to follow. It does not have to be a public list, but keep track of who you are engaging with and make a conscious effort to add value – not always about your brand.
• Produce great content – content always will remain king and by creating and publishing relevant content, you’ll attract consumers who are looking to learn more about wine.

So before you write off Twitter as a consumer communications medium, go back to your core strategy and ask yourself just who you want to be talking to and build your following from there.