Pin it if you love it

Have you guys heard about Pinterest? What is Pinterest? The name definitely invites some interest. Oh look! It happened again.

At first glance, the home page of Pinterest looks like a tasteful collection of eye-catching images put up by users from all over the world. The images range from a picturesque location to a small piece of equipment, from pets or animals to works of art, from landmark events in history to latest trends in fashion, to name a few. Of course, a lot of these categories often tend to overlap one another, making it a more memorable experience.

Pinterest is a pin board style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme based collections such as events, interests, hobbies and more. Users have the option of browsing other pin boards for inspiration,’re-pin’ images to their own collections and/or ‘like’ photos. Pinterest’s mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the things they find interesting”. Obviously, once it gets put up, it’s not interesting anymore, its ‘Pinteresting’ now!

Founded by Ben Silbermann, the site is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and inventors. It draws our attention for the following reasons:

- It is one the fastest growing social services in the world.

- It drives more traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn, combined!

- It is extremely viral. Over 80% of pins are re-pins. This means your content goes on autopilot.

- You do not need to repost your articles over and over like on some social sites because your pins can be posted and re-shared over and over.

- It is driving more traffic back to websites than Twitter.

Here’s an info graphic, which will do the rest of the detailing. After all, the site is about images, and writing more about it will spoil the fun, honestly.

Credits: wikipedia.org, mashable.com, socialmediahelp4u.com

Facebook Timeline – A revolution for brand pages

After having launched the Timeline feature for personal pages, Facebook recently announced that brand pages on Facebook will follow suit. All brand pages will automatically convert to the timeline layout by the 30^th of March, but they have also been given the option to convert as and when they feel like before the end of this month. This time period has given brands a good opportunity to research and experiment with the new timeline scheme. It could be a big game changer for brands on Facebook as this, quite visibly, is a radical change in the layout for brand pages. A big disadvantages, many brands would agree, is that the Facebook Timeline is compulsory for all brand pages from the 30^th of March.

On the other hand, a few brands have already embraced the new Facebook Timeline feature, meaning greater interaction with fans and more controlled branding on pages. Here are some of examples –

• Coca-Cola
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• Coldplay
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• Starbucks
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There are a number of key changes regarding the Facebook Timeline, which will prove to be beneficial to the brands. Here are a few of them –

• Aesthetics – One of the biggest changes, quite literally, will be the cover photo for the brand. Facebook Timeline now allows brands to have a huge horizontal cover photo instead of a tiny vertical one earlier. This gives them an opportunity make an impact the instant anyone lands on their Facebook page.
• Brand History – Timeline allows brands to highlight their history in chronological form, giving their page a more personalized feel.
• ‘Pinning’ posts – Once the Timeline is implemented, brands have an option to ‘pin’ their important posts to the top of their page for greater visibility.
• Personal Messaging – Brands will now be able to send private messages to their fans. They do not necessarily need to answer of communicate with their fans publicly on their brand page, instead they can send a more personalized message directly to the concerned fan.

The Facebook Timeline is bound to revolutionalise they way we have been seeing brand pages on Facebook. It has given brands a huge opportunity to better enhance consumer interaction with their brands. Brands that constantly create engaging content for their consumers and share important milestones with them will stay ahead in the race to grab a consumer’s attention.

So how have you or your brand devised of a strategy for your page on Facebook? Share your views.

Why Its Easy to Blame a Brand. Here’s a Good Example.

Here’s an interesting perspective by Eugen Diskin on how online conversations can at times lead people to believe something that may not be entirely right.

After all, the world is not black vs. white, right vs. wrong. There’s a lot more to be considered and interpreted. Read on.