Lisa Buyer's Blog: Social PR Chat with Lisa Buyer, page 12

How To Be Resilient When You Are A Woman in Digital

When option A does not work, then you have to kick the sh*it out of option B. That’s the sage advice Facebook’s COO (and one of the most inspiring, respected woman in digital) Sheryl Sandberg gave to the UC Berkeley graduating class of 2016 in a moving speech from the heart. Rather than focus on how to find success, Sandberg shared her own real-life tips on how to recover from the depths of despair and why life’s difficult moments makes us stronger in the long run.

Sandberg spoke for the first time in public about how the sudden death of her husband just one year ago turned her life upside down and brought her to the darkest moments she’s been faced with. Children. Work. Friends. Family. Depression. Nothing was the same without her husband, yet life around her moved on and Sandberg shared how she picked up the pieces by using some psychological methodology from her peers in Silicon Valley.

“I’m pleased to tell you there is data to learn from. After spending decades studying how people deal with setbacks, psychologist Martin Seligman found that there are three P’s—personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence—that are critical to how we bounce back from hardship. The seeds of resilience are planted in the way we process the negative events in our lives,” Sandberg told the crowd at UC Berkeley.

The 3 P’s on How People Deal with Setbacks

1.Personalization—the belief that we are at fault. This is different from taking responsibility, which you should always do. This is the lesson that not everything that happens to us happens because of us.

“Not taking failures personally allows us to recover and even to thrive.”  — Sheryl Sandberg

2. Pervasiveness—the belief that an event will affect all areas of your life. You know that song “Everything is awesome?” This is the flip: “Everything is awful.” There’s no place to run or hide from the all-consuming sadness

“The belief that an event will affect all areas in your life.” — Sheryl Sandberg

3. Permanence—the belief that the sorrow or pain of something that happened will last forever.

“Option A is not available, so let’s just kick the shit out of option B” — Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg‘s advice that anyone can keep in their back pocket for those not so awesome times in life
1. Lists

People who list the things they are grateful for are healthier and happier

2. Notes of Joy:)

Write down three moments of joy before you go to bed. Try it tonight

3. Just Fix it!

The old adage, there is no “I” in TEAM. For example, Sheryl Sandberg shares that at Facebook (or in your business life) nothing is someone else’s problem. When you see something that is broken, go fix find a way to fix it.

4.Work Hard, Play Harder.

Celebrate every moment of joy.

Where Do Other Women in Digital Stand?

Women in business have made strides considering that it was 1965 when the first women graduated from Harvard Business School. Today women make up 30 percent of the tech workforce yet women in business roles within tech companies are more likely to start at the entry level compared with men. Conferences like Pubcon are leaning into supporting the advancement of women in tech and reported having more women speaking last year than almost any tech related conference? ‪#‎LeanIn‬ with some of Pubcon’s women in digital speakers who recently spoke about their secrets to digital business success and share yours too!

The Digital Dish from Women in Tech

I caught up with a few of my favorite women in tech during an interview on The Digital Dish.  Here are some examples and tips they gave on how to be resilient in the digital world (or personal!) and ignite a path to successful growth.

Building a strong online presence. – Krista Neher
Ask for help. – Heidi Richards Mooney
Being mindful of my time. – Lisa Buyer
What do you want? Figure it out, then ASK for it. – Krista Neher

What advice can you give to people starting out in Digital Marketing?

Focus: Know where your niche is versus trying to be a generalist – Rebecca Murtagh
It’s not a one and done- continue the education because you have to stay on top of it – Lisa Buyer
What makes you unique? Position yourself and bring that to life. – Krista Neher
Be confident on how you position yourself. – Krista Neher
Find a model. Pick someone you think is successful and learn their secrets, find the right people to work with. – Heidi Richards Mooney

What apps, books or tips can you share?
Buddhify App: 5-10 minutes to take a walk or take time for you. Buddhify helps me be mindful and balance more. – Lisa Buyer
Evernote App: Working on a book, researching for a client, data or anything it organizes everything – Plan. – Rebecca Murtagh
The One Thing book: Read this and ask yourself what is the ONE thing that is important to you. – Krista Neher

Sandberg brings us full circle in resilience.

“Build resilience in yourselves. When tragedy or disappointment strike, know that YOU have the ability to get through absolutely anything. I promise you do. As the saying goes, we are more vulnerable than we ever thought, but we are stronger than we ever imagined,” Sandberg noted in her closing remarks.

You don’t have to be a digital marketing expert, the COO of Facebook or have a special mobile app to find your strength and discover joy. You had the power all along my dear.

How do you find resilience? Share it with us in the comments below or tweet it out to @lisabuyer!

Want more? Catch The Digital Dish on blab and stay tuned for the next topic.

Get To Know Our Blab Women in Digital Guests:

The Digital Dish: Women in Tech Blab Guest, Krista Neher

Krista Neher

Krista Neher is a leading authority, trainer, educator, author and international speaker on Internet marketing and social media, and is currently the CEO of Boot Camp Digital, a leading provider of social media marketing training and consulting solutions.

 

 

 

The Digital Dish: Women in Tech Blab Guest, Rebecca Murtagh

Rebecca Murtagh

Rebecca Murtagh is a consummate marketing professional and entrepreneur. Having  influenced E-business strategy, website and internet marketing since the mid 1990’s, Rebecca has developed a reputation for identifying emerging trends and developing effective methodologies in search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, internet, and integrated marketing.

 

 

 

The Digital Dish: Women in Tech Blab Guest, Heidi Richards Mooney

Heidi Richards Mooney 



Heidi Richards Mooney is Founder & CEO of Women in Ecommerce™ ~ an organization that empowers women with the tools, resources and skills to create a thriving online business. Mooney is also an author, coach, small business owner, internet marketing and social media expert

 

Image Source: Copyright: nexusplexus / 123RF Stock Photo


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How #Yoga Can Save Your Social Media Obsessed Life. #Blab
What’s a Social Media Strategy for Tragedy? #Blab with @CathyHackl + @LisaBuyer

How to Create a Pitch Perfect LinkedIn Profile

What’s so Social PR awesome about a LinkedIn profile? It’s your professional gateway to success.

Why LinkedIn? Top tier journalists hangout here. All of the Fortune 500 CEOs call this network home. You can easily find a job here 365 days a year. Some of the best industry news can be found in this newsfeed. You are bound to run into Richard Branson, Guy Kawasaki, or Peg Fitzpatrick.

Your LinkedIn profile is the perfect place for you to showcase your skill set and achievements, build your brand, and connect with business partners, colleagues and even prospects besides sharing content with professionals in the industry.

With over 414 global million users on LinkedIn, this is in fact the best platform to reach out to prospects and build long-lasting business relationships with them. Moreover, the geographical reach of LinkedIn is spread out in over 200 countries and territories.

The site also boasts of a staggering 80% business leads from social media; all other social platforms cumulatively produce just 19.67% leads.

These findings indicate that if you are not on LinkedIn you are committing a grave mistake to yourself and your business.

A hunting ground for HR managers, headhunters and new businesses looking for opportunities and partners, LinkedIn is the best place to be either to hire or get hired. Unlike on other social sites where profiles can be made up for personal networking instead of a professional one, this is a site that encourages users to have a highly professional profile and resume.

So what makes a LinkedIn profile stand out easily? How can you get more recommendations and what are the obscured features that can help you boost your profile?

Here are 7 simple things you can do to improve your LinkedIn profile.

1. Upload a Professional Photo

Viveka von Rosen, who authored the book-LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day, states that it’s your image, name and headline which are seen most of the times by users.

Use a professional-looking image that enables people to immediately recognize you if they see you at a tradeshow or conference. Even though you may have a loving family, it’s best to leave them out of your LinkedIn profile picture and save that for Facebook.

No matter what, never skip your image.

The absence of a profile picture instills loss of engagement or trust. A LinkedIn profile without a proper image gives the feeling to people that you are hiding something, adds von Rosen.

Ensure that your face consumes a minimum of 60% of the frame. Crop the image from the top of your shoulder to slightly above your head so that the frame is filled with your face.

The next thing to remember is to choose the right expression. As a recruiter or a freelancer, you would love to appear friendly and warm.

However, don’t put on a goofy grin if that makes you uncomfortable. Exude approachability so that your prospects can imagine working with a pleasant person like you.

Social PR Secret: According to LinkedIn, a profile with a real human face is 11 times more likely to be viewed compared to those without a photo.

2. Brevity. Make Your Headline Count

Maximize the 120 character limit of your headline by elucidating on what exactly you do and whom you offer your services to. Abstain from naming just the title of your job.

Lisa Buyer, author of Social PR Secrets mentions clearly that she is an educator, writer, publicist, journalist, and author.

Source

Here’s another example from Kim Vij’s LinkedIn profile.

It’s perfect even if you don’t use the title of your company. Instead, you can choose to create a headline that best describes you the way others want to know you.

3. Use the Right Keywords in the Summary

The 2000-character space is the place where the algorithm of LinkedIn searches for keywords, which is why you need to fill it with information you think your prospects are looking for.

You can make it more lively and interesting with awards, achievements or anything else that make you stand out.

Your potential customers will put in those keywords that match the candidate they are looking for, and job seekers might want to use those terms that match the jobs they are interested in.

By putting the right keywords, was able to increase her company’s revenue by 80% or almost 10 times. We also recommend you to use Youtube videos, Slideshare presentations, jpegs, blogs and mp3 in this section.

Note: Whatever you add gives credibility to your claims.

If LinkedIn happens to be an important part of your strategy to job hunting, finding new customers, or any other reason, you can open a premium account.

This way while filling out the summary section, the site will suggest keywords that will get your profile viewed quite often in search results.

Source

Peg Fitzpatrick has wasted no ink in getting her message across with only a couple of words. Driven, smart, engaging and endearing-her personality leaps off the page, ending with an effective CTA.

4. Experience and Visuals

The main objective of the experience section is to inform visitors about your past and present positions.

Try to go beyond your resume and include media like relevant videos, presentations, articles or images quoting you.

Here’s the thing: Until a few years back, LinkedIn was more or less based just on text. However, you can now spruce up your profile with the help of visuals.

So go ahead and take advantage.

If you fine tune your profile by adding at least two pieces of media, you can make it look more enticing. Your potential client, customer, partner or vendor will stay a bit longer viewing your profile, which can only result in more leads.

Social PR Secrets: Make your LinkedIn profile pop with a ‘background image.’ The image size is 1400px x 425px. Create the background easily with visual PR tools such as  Canva. Check out Peg Fitzpatrick’s background image above in #3.

5. Recommendations and Storytelling

It’s a must to have a few recommendations on your profile. Some of your prospects won’t even contact you if they fail to see recommendations on your profile page.

People will contact you only if your experiences match to what they are looking for; however, they will still hope to be introduced to some of your references.

Getting a recommendation permits you to drill down into the why and how of your experience with a past client.

 

The golden rule of recommendations on LinkedIn is to show but refrain from telling. Won’t it be more interesting to read how “Cathy Hackl is very knowledgeable influencer in PR and social” from a customer or instead of merely reading that “Cathy Hackl is a PR expert consultant”?

Remember:

The most stellar recommendations tell a brief story instead of providing empty statements.

Source

The recommendation above shows that Cathy Hackl is “very knowledgeable and personable influencer” besides being “respected”. It tells on what type of person Cathy is and what prospects could expect from her.

6. Contact Information

The level of easiness with which you want your connections to get in touch with you is up to your discretion.

If you wish to make this an easy process but a bit reluctant on giving them your personal number, try to use non-primary contact info like Google Voice Number.

This can easily create text from voice messages. This way you will not be missing out on your business or career opportunities.

However, if you feel that entering your email address or phone number would do good to your business, you are free to do so.

Here’s the bottom line:

Have at least one contact information on your LinkedIn profile or else you’ll be closing the floodgates to some golden opportunities.

7. LinkedIn Company Page

After optimizing your LinkedIn profile page, it’s time to create your LinkedIn company page. Such pages work best for companies with multiple employees. They give a great respect to your company and highlight the profile of all your employees.

For instance, HubPage has created a huge fan following of 16,500 followers with their LinkedIn company page. The page has also resulted in the creation of a group with over 82,000 members. Their conversion rate as a result stands at 2.7%, which is 3 times higher than the figures for Facebook and Twitter.

However, having a company page does not only boost your conversions, but help recruiters to save a ton of money.

Let’s take a look at this example below:

Schawk, a leading global brand production and deployment firm has saved over $200k in recruiting costs, and has saved considerable time in the process.

Source

Your company page is a meeting avenue for people interested in your business and serves larger business better than solopreneurs.

To assist you create the perfect LinkedIn profile, check out this infographic by TruConversion.

Remember:

There’s no single rule to create a perfect LinkedIn profile. Just take a note of the basics and derive maximum benefit from the features and you’re one step ahead of the game.

Image Source: yobro10 / 123RF Stock Photo

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Cracking the #LinkedIn Profile Code
[Interview] @JabezLeBret Shares LinkedIn For Business Secrets and Mistakes
Social Media Profile Picture Worth 1000 Keywords

How #Yoga Can Save Your Social Media Obsessed Life. #Blab

Yoga for Life

Are you running social media or is social media running you? There’s a yoga pose for that.

Meet up with The Digital Dish co-hosts Lisa Buyer and Cathy Hackl to talk with yoga entrepreneurs Paige Held and Kelly Green about the ROI yoga can play into social media investments.

When: Thursday, April 28 at 12 pm ET

Where: Blab

It’s true – yoga can reduce stress, improve balance and boost creativity for even the most Type A social media and public relations professionals. It’s time to bring mindfulness to the social media business and what a better way to start the conversation than with a question and answer from yogis who teach students everyday how to just let go.

Meet us on blab for a close encounter on the warrior pose kind and you will leave with actionable takeaways on how to not let social media take over  our

life.

Related posts:
What’s a Social Media Strategy for Tragedy? #Blab with @CathyHackl + @LisaBuyer
WomensRadio with Lisa Buyer: How to Balance Social PR + Life
How To Add Time and Happiness To Your Social Media Life

Nick Cicero Unlocks Snapchat Storytelling Secrets and Strategies

Nick Cicero is the CEO and founder of Delmondo, which is an innovative Snapchat analytics and influencer company. In a recent two-part interview with Lisa Buyer, he shared some of his experiences, tips, and hacks when using Snapchat for marketing purposes. It appears that 2016 is indeed the year for including Snapchat in your social media toolbox, so if you are still struggling to understand how to best use this platform these thoughts from Nick will be very beneficial.

As social media platforms tend to have peak years of growth, Snapchat is now beginning to take off in many age groups and for purposes other than just personal storytelling. Many more people are joining up and using Snapchat every single day, which means that brands are starting to pay attention and find ways to include themselves on the platform.

Nick says that brands are using Snapchat in one of two ways. Some brands are choosing to go the paid media route, which means they sign up for Snapchat’s commercial ad platforms. This includes using the branded geofilters that Snapchat offers or video ads. Brands can also just start their own accounts and create original content to post for their audience. They’re also being innovative with ideas on how to feature their brand through Snapchat. For example, some brands will go to an event that they’ve sponsored and create stories that let people behind the scenes. There are many different options for how a brand can tell a fun and engaging story.

Influencer Takeover of Snapchat Accounts

So far, one really effective strategy for brands has been to have influencers take over their Snapchat accounts. This continues to be a good strategy as discoverability can be a difficult thing due to the way Snapchat operates. Using this method gives a brand a personal element which allows the stories to be discoverable, helping to build a bigger audience.

Snapchat is built so that viewers have to actually click in order to open up and view a story. This makes for a place to create really unique content, and takeovers allow for brands to stand out even more. After using other social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat users are acclimated to the trend of more brands in their feeds. However, Snapchat is an entirely unique platform that challenges brands to find new ways to succeed.

Making a Successful Brand Presence

Snapchat is a space where friends share photos with each other in a fun and engaging way. Brands are going to best create a sustained presence by understanding how users perceive and enjoy the platform. Nick says that brands need to make sure they are creating stories that are meaningful, then watch to see if the way they are communicating matures and grows in the way they hope it will. You need to be unique enough to stand out and build an audience.

An easy way to get your employees involved in the company Snapchat account is to have several employees tell their own stories about one thing throughout one 24-hour period. This gives an interesting voice to the brand, with unique perspectives that will intrigue your audience. Nick says that Snapchat is really “…just as simple as sharing a point of view.”

Nick’s Advice to Social Media Managers

When it comes to which platforms social media managers should use, Nick says that they should be familiar with all of the platforms but not use them all for each client. In order to create balance and avoid social media burnout, managers should analyze their clients’ needs and brand personalities, then pair it with a couple or a few specific platforms.

Nick recommends that managers “…find out what’s evolving and start there.” You need to find the platforms where you can create the best content that will evoke the best reaction, and then put all of your energy into those platforms. Take the time to experiment, measure your results, and fine tune your strategies.

Snapchat Analytics: How do you measure with Snapchat?

While Snapchat is a unique platform that utilizes a minimalist, mobile-only platform, there are ways to analyze and measure for optimization. Nick says that the analytics are all in the storytelling. He says, “When you create content as a person, or as a brand, or whoever, you’re telling really awesome stories. It’s like the beginning and the end of a book that has chapters all along the way.”

Since the essence of Snapchat is to tell stories, brands can gauge the engagement level of their audience through how often their stories are actually viewed. You also should find out when your particular audience is on Snapchat the most and then maximize that for your brand’s benefit.

Formulas for Creating Brand Stories

When asked about how brands can best create an effective and engaging story on Snapchat, he offers some tips and hacks for creating unique content. Snapchat stories give you a 24-hour window to post content, during which you can post as many different snaps as you want. It creates a natural story to your day, allowing viewers to watch from beginning to end in a natural progression.

Post over a 24-hour window, while spreading your stories out. We already naturally tend to do this, as we share different pieces of our daily experiences as they happen.


Share your story all at once, to make sure that people see it in the way you want them to. Turn your phone’s airplane mode on. This now allows you to create a bunch of snaps and then upload them all together so people see the story from start to finish. This can be time consuming, maybe taking an hour or two to put together, but then you have total control over how it uploads and how people see it.

Other Snapchat Tips and Hacks

Native Only! There aren’t any third party apps to post to Snapchat, so you have to create native content.
Phone to Phone. You can take video of a story with another phone. As long as the video is decent quality, you can hear it, and it’s informative, people don’t mind so much if it’s not perfect.
Add Tunes. One cool hack is to open up Spotify, play a song, open up snapchat and hit record to make your video. The music gets recorded in your Snapchat video, which is a fun way to add a unique element to your stories.
Download and Upload. To get Snapchat followers through other platforms and through search engines, download your stories and post them to your other social media accounts, on your website, and in your blog. Slinger is a great application that helps you do this smoothly.
Snaps Drive Search. Snapchat can drive searches. If you include something in your snap, people will go search for it in the web. Though there’s not the ability to post a link in Snapchat, so it’s hard to track the searches and connections.
Quality over Quantity. One tip for analytics is to looks at consumption over followers. You can have a lot of followers, but if they’re not watching your stories it’s not useful. You can easily go see all of your views. Don’t over-post. If you’re a beginner, stick to 5-12 snaps per day. See how many people are watching and if they’re not viewing all of them, cut back. Always emphasize quality over quantity.
Be Consistent. You don’t need to create stories every day, you just need to be consistent. You need to find a unique voice for your brand, which might be different from what users are posting. Create a channel strategy, for example, plan to share an interesting story every Monday, and then promote it the days leading up – make it good.
Try it All! Social media platforms are still under development, so a lot of people are trying many different things. Read ideas from different kinds of experts so you can create a strategy that is unique and engaging to your specific audience.

For more great ideas on how to maximize your brand strategy through Snapchat, follow Nick Cicero on Twitter: @nickcicero and on Snapchat: @nickcicero. Follow Lisa Buyer on Snapchat for thoughts on social media strategies  @lisabuyer. Snapchat is a social media frontier, so continue to try new ways to tell your story, and keep on snapping!

Want more Digital Marketing Dish?

Subscribe to Lisa Buyer and Cathy Hackl’s weekly Blab, The Digital Dish.

 

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6 Pinterest PR Secrets To Drive Conversions

Social media posts that include images generate higher engagement, so it’s not surprising that image-centric platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram are getting the attention of online retailers.

Pinterest, in particular, is perfectly set up for businesses to drive traffic and increase conversion. Here’s why:

Pinners are 47% more likely to experience a major life event within 6 months. They’re also disproportionately using Pinterest to plan for these moments. As a result, they’re more receptive to new ideas and new brands, and more likely to make major purchasing decisions based on images they collect.
With two-third of pins representing brands and products, Pinterest provides a great environment for retailers to cultivate relationship with consumers.
Among pinners who have actively used Pinterest in the 6 months prior to this study, 96% reported they used Pinterest to research and gather information. 93% reported that they used Pinterest to plan for purchases, and another 87% reported Pinterest engagement had helped them make their purchasing decision.
Each “pin” that a user attaches to one of his or her Pinterest boards is worth, on average, 78 cents in additional sales to the brand whose merchandise is featured.
Up to 47% of online consumers from the US have made online purchases based on Pinterest recommendations.
The contextual relevance – made possible by the ability of a user to choose boards on a particular topic to follow – allows each pin to garner 4 times more revenue per click compared to Facebook and Twitter.
From a purchasing psychology perspective, consumers use Pinterest as a means to construct their ideal selves. This encourages meaningful engagement between brands and consumers, which can help brands elevate from being considered as “commodity” to being “aspirational,” thereby creating a unique positioning and building a loyal customer base in the process.

Pinterest help consumers make purchasing decisions on these top categories.

Image Source – Millward Brown Digital

Despite the compelling stats, using Pinterest for business is still relatively new for most brands. In fact, only 17% of the Fortune 500 are active on Pinterest.

 

The most active Fortune 500 brands on Pinterest.

Image Source – Adweek

That means smaller brands can take the opportunity to establish their presence and carve out a space on this platform to cultivate a deeper relationship with consumers.

But you can’t just stick some pretty pictures up and call it a day.

Like all social media platforms, there’re strategies and tactics you can employ to make sure your effort pays off in the form on more quality traffic to your website that leads to increased conversion and revenue.

In this article, we’ll look at 6 ways to drive traffic and increase conversion on Pinterest:

Create high-quality, evergreen content

No matter what platform you’re on, your content needs to be relevant, valuable and shareable for it to be effective.

Pins, unlike Facebook posts or tweets, have a much longer lifespan. They spread out their effects over a period of months. Study has found that a full 50% of referral traffic driven by pins takes place after 3.5 months, and 50% of orders happen after 2.5 months.

Moreover, seasonal posts that do well year-over-year often have Pinterest as their strongest referral channel.

Content in Pinterest has a much longer lifespan than Facebook posts and tweets.

Image source: TruConversion

This long lifespan is partly due to power of repin. Only 20% of pins are original, the remaining 80% are repins.

If you’ve a good image that’s valuable and relevant to your followers, it’s very likely that it’ll be repinned over and over again. In turn, your brand can be exposed to more new potential customers and generate more attention compared to Facebook shares, retweets and Instagram shares.

That’s where the importance of “evergreen” content comes in.

Given the long lifespan of a pin, you want to make sure that an image is still relevant a few months down the road if you want people to repin it.

To create content that not only generates interest but also drives traffic and conversion, make sure your images are themed around your brand message, the culture and conversation you want to create, and the relevance of your products or services.

Create boards that give clear indication on what the images are about so you can attract a highly targeted following who’d be more likely to repin your images.

And don’t forget to do some research – look at what other pinners and brands are doing in your space to understand what types of images generate the most engagement.

Make your pins go viral

As you can see above, pins can really have legs if they are valuable, relevant and share-worthy.

Try these tactics to give more “legs” to your pins:

“Watermark” your pin by adding your business name and URL to the image.
Create vertical images as they stand out in Pinterest. A minimum size of 700px by 800 px is recommended.
Use catchy titles to garner more repins.
Rework older posts if necessary to attract more repins.
Add a Pinterest “Pin It” button to your website to encourage social sharing. You can also explore other plug-ins, such as SumoMe, that offer image share functionality.

Example of a Pinterest “Pin It” button.

Image Source – Pinterest

Example of the SumoMe Image Share function. The share buttons appears over an image as visitor hovers over the photo.

Pin your images on multiple boards (as long as they’re relevant) and set up a schedule to re-pin previous images after a few weeks.
Join relevant group boards and share your images.
Don’t slack on your alt-text: Pinterest pulls an image’s alt text as pin description when someone uses the “Pin It” button on your website. Make your alt-text descriptive, relevant and click-worthy.


Generate excitement and anticipation

One way to increase sales and conversion is to create buzz and anticipation for new product launches, and you can do so effectively on Pinterest.

Give your followers sneak peeks of what’s new and exciting in your product lines. Get them involved in the conversation and maybe even ask for their input about certain features or design to incorporate into the final product.

You can make this sneak peek Pinterest-exclusive. Drive traffic from other channels to your Pinterest board to take advantage of the platform’s retailer-friendly environment.

Don’t forget to pin the link to the product page after the release to make sure your loyal followers who are excited about the buzz can easily purchase the product.

Gap uses boards to not only showcase their products but also create a sense of inspiration.

Image source 

Use the Pinterest “buy” button

Pinterest’s buyable pins are helping consumers discover new brands, leading to incremental sales for online retailers. Merchants getting a bump are using the social network’s pins that let consumers buy products directly within a pin while using the Pinterest mobile app.

Example of a “buyable pin”

Image Source– Pinterest

Since launching its buy button for iOS devices in June 2015, the number of “buyable pins” has exceeded 60 million. Early results show that buyable pins are “more than doubling” the rate at which shoppers convert into buyers, compared with regular pins. (source)

Pinterest, with its already large collection of “inventory,” is evolving from a platform where users browse and then get redirected to external websites, into a marketing and discovery platform with eCommerce integrated into the user experience.

Use Pinterest contest to generate high quality leads

The use of different boards for different interests allows retailers to attract a highly targeted audience.

Take advantage of this to turn your casual followers into loyal subscribers so you can continue the communication with them through additional channels, such as emails.

One way to do so is to hold a Pinterest contest in which a requirement to join is to opt-in to your mailing list. This generates high-quality leads because they’re already expressing interest in your brand.

You can then continue the conversation and warm up your leads by sending newsletters to them with useful information, product updates, and links back to your website.

Example of a Pinterest contest aim to generate high quality leads.

Image Source – Social Media Examiner

Measure your results

The proof is in the pudding. Any time conversion metrics are involved, you’ve to look at the data and analytics to gauge the effectiveness of your tactics and make adjustments to maximize the results.

You can use Pinterest’s analytic tools to find out how your pins are performing, what people are pinning from your website, who your audience is and how well the “Pin It” buttons are generating referral traffic back to your website.

Pinterest’s analytic tool allows you to see how your pins are doing.

Image source

You can also get a deeper understanding of your audience by seeing what their interests are, so you can tailor your pins based on their interests.

You can see what other topics your audience is into, to tailor your pins to speak to the interests.

Image source

Bonus Tip: Jump on the video bandwagon

We all know that video is generating more engagement on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Product videos are great tools to drive conversion. Combined with the purchasing mentality of Pinterest users, the use of video represents a great opportunity to drive traffic and increase sales.

At the time of writing, Pinterest is looking at integrating video and planning on rolling out video ad unit. Stay tuned, and make sure you take advantage of the medium when it becomes available on Pinterest.

Pinterest is a fast-evolving platform with a lot of potential for online retailers. Besides keeping an eye on the latest development, the best way to get the most out of the platform is to create valuable, relevant and pinnable content, and focus on using it to spark conversation, build relationship and inspire loyalty with your followers.

Over to you – how do you plan to use Pinterest to increase your Social PR conversions? Leave a comment below and share your insights:

 

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What’s a Social Media Strategy for Tragedy? #Blab with @CathyHackl + @LisaBuyer

Are brands becoming  immune to the death, destruction and tragedy happening in the social media newsfeed? It’s one thing to newsjack a story to tie in relevance with your organization, but what about when the trending hashtag #JeSuisBrussels floods the newsfeeds after a terror attack? Where do we draw the line between creating authentic tributes and pushing the #PR envelope with sensationalized self promotion at the expense of someone else’s heartache?

Join the live conversation on Blab with Lisa Buyer and Cathy Hackl as they discuss the who, what, where, when, and why of social media strategy for tragedy do’s, don’t and maybes.

What: The Digital Dish on Social Media Strategy for Tragedy

When: Thursday, March 31 @12 pm ET



Lisa and Cathy dish out on this social media topic through a public relations lens splashed with a journalistic approach.

Is it worth it to keep the social media messages flowing during a global, national, or local crisis?

Who’s in charge of pulling the plug on promoted posts?

Can a brand be too personal?

Digital marketer extraordinaire Jay Baer recently covered this topic in a blog post titled, The 3 Social Media Rules for Death and Tragedy. But it’s worth reminding our social media selves:

Dear Self: The “rules” of social media are a slippery slope and what works for one brand is not one size fits all.

Follow @CathyHackl @LisaBuyer for the daily dish on digital marketing trends and news.

 

 

 

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Visual Storytelling Secrets: Think Like @Ekaterina

Social PR Chat caught up with the queen bee of visual storytelling: Ekaterina Walter! Who better to paint the image of how to use visuals, videos and social media to market your brand, than the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Think Like Zuck, and the women who has led marketing and strategic innovation for huge Fortune 500 companies such as; Intel and Accenture. She didn’t stop there, Ekaterina then went on to co-fund a startup named Branderati that was purchased by Sprinklr!

To complete her awesome list of accomplishments, she was named 2013 Marketer of the Year honor (SoMe Awards) and ranked #3 on The Forbes 2014 World’s Top 40 Social Marketing Talent and is a published author with her most recent book The Power of Visual Storytelling. She’s one of our favorite wonder women in the social media marketing industry and the perfect person to tell us all the tips and tricks for visual storytelling in 2016 right? Read on.

Why The Image May Outweigh The Words

“We started drawing before we started talking.” – Ekaterina

One of our first questions for Ekaterina was why exactly is visual storytelling such a powerhouse in the social media hemisphere? She quickly stated how our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text. Now specifically with the whole digital revolution and the amount of data created, images are now critical for content branding.

According to Ekaterina, Google says that every 48 hours we are now cranking out the same amount of information from the beginning of time until 2003!

There are different ways our brain filters the massive amount of information we see on a daily basis, and one of the most memorable to our brain is imagery. It’s important to factor in that the average human attention span nowadays is three-eight seconds. This means colorful pictures, bold text, and photographs serve to capture your audience’s attention in a way text may not!

“Not only do you need to grab there attention, you need to be able to tell them the story,” Ekaterina explains as she shares some of her most coveted social media marketing and storytelling tips.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Visual Storytelling

“Excellence is an attitude. Determination is an attitude. Success is an attitude.” @ekaterina http://onforb.es/1mtDeis

You know how much we love our lists here, and the visual storytelling “Do’s and Don’t’s” list is one of our favorite’s so far for this year. Ekaterina made sure that by the end of reading these tactical tips, you will be ready to create your own visual storytelling masterpiece!

The Visual Storytelling Do’s

Use Images ALL THE TIME. With so many different formats and images such as gifs, jpeg/png, video and infographics, you shouldn’t be afraid to use images! Just make sure that you are using it often, but switching up what kind of visual you use is crucial!

Stay True To You. No matter what format or visual you use, the way you use visuals must be consistent with who you are and what you want to communicate. Ekaterina advice is: every time you put out a piece of content you should think, “what is the visual extension of this?” An example, if you are going to write an ebook, besides visual images for the ebook you should automatically think, “what additional images can I create with stats, video, or quotes?” Get visually creative!

Engage Your Community! One of the best tips we took from our interview with Ekaterina was that responding to your audience with images or videos is an underrated and not well known way to respond to your followers! It will make you stand out and give you an edge over the competition! An example of this can be if a customer is asking how to use a specific product, try sending them a tutorial video instead of trying to type out the instructions.

Social PR Secret: “Walk the talk. You need to know it,  you need to do it.” – Ekaterina

The Visual Storytelling Don’t’s

Don’t Go Out and Look for the Story. This is one of the best and empowering pieces of advice from Ekaterina. Realize that YOU ARE THE STORY. No matter how “boring” you think your product or company is. There is no excuse! Every product no matter how boring has a customer. From Ekaterina mouth, “if Charmin can make toilet paper sexy, you can make your product sexy.”

Create Visuals that Don’t Relate. You want your audience to recognize and associate visuals with your brand. That means even though you may use different visual formats, you should have consistency such as a design element that stays consistent across those visuals.

No Creative? No Excuse. Use your resources and tap into your employees and even your customers. Customers often create content through media that you can reuse for your brand. For example GoPro will often tap into the power of user generated images to authenticate and accentuate the brand experience.

 Social PR Secret: From a visual standpoint, don’t try to be perfect. “Fix it, or it didn’t happen.” – Ekaterina 

5 Must Have Visual Tools to Rule

Canva: Create amazing designs, simply with Canva’s suite of features.

Haiku Deck: Embed and save your slides from presentations from Haiku deck as a video!

Make Web Video: is an explainer video that is cheap and easy tools to get your message across, simply!

Easel.ly: Features thousands of free infographic templates and design objects.

WordSwag: Add text to your photos in seconds via mobile.

Want the complete list? Check out the top 10 of visual tools article.

Your world would not be complete unless you watched our YouTube interview with the inspiring Ekaterina!  Also, make sure to follow @Ekaterina on Twitter for amazing visual content, social media business tips and noteworthy inspirational quotes!

Want more Social PR Secrets? Read this!

Have anything else to add on visual storytelling? Share it in our comments!

Image Source: Ekaterina
Reported by:

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[eBook] Public Relations Fast Forward: 10 Tools and Tips to Generate Leads Today

 

In this digital age of public relations one thing is for sure:

You cannot change what you refuse to confront.

So when public relations pro Cindy Metzler asked me to write the foreword for her first eBook, I answered in all emojis including lots of ❤️and

The Barbara Corcoran Report: Her Best PR Trump Cards

Entrepreneurs wondering if PR is worth the effort may have a whole new respect for the power of the press thanks to real estate icon Barbara Corcoran. She was swimming with the sharks long before the concept of Shark Tank, as well as spinning the media to make headline news as her brand building bait long before Donald Trump was a household name.

Corcoran delivered a keynote at the Four Seasons Resort in Orlando, Florida to #Engage15, an elite

business conference of who’s who in the bridal industry, with a no-holds-barred series of tips, secrets, and stories of her rise to fame and fortune.

Tip: Perception makes reality.

When Barbara Corcoran started her real estate business in the 1970s, she was a self-proclaimed nobody with little real estate experience with a natural knack for sales. With no money to buy ads in the New York Times next to rivals like Donald Trump, Corcoran sat down at her typewriter and created the now infamous “The Corcoran Report”. She sent that curated list to the real estate journalists for the Times and before she knew it, writers were quoting her in the Sunday real estate section. The Times made Barbara Corcoran the “go to girl for real estate” when she put out “The Corcoran Report” by churning out statistics. Her phone started ringing off the hook with deals, and so it began.

Today the Times is still quoting “The Corcoran Report,” proving the power of the press can create an image leveraging data and statistics, even if it’s

sales data from a competitor. The typewriter might be obsolete, but the status update is hotter than ever as social brands like Buzzfeed giving new meaning to the power of lists and brands continue to take the lead as listed content proves to be credit for increased engagement and virality.

#SocialPRSecret: The secret to success is to control or steal your competitor’s limelight.

Tip: Put someone in charge of everything you’re not good at.

Corcoran believes there are two kinds of people: expanders and containers. In PR, the expanders might be those who are good at connecting with the media (both online and offline), while the containers tend to be more introverted and better at researching media lists and organizing budgets on the backend.

#SocialPRSecret: Two halves that together equal wholeness are also known as yin and yang. Balance business teams so that you have someone who is good at what you’re not.

 

Tip: Shoot the dogs early. Ouch!

As ruthless as it seems, Corcoran emphasizes the need to “just let go” of team members who aren’t pulling their weight and proving ROI value. “If you are upfront with requirements, talent will fire themselves because they know they did not cut it and meet expectations,” Corcoran said.

#SocialPRSecret: Create an automatic system to get rid of people who aren’t performing.

 

Tip: Fun is good for business.

The two best dividends in business ownership: having fun and getting lots of press! Make that a double. Known for her lavish company parties, Corcoran points to a picture of her with a martini in hand and notes that it’s good for business to create a fun culture in your company. Tech companies like Facebook, Etsy, and Google are all notorious for crafting an alluring employee culture that blends work, play, and family. Other trending companies such as LinkedIn recently started offering unlimited vacation time—now that’s good PR!

#SocialPRSecret: Become the hot company everyone wants to work for as a strategy to retain talent and reduce employee turnover.

Tip: Fail first, win second.

Everything good happens on the heels of failure, Corcoran told the crowd. Seven years ago, Corcoran signed the contract to be on Shark Tank only to have one slight glitch: the producers never signed the contract and backed out at the last minute. She was devastated and determined to not take no for an answer without putting up a fight. Check out the email she sent to Mark Burnett Productions. The rest is history!

#SocialPRSecret: Never take no for an answer.

Check out more Social PR Secrets from The Knot’s, Carley Roney at Engage this year.

Do you have any Social PR Secrets? Share them in the comments!

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Mindfulness and Mobile Media Relations: Lisa Buyer and @SEJournal Chat

Go, go, go. In a world of constantly having things in the palm of your hand, PR professionals are challenged with mindfulness when it comes to mobile media relations. Lisa Buyer recently caught up with Kelsey Jones, Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal, to chat about all things social and mobile. Here are a few of her nuggets of wisdom:

“Everything is 24/7. We’re constantly producing.”

Q: How do brands do PR without coming across as intrusive or annoying? Especially on mobile?

Journalists want to have their own personal brand, and they’re forming that through social media. Follow and interact with journalists on their social media platforms. By actively engaging them, you can help them generate their own publicity and ultimately open up a connection for conversation when you’re ready to send out pitches.

SocialPRSecret: “Follow the media on Twitter and interact and share their stories on a continuous basis—they’re going to notice.”

The Good: With everything moving 24/7, we’re constantly engaging. That being said, we’re able to reach practically anyone at any given time.

The Bad: Being constantly aware of the world at your fingertips may quickly lead to burnout. It’s important to balance and allow yourself time to unwind apart from the everything-mobile world.

As touched upon in previous interviews and presentations, Lisa believes in a set of three strategies to maintain mindfulness and rejuvenation when it all gets to be too much. Keeping tabs on all things social can lead to stress overload. The following strategies may help:

3 Strategies for Mindfulness

Duplicate

Whatever you’re doing well, share it with someone else on your team so they duplicate those same efforts. More success = more ROI

“Don’t try and fix what’s not broken” just monitor the trends.

Replicate

Re-purpose content (including images and videos) that is engaging and fulfilling your KPIs rather than constantly re-inventing the wheel.

Do it, The Guy Kawasaki Way

“Repeat your tweets four times, eight hours apart! If you do it that way you will always catch Pacific Coast prime time, which is early evening.” -Guy Kawasaki

Meditate

Take a break to increase creativity (e.g., take a walk, make yourself take a lunch, get 8 hours of sleep, etc.)

SocialPRSecret: Being in social media, we always have to ‘be on’ in being creative. You’re going to eventually get burned out if you don’t take that [space] to be able to rejuvenate.

Sometimes you just have to just be.

How can PR professionals enhance their pitches to big brands without seeming too pushy? Be Visual!

Be able to offer visuals that are compelling and original.

Use authentic video to pitch the story. Stay away from anything commercial and make it your own! As an example, put a brand CEO in front of an

iPhone camera for two minutes. It gives journalists hints as to who you are, your angle, etc.

SocialPRSecret: You don’t have to be Search Engine Journal to create videos and make them work for your brand.

In short, be social, be visual and be mindful. Strike up meaningful connections with your top-list journalists. In the end, it’ll make you stand out in the

whirlwind of constant pitches and brand communications. Don’t forget to rejuvenate—pay a little attention to yourself, too!

Meet up with Lisa in Fort Lauderdale at SFIMA Pubcon where she is teaching the Social Media Masters Class with Jabez LeBret and Melissa Fach on February 24, 2016.

Watch the full interview, here:

Interested in learning more about mindful Public Relations? Contact The Buyer Group for Public Relations consulting.

Reported by: Erin Ford

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