Pinning Away

"Pinterest -  A content sharing service that allows members to "pin" images, videos and other objects to their pinboard. Also includes standard social networking features ..."

That's what you see when you search for the platform on Google. That's pretty much what it is about, but it provides for a whole day's worth of entertainment. My own perception - Pinterest is like a mesh up of Facebook and Google Images! 

So, for those of you who are unaware of what Pinterest is, here's what it looks like: 

The pictures are pinned onto a board which users create. So for instance, I have some 6-7 boards, and I have given a theme to each board. So if I was to pin the image of the lanterns (above), I would pin it to 'Just Beautiful', but the picture of the cat or the house would go on another board. 

After YouTube, I'd say Pinterest is the best site to keep you busy, browsing the whole day - I'm quite sure you wouldn't get bored! 

If you add the 'Pin It' button to your browser, you can pin anything from any website to boards of your choice. Studying digital marketing, my mind keeps shifting to how this could be leveraged by marketers - and the answer is right in front of you! When I pin any item, it gets shared with all my friends (the same effect as sharing an image on facebook or twitter has). However because it has only images, it becomes a lot more appealing, You can make sure that images of your product are shared via Pinterest with ease. Just add the 'Follow us on Pinterest' or 'Pin It' button to your website. 

Apart from the marketing stand point, of all the social networks that have come and tried to overthrow Facebook, Pinterest seems to have taken a huge slice of cake when it comes to customer engagement.

Again, like I mentioned in my post about whether Facebook and Google will be around 10 years down the line, the whole debate and question about mobility comes to the fore front. Pinterest, is far more 'mobile' friendly than either of the other platforms. When you take a picture of something you've eaten at a restaurant, the chances of you sharing it with your friends are high. Now imagine, a friend of yours wants to make plans with some other friends about having the same dinner, all he has to do is pin it to his board and either tag his friends. 

You could argue that they could do the same on Facebook. Yes they can. And till now, they have. But with people increasingly liking the idea of browsing content that interests them and being able to store it in one place, I have no doubts that Pinterest, with a good mobile app, will overthrow the Facebook over the next couple of years - unless the later buys them out! 

For now, happy pinning!!   

Will Facebook, Google be around 5-10 years from now?

I came across an article a while ago, about whether or not Facebook will be around in a few years from now. The opinion of the article was - most likely, no. In fact, it would be wrong to say just Facebook will not be around, the write-up actually referred to Google, Facebook and several other websites we're hooked-to. The reason - not because they are not popular, or because they are going bankrupt. The reason was quite simple - they cannot adapt. Just like MySpace went out (though it still exists), so will Facebook!

Remember the time you jumped to Yahoo or Lycos or Alta Vista everytime you wanted to search for something? And how many of you had email ids on every website that popped up?

How many of you remember ICQ? Do you remember your number? I don't! Though I do know a few friends who do. How about your Hi5 account? How often do you visit that? They all still exist, but few ever visit such sites. We just changed our minds and started using things which were easier to use! In more techie terms we shifted from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

When I look back, I used all of these platforms. But I was never able to stay hooked to one! The whole idea of using the internet is to make life simpler - so when a newer (and simpler) site comes up, I switch, as do many others! When I realised that all my friends were shifting to Facebook, I did it too! Though I have often wondered why?

I have seen this shift very often -- MySpace to Facebook, Orkut to Hi5 and then to Facebook, and then off late, people often choose between Twitter and Facebook. I'm guessing its because we all have one reason for using social networks - to keep in touch with people. So if people shift, so do we. But that begs the question, why do they start shifting? The 'whys' can be answered by psychology, and although I wish I was an expert at it, I'm not.

Coming back to the topic, the reason why Facebook and Google may not be around in a few years from now, is because the companies cannot adapt as quickly as we do. If we have started using our phones more than our computers, it is in Facebook's and Google's interest to ensure they have mobile versions of the site. But not just mobile versions. It's the whole experience of using the site that needs to be translated to a mobile platform.

On a personal note, I sort of agree - Google Search may be mobile friendly, but not the other Google products - I mean, how many 'Google' products do you have on your phone/tablet? Even for all the Android users, do you use Google Goggles or Google Earth or Google Latitude?

But then again, can you imagine having to send 'friend requests' to all your friend again? Or starting to get used to a new platform altogether? - Not that Facebook hasn't trained us for it, with all their changes to the way you use your profile, there is no doubt, we're all experts at getting used to new social networks in a giffy - We love Pinterest don't we?

But as of now, thinking of a world without Facebook and Google although tough, is not impossible! 

A simple example that I thought of when reading the article was - Whatsapp. We all use Whatsapp, but did it occur to anyone that you can use G-Talk, Skype or any other such messenger across all platforms?  Or was it because there is no G-Talk for iPhone? and no Skype for Blackberry? I guess that is exactly what the articles means by it will lose out!

Now imagine if tomorrow Whatsapp launches a profile option allowing you to share status updates with your friends? Oh wait, it already does that right? You can share statuses, create groups, share pictures, videos, etc - you just can't share it with everyone without 'chatting' with them! But if they do bring such features in, would you start using those instead of Facebook? 

A special campaign for NOAH

I have been trying to think of a special campaign for my 'buzz campaign'! Personally for me, NOAH has turned into more than just a buzz campaign. It is something that I have believed in for a long time, but was just not able to bring it to 'life'! Now that I am 2 weeks into the campaign, I have managed to bring about a 100 fans to the page! But now I need to think about ways to increase this number.

People may say that with time and through word-of-mouth the name will spread and people will realise the use of the campaign. However, I have decided that since I am learning digital marketing, I will use some of those techniques to build on NOAH as a brand! By New Year, the aim is to get 1000 fans on Facebook.

Think I can do it?

I am sure I can! Yesterday, I spent about an hour on the page, and got around 22 fans! Now I know that is not enough, but I think it's a start!

But just getting likes on the page is not enough. I need to push people to actually post stuff and interact with the page. Which to my joy is actually happening! There are new posts that are shared by those who like the page. This also means that through mere engagement, people will start spreading the word.

The idea behind NOAH is to build a non-commercial, non-regional network linking people worldwide but for a specific cause--helping animals. What better way to do this than use platforms that link people already--like Facebook and Twitter?

Getting the Hang of Twitter

A few years back, when twitter hit India, I thought it was just another networking site--like Facebook and Orkut (Google's first attempt at social media). But then I joined it anyway. Why? Cause of all the hype created by the Bollywood stars, the news industry, etc. I realised that there are a lot of things that I can gather from twitter rather than anywhere else. But soon I lost interest in it. My account just stayed with some 20 odd followers, and with just 2-3 tweets from me!

Last year, I started using my twitter account to promote the twitter account for the company I worked in. Since I had part responsibility in maintaining my company's twitter account, I needed to learn about twitter. So I followed some companies/people talking about Social Media, only to realise that I really enjoyed tweeting (for my company). But personally, I never understood the use of twitter. I always thought it to be more of a corporate tool, for companies to make brief announcements!

When I decided to get into social media marketing, I knew I had to understand twitter in-depth! Sadly, I have still not got a hang of it. I am still quite clueless of how to increase twitter followers for just a regular person!

When you are a star or a company, you tend to get followers, whether you like it or not! but how do you get followers by tweeting about your daily life? Is anyone really interested in what I am doing personally (since I am not yet a big personality)?

I have always had my doubts. This being said, we have repeatedly been told in class that since we are in the field of digital marketing, we must be on all the channels out there! And I couldn't agree more...

So to change my way of doing things, and to get used to twitter, I have decided to use twitter regularly from now. My tweets at start may be quite ridiculous, but I'm sure I will get the hang of it soon! But till then, I will not post anything directly to my Facebook Account! Everything will happen via my twitter account.

So here goes At least a month (if not more) of no Facebook posts! Twitter twitter twitter...