If you are using Pinterest here is some research for you to review and evaluate against what you are experiencing for your content plan.

Dan Zarrella has examined some 11,000 posts on Pinterest and identified some key insights:

- the description of your Pin matters and that if your description is about 20 characters it will be more likely to be re-pinned

- people love posting content that is related to food with the most re-pins happening where the following words were included: 'chicken', 'minutes', 'bake' and 'cake'

- you are more likely to get repinned if the Pin is 'liked' by your community versus has a lot of comments

- tall images are likely to have more pins.

As ever you have to review this against your experience. I know was surprised by a recent post I shared which was just a simple text quote rahter than an engaging image received more likes and shares than most of my Pins and the time of my posting has made a difference to the amount of engagement. That's not unexpected if you consider what we know about engagement on Facebook.

What have you found works for you in relation to encouraging more re-pins of your content on Pinterest?

Pinterest for Business Resources

You will find tips on my Pinterest account about how to use Pinterest for business

Don't forget to register for our forthcoming webinar series to help you with your social media marketing - including a webinar all about Pinterest for business

A suprising number of Facebook Pages seem to have forgotten that Facebook Timeline comes into effect today.

As I was navigating through Facebook I found these Pages that had forgotten to add a cover image to their Facebook Pages - some of the brands might suprise you.

What was interesting is that some of the organisations were also promoting their Facebook Pages with adverts and all have posted on Facebook recently so there is no reason that they should not be aware of the impending changes.

I also found a number of Facebook Pages which have breached Facebook cover image guidelines for example adding their website URL, including their contact details to their cover photo, adding calls to action and using images that are mainly text.

So here is a quick reminder of the guidance from Facebook about your Facebook Timeline cover images:

• Use a unique image that represents your Page. This might be a photo of a popular menu item, album artwork or a picture of people using your product. Be creative and experiment with images your audience responds well to

• To get the best quality image and fastest load times for your Page, upload an sRGB JPG file that's 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and less than 100 kilobytes
• All cover images are public, which means anyone visiting your Page will be able to see the image you choose.

Cover images must be at least 399 pixels wide and may not contain:

• Price or purchase information, such as "40% off" or "Download it at our website"

• Your contact details for example your web address, email details, mailing address or other information intended for your Page's About section

• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as "Get it now" or "Tell your friends"

• Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties' intellectual property
• You may not encourage or incentivise people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines.

You can find more information about Facebook Pages guidelines here.

Here is a bonus tip: why not use the change to Timeline to increase some new visitors to your Page?

Take for example Dell using their corporate Twitter account to promote their Facebook Page and then writing an extensive article on their blog about their Timeline on Facebook including before and after images and alos references to the milestones in the history of their brand that they have added to their Timeline.

Please do share with me other examples of great promotions of Facebook Timelines on my Facebook Page.

Are you looking to connect with small businesses using social media?

In a Twitter chat that took place on 28 February 2012, Dell shared their tips for what they have learnt when connecting to small businesses using social media.

I have curated the tips I think you will find the most interesting and helpful here or view the slide show below.

 

[View the story "DellSMBNews shares tips for connecting with small businesses using social media" on Storify]

Here is a quick overview of the state of Pinterest as at February 2012 in an infographic created by DigSandbox and designed by Lemon.ly.

Find more markeitng infogrpahics and Pinterest resources at my Pinterest account.

Even if you do not actively want to post content to social media platforms, one of the recommendations I have for you is to ensure that you enable sharing of content to social media channels by visitors to your online presence - from you blog to your ezine, from your PDF's to your website.

This week I was speaking at an event where we had 100 participants and ahead of the session we had undertaken research about their use of social media.

Only 26 percent of the respondents to the research had enabled social sharing on their website. This is quite typical I have found in Ireland having run workshops on social media communications over the last 7 years.

AddThis.com has recently made available some statistics about social sharing in 2011 and they have found analysing their platform that 52.1% of sharing has been through Facebook and 13/5% has been through Twitter.

I would encourage you to ensure that you add social sharing buttons to your website - and make sure that they are the relevant buttons for your audience. For example if your content is relevant to a B2B audience you should enable the 'Share on LinkedIn' button.

I provided resources to the delegates of the workshop about tools you can use to add social sharing yo your website - you can access the resource list here.

 

 

Have you analysed your most effective source for inbound leads to your business from social networks?

Recent research by Pardot a marketing automation company found that for B2B companies then LinkedIn was the social networking platform that delivered the greatest results.

Lead generation was ranked as follows:

• LinkedIn 32 percent
• Bblogging 27 percent
• Twitter 15 percent.

Remember to use this as a guide rahter than an absolute - the key action for us all is to learn which social networks are delivering the results we are looking for and enhancing our effectiveness - that might be lead generation for some others it could be brand awareness.

Here is an event not to miss if you are a recuiter and based in Ireland - it is the second TruDubln - I wrote about the first event here.

The event is the brain child of Bill Boorman and thanks to the Socialtalent team, #TruDublin 2 will be taking place on 15 December 2011 followed by #truChristmas, an evening of musi and dance.

#Tru events are unconferences, where the emphasis is on conversation, communication and the free exchange of ideas and experiences with participants including recruiters, Human Resources professionals and Technology Developers and Vendors.

#TruDublin2 will have three tracks per hour and there is no need for speaker applications or preparation.

As there are only 80 tickets I urge you to book your place soon. Topics so far include everything from using Twitter for recruitment, Gaming and recruitment and the future of job boards.

The investment is just €125 plus a small admin fee per person - the event starts at 9.30am and takes place at the Harcourt Hotel, 60 Harcourt Street, Dublin2.

So if you are looking to fill your empty chairs with terrific talent in 2011 make sure you book your place for #TruDublin2.

And to get you in the mood here is one of Bill's recent presentations about using Facebook for recruitment.

 

Photo Credit Johann In London

Age Action is hosting the second year of their TRY IT event a free technology event aimed at the over 50's and will be held in the Central Hotel in Dublin City Centre on Exchequer Street on Tuesday November 2011.  Visitors can pop in anytime during the day from 10am to 4pm.

There will be leading technology companies at the event with stands and also hourly free talks on everything from how to use Facebook, Twitter, the RTÉ Player, all about Saor View, how to shop online and use YouTube.  There will be a question and answers session after each talk.

There will be stands hosted by RTÉ, Saorview, Google, Age Action, Dublin City Council, ComReg, Canon Cameras, National Library demonstrating their products and services and there will be talks on Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, YouTube and how to search for your ancestors online. 

The free event is sponsored by the HSE and ComReg and in partnership with the Irish Network for Digital Inclusion & Engagement (INDIE).

For more details contact Ciara Sherlock on 01 475 6989 or email silversurfer@ageaction.ie

AddThis, the bookmark and sharing sharing service used by 10 million websites reaching 1.2 billion people every month, celebrate their fifth birthday this month and they have made available an infogrpahic that demonstrates how sharing online hans developed over those 5 years. Remember that social networking has changed dramatically over that same time period too - in fact Twitter only just turned 5 this year so back in 2006 many people had not heard of it.

Most users click 2 minutes after content is shared and 75% share within 24 hours of the the content being available online.

And some ten times more sharing is done by copying and pasting URL's into emails, instant messages and social networks - probably as many businesses still have not enabled social sharing on their websites.

How easy do you make it for people to share your great content?