In the past week we have seen Instagram now offer profiles and also Pinterest offer business pages. Instagram is an overwhelming popular app that allows – via mobile devices like iPhone and Android, the user the ability to take average photos and make them look a whole lot better and Pinterest is a social media website where you can share photos and videos of things you like from fashion, devices to applications to architecture.
These are both applications of a sort, Pinterest Web based and Instagram a standalone application. I think most business individuals should indulge in these, if only to showcase your understanding and a more human side to the industry you participate in. Just be relevant and try to stay away from ideologies and of course the juicer side of life!
As an example my personal Pinterest page is now our International business page and I changed my name to Yakadanda (front for Agentpoint USA) and share all of my WordPress Help Videos on one particular board (including the one above)
In the video above I explain some recent updates to Social Media Pages that maybe of importance to your business. I explain these a little further below.
Facebook Pages
As some of you maybe aware, your weekly page stats might have gone down. The reason for this? The sceptic in me tells us that Facebook is trying to monetize all business pages on their site and instead of all followers of your page now receiving all of your updates via their newsfeed, they now only see these if they actually like, share or comment on others in your feed from time to time. This is monitored by Facebook over a period of time. This means if you have a ‘liker’ they will only continually receive your updates if they connect in some way with what you are delivering. Facebook is now telling you that for others to get this, you might be interested in handing over some of your hard earned cash! So it is a little bit of both, it does make sense to do this, but there is a revenue side of the story also.
The panacea? Well, now more than ever, keep it relevant and interesting! Which to me means, stop putting up quotes from philosophers and the like, as just about everyone does this and unless it is a real beauty, it is useless and eye-rollingly boring! Think about things that others will most likely share, ask questions others might want to answer and keep it relevant to the industry and market you are in.
Pinterest now allows you to convert your profile into a business profile and also offers some goodies to add to your website, like a variety of widgets and sharing buttons. If you are primarily using this as a business anyway, I think you should do this.
Instagram now has profiles, which showcase your profile and images. This is rather minor but it is important. Just login to Instagram and click on your profile at right and you will see it in all its glory!
2 Comments
Trish van Tussenbroek
Great article Peter! Also if you use Facebook advertising the really cool new feature is custom audiences. This means that you can now load in your database and create them as a new target audience and directly market your new properties to them. You can also use domain ads which link to your website rather than Facebook if you don’t want to have your own Facebook page. It’s a more effective way for your database to see your new properties than via an EDM. Plus you have access to everyone else on Facebook rather than just your database. We have used Maxinteractive for our customers who did a great job and it’s lead by an ex- REA favourite, Dan Strachotta. http://www.maxinteractive.com.au
Peter Ricci
Hi Trish, good point. However, I would be loathe to leave Facebook as my main marketer of choice. They are now focussed very much so on revenues and will see businesses as a prime target.
Personally I think marketing should start on your own website and all social media drive back to that point!