As the latest social media star pupil, Pinterest has been gaining popularity steadily and looks set to confirm this status as the fastest growing social media platform of 2012. Think of a virtual pin board where users pin items of interest and make a real connection with someone else who may well share the same pastimes, interest or hobbies. And that’s Pinterest. But why should you consider Pinterest for your business?

You could say it is almost the most human of social networks. As it has been set up to let you organise items of interest to you in the form of images. It has been used to plan weddings, decorate homes and organise recipes (which is a personal favourite of mine).

The guys at Pinterest are also pretty clear in what they’re trying to do. Their mission states…“Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people. With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests”

What’s so great about Pinterest?

• Helps build your brand online and increases exposure of your products
• Cross platform collaboration with Facebook.
• Great analytics – you can easily see your activity and others activity on your boards etc
• Pinterest also provides two pin it buttons. The Pin It Button, allows your site audience to click on that button and could even pin your articles or content to their pin-board. The other button which is the “Follow me on Pinterest” button allows you to send people to your own Pinboards. This really is very beneficial for a website or even a blog.
• Each image links back to the page the image came from originally
• It’s so easy to use … re-pinning and sharing is simple.
• You can overlay your price. You can simply put the price in the description field and the price overlays the image, allowing pinners to see how much the item costs and click back to where they can buy it (Only working with $ and £ at the moment but we hold out hope for the €)

So, can the images on your site be pinned? If you don’t know you need to find out – and fast. Download the Pin In plugin for your browser and start pinning your own images http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/

And if you’re not on it yet, just let me know and I can send you an invite…

Check me out on http://pinterest.com/sandrahennessy/#

Yesterday Facebook Places finally went live in Ireland.  Now we await the launch of Facebook Deals.  This will allow you to make deals & discounts available to people who are using Facebook Places. It is very simple, click the check in button on your Facebook mobile app and a list of local businesses will appear (only ones that have set up a Places page).  If they have a deal available there will be an icon to show this and it will help drive people to your door.  You mange the deals, there are 4 types:

• Individual deals
• Loyalty deals
• Friend deals
• Charity deals

I am an avid user of Foursquare so I wonder if Facebook Places & Deals (when/if launched in Ireland) can convince me to change loyalty.  We will have to wait and see, for now if you want more information on Facebook deals visit http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Deals_businesses_US.pdf

Here’s hoping that Facebook don’t wait another few months before launching Deals in Ireland, how can businesses in Ireland compete online when these new tools are not made available until months later than everyone else.

The world of online marketing is ever changing and one of the most recent additions are QR codes.  You are now wondering to yourself, what on earth are QR codes?  Well in a nut shell – QR stands for Quick Response. The codes  are matrix barcodes (or two-dimensional codes) which are readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with cameras and smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on white background.   They were created by Denso-Wave and were created to allow its content to be decoded at high speed. QR codes consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on white background.

QR codes are not widely used in Ireland but are common place in Japan, people scan codes on every day items such as menus and advertising. Imagine checking into a hotel and being able to scan a QR code in the room that gives you quick access to a range of information about the hotel facilities or local area.   Imagine walking past a shop after hours, seeing an item that you like, scanning the code and being directed to a page that allows you to buy that item. Imagine having a QR code on your business card that allows prospective clients to get quick access to details about your products/services. 

Should you be looking at this new technology, absolutely definitely, yes. But before setting up a QR code, think about your strategy and how you are going to use it to benefit the business and create new or enhance existing client relationships.

Simple QR code generator: http://createqrcode.appspot.com/