When advertising do you want rich targeting capabilities or purchase intent, and which platform will work best for your business – Facebook or Google, or what about Pinterest? Historically, advertisers have had to pick between one of these platforms or benefits. But Pinterest recently announced the development of Pinterest search ads which gives businesses the best of both worlds in one platform.

Is Pinterest Advertising Right for Your Business?

First, a little bit about Pinterest. It’s a different sort of social beast, consisting of images that users save on collectible boards. Because these boards represent a user’s interests, Pinterest knows its users and does a pretty good job of serving up relevant ads or promoted pins to them. So, its targeting is great.

Pinterest Brings in Search Advertising

Now Pinterest has launched search advertising, so ads can pop up right when a user is searching on Pinterest, which is apt to be even closer to the point of purchase intent. You may think, “Pinterest search? That sounds like small potatoes compared to Google.” But not so fast. There are more than 2 billion searches on Pinterest in a month. Meaning, if your business products fit with the Pinterest audience, this could be a hit for you. And another big benefit over Google search advertising: Pinterest search ads are highly visual and more attention-grabbing, unlike Google’s mostly text-based search ads.

On the left, see how search ads look within Pinterest when the user is searching for “statement socks.” On the right, you can see the more traditional promoted PIN.

It’s no coincidence that the photo shows a big name like Target. Initially, Pinterest will only offer search ads to their largest customers as they require direct sales to order. In the future, smaller users can purchase these ads through a self-serve web interface, as is done today with Google search ads. And like Google, these ads will be sold based on an auction to bid on a cost-per-click basis.

For Most, Promoted Pins Still Rule

So that means the best opportunities today are with promoted pins. There are now 4 separate types of promoted pins, each with differing objectives and cost basis. When you set up your campaign, you select between the four goals.

1. If you are trying to increase the visibility of your brand, you may wish to select awareness. This makes sense if you are a new brand, in a high purchase cost category, or a well-known brand just maintaining visibility. With an awareness campaign, you are charged based on the cost per 1,000 impressions.
2. This encourages interaction with your brand. You’re charged based on the number of interactions such as a close-up, a re-pin or a click.
3. If you’re expecting to send people directly to your website to make a quick purchase, then the cost is based on clicks to your website.
4. App Install. Pinterest now has the ability to advertise mobile app installs, which are charged based on pin clicks. With 80% mobile users, Pinterest saw value in this approach. This makes sense if you’re having trouble being discovered in the app store.

If eCommerce is your objective, you can sell directly to customers without them ever leaving Pinterest. That’s called a buyable pin.

Buyable Pins

Let’s walk through what a buyable pin from Macy’s looks like within Pinterest:

You can tell it is buyable because the price and “Add to bag” are in blue.

Once you click “Add to bag,” you are taken to your shopping cart.

So how well are the promoted and buyable pins working? The Pinterest advertising site is full of well-documented results and case studies. Warning: actual mileage may differ.

Pinterest and Video

As with other platforms, Pinterest business accounts are seeing impressive results from video and promoted video. This makes sense since Pinterest has seen a 60 percent increase in videos during the past year. As an example, the Old El Paso brand saw strong results with promoted video ads, which were 4X more memorable than a plain still ad.

So between promoted pins and search ads, Pinterest appears to be stacking up the right set of tools to make advertising work for businesses. It seems like early adoption of platforms results in disproportionate success. Assuming Pinterest is a good fit with your audience, testing and tweaking your advertising strategy before the stakes get higher makes a lot of sense, too.

How Do #Pinterest Ads Stack Up Against Other Platforms? @LaurieShook shares. #RocksDigital
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Are you going to try Pinterest ads for your business? Tell us why or why not in the comments!

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Does your business need to be on Pinterest? With too many social platforms and too little time, business owners must ruthlessly prioritize where they spend their time and money. But don’t overlook Pinterest. With over 2 billion searches a month, some find it to be the Holy Grail of social to eCommerce conversions.

How Pinterest Can Help Your Business Succeed

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a visually-oriented social media platform, designed to appeal to people who like to share or discover items of interest (pins) related to a common theme. It’s more related to personal inspiration and planning than communication.

Photo: Happy to Wander Travel Blog

For example, someone planning a trip might search for related scenic, food and hotel pins, and save them to a board to organize their travel plans. Planning a wedding, party or birth of a child are some of the big lifestyle events popular with Pinterest users. The boards are usually public, so other users comment and save pins they like on their own boards. In a sense, it is a visual bookmarking site.

About half of Pinterest users are in the US, and 79% are women. Most pinners are under age 40.

Pinterest Drives Traffic

Pinterest has more than 150 million users, and drives more than 5% of all website referral traffic, second only to Facebook. Pinners rank high in purchase intent since they use their boards to plan future events like travel, meals or weddings. Research by Millward Brown indicates 93% of pinners have used Pinterest to plan a future purchase. And at $58.95, the average Pinterest referral purchase is higher than Facebook.

Oh, and here’s a fun fact. The half-life of a Pinterest pin is 1,600 times that of a Facebook post. That means you’ll keep getting engagement for months after you share your pins. That’s because of Pinterest’s superior search capabilities and the fact that information is organized and shared up when relevant to a user.

Best Business Targets for Pinterest

In particular, businesses with a female buyer are a good fit, as well as those that have a strong visual component. For example, recipes, food, travel, and fashion are popular categories on Pinterest.

So think products over services. And businesses that can link easily to an eCommerce site with stock numbers will find it more useful. So companies like Collin Street Bakery or Harry and David will thrive on Pinterest, while a custom caterer may not find it as helpful.

Pinterest Applications

Given that your business is a good fit, here are 5 ways you can use Pinterest to grow your business.

• Promote your products. Feature individual stock numbers from your eCommerce site as individual pins. Austin, Texas-based Kendra Scott uses Pinterest to feature its jewelry, with just 1-click to go from Pinterest to the website. On a smaller scale, Pinterest would be very useful driving interested customers to your Etsy shop.
• Soft sell lifestyle benefits. Feature the look or lifestyle benefit of your products. For example, Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper fame features completed, decorated rooms from each show on her boards. Someone planning to redecorate can save inspirational items and research specific purchases later. Apparently, it’s not all about buying shiplap! Image: Joanna Gaines Pinterest account.

Or a local hairdresser or wedding photographer may share styles and photos to highlight their skills.

• Feature your content. Blogs and publications can grow their readership, especially if they have strong photographs. Pins on popular articles link back to the website, growing both traffic and readership.
• Share videos. We’ve all heard about how great videos are for engagement on Facebook. The same is true for Pinterest.
• Build Community. Pinterest allows multiple users to pin on “shared boards.” So create some shared boards that encourage your employees, customers or partners to pin. Going back to the travel agency example, your employees or customers could pin to a Dream Vacation Board. Or the food company could create a board for customers to post Favorite Family recipes. Building community could also lead to an opportunity to recognize and thank valuable customers, employees, and partners.

So you think you should be on Pinterest? The next steps are establishing your boards and pins and then deciding an advertising strategy, which I’ll address in a later post.

#Pinterest Can Help Grow Your #Business – Learn How from @LaurieShook #RocksDigital
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Are you using Pinterest to grow your business? Share your experience in the comments below.

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Why does a social media manager need a good set of mobile content creation apps in their repertoire? Let’s face it. We’re a nation of mobile phone addicts. More than 70% keep a cell phone within reach most of the time, and we check our phones 46 times a day, according to Deloitte.

My Favorite Mobile Content Creation Apps

It stands to reason that mobile content creation apps will save time, create immediacy and improve your productivity. Here are some of my favorites. Most of these apps use a freemium pricing model, so you can experiment for free and then pay a small amount if the extra filters, features or broader stock photo or font choices seem worth it.

Visual Treatments for Mobile Content

Although your phone has basic photo editing capabilities, you can lift your content to the next level by applying interesting filters to photos and business posts. Since the vast majority of images in a feed are photos, a consistent visual treatment can make your posts stand out and give them a recognizable branding.

• PRISMA – This is the hottest filter app right now and my personal favorite. It has an abundance of different artistic treatments, plus they are quickly rendered, making it easy to choose between options.
• Brushstroke – This is useful if you want to give your photo posts a classical, painterly feel.
• Waterlogue – This is nice for watercolor looks, which are best for floral and outdoor photos. It’s a challenge to depict people with this app, and it is slow. My nickname for it: water slog! I still enjoy using it occasionally.

Using unique filters from PRISMA to create a distinctive feel for images, such as this photo of sushi:

Comprehensive Post Creation

There is a broad set of apps that allows you to create simple posts with image and text. They usually include stock photos, stock post templates, and also allow you to upload your own photos.

• Over – This is stupid-simple, with image, text and color options.
• Instaquote – Another simple app which is easy to use for Instagram “quote of the day” posts.
• Canva – This has got to be the most popular content creation app, thanks to its amazingly simple interface and promotion from Chief Evangelist Guy Kawasaki.

My informal survey indicates at least 85% of professional content creators are already using the Canva. It has reasonable capabilities for individual users, and better features and stock photos for those willing to pay a bit more. Although you can do content creation on the mobile app, I find the mobile interface a bit awkward.

But Canva has a great case for use if you frequently use Instagram. Instagram has been ornery about developing desktop creation capability and integrating with scheduling apps. That means that with some high-end apps social media managers have to create the posts, email to themselves, then post directly from their phones at the appropriate time. With cloud-based Canva, all of your devices automatically access the same content. I find it works to develop sophisticated content in the desktop version of Canva, and then simply download from the mobile version when its time to post in Instagram.

Curating Instagram Content

Although Instagram is also ornery about letting you share curated content created by other accounts, you can use Repost or Instagrab to share posts created by other accounts on your Instagram feed. These tools copy the photo and allow you to put the artist’s name as a watermark on the photo. You should always @ hot link to their account in the text. Sharing content properly from related accounts can build up both followings. For example, a food blogger may wish to share content from a restaurant or bar’s Instagram account. On the Social Media Dallas account, I find that some of our most popular posts are Dallas skyline shots taken by local photographers like Kevin Hann or Stephen Goodgame who are growing their brands.

Mobile Video Apps

If you do any Facebook posts, you know that using video pumps up your post views dramatically. Plus, video Facebook ads run in the penny per view range, which is incredibly cost-effective. There are several apps which let you turn still images into videos for that viral boost.

• DIPTIC – Although this has several modes, I especially like the way you can upload 4 photos and have them viewed as a “video.”
• RIPL – RIPL lets you upload your photo and easily add text. You select from several moving text styles and type of post movement. I find this works great for event promotion. You can even select stock background music to enhance the post appeal.

These apps are best for both Facebook and Instagram, since they have more of a square image size.

Here’s an example of using RIPL to take still shots and use moving text to grab viewer attention. You can also enjoy the lower ad costs associated with Facebook video:

Customer or Reader Responsiveness and Mobile Content Apps

If you manage a blog you probably want to run the mobile version of Blogger or WordPress on your phone so you can quickly respond to any comments. These apps also let you make corrections on the fly—in the unlikely event you have a typo or need to make a correction!

Download a few of these mobile content creation apps, and you’ll have power in your pocket and more free time on your hands! Although there are literally hundreds of mobile content creation apps online, these are some of my favorites.

Make Your #Content Pop on #Mobile with These Apps from @LaurieShook #RocksDigital
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What other apps do you enjoy for mobile content creation?

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Facebook video is the holy grail of internet attention. While that may not be an eternal truth, it really pays for most businesses to incorporate Facebook video into their marketing efforts today.

Strategies for Incorporating Facebook Video into Your Marketing

Users are naturally drawn to video vs. still images and text posts in their feeds. And strategically, Facebook wants advertisers to put video content onto its platform instead of arch-rival Google’s YouTube. Therefore, it is currently incentivizing advertisers with especially low costs for video vs. still ads. Even on a tiny budget, you’ll see video costs per engagement at about a penny, while simple event or image post boosts might be in the $1 to $2 range.

So, now that you’re persuaded to check out Facebook video, what are some silver bullet strategies you should consider?

Create Facebook Video Content Even When You Don’t Have Video

First, you don’t even have to have video to gain improved impressions and click through rates for video content. How is this possible? Several low cost or free platforms allow you to take still photos and add programmatic movement and soundtracks. You’ll find that Facebook treats these types of boosted posts with the same super-low cost per click you’ll get in the video world—around 2 cents per click.

I’ve been using the freemium mobile app RIPL. It’s very easy to take a photo and select moving text to capture user attention. For $9.99 a month you can remove the watermark and add a variety of musical soundtracks.

There are a plethora of other applications available (many PC-based) that perform the same function with varying degrees of sophistication. See https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-application-for-making-a-video-out-of-photos.

Add Impact with Subtitles

Did you know that most videos are viewed with the sound off? Kelsey Carroll, Social Media strategist with HPE, conducted a study indicating that 92% of videos were viewed with the sound off. Why? Perhaps people are watching during another meeting, multi-tasking in an open office environment, or viewing while a partner watches TV or sleeps.

The takeaway? You need subtitles on your videos. Fortunately, Facebook makes it easy to do this once you decide to run an ad or boost it. Alternatively, you can add captions via file or from YouTube. Mari Smith explains the nitty-gritty in this post under step #10 at https://www.marismith.com/9-tips-for-better-facebook-video-ads/.

Start with Compelling Images

Your first three seconds should grab the viewer’s attention with movement and visual appeal. Avoid video title slides and dramatic build-ups like the plague! Edit yourself ruthlessly. If someone saw only the first three seconds of the video, would they want to continue watching? If not, rethink your introduction.

Fortunately, Facebook provides several optional thumbnails for you to select from that serve as the first split-second image a viewer sees, as well as the “catalog” shot that shows the video in your Facebook Page video file index.

Sometimes these canned thumbnails look weird, especially if your video features a person speaking or singing. It’s amazing how often eyes are closed and mouths oddly open! I recommend you take some still shots similar to the first video scenes so you can upload a better thumbnail image if needed. You’ll want to keep it the same aspect ratio as the video, which is typically 16:9. You can put limited text on the thumbnail, but be careful as too much text will penalize delivery (meaning ads become more expensive).

For Facebook Video, Keep It Short and Sweet

Facebook viewers are scrolling and browsing. It isn’t the place for a longer video. Keep the video under 2 minutes. Many consider 30 seconds to be ideal. If you have a more complex topic that requires more time, break it up into several shorter videos, or lead into more content on your website. As Tanya Smith says, keep it “snackable.”

Call to Action

Don’t be so focused on the video that you forget about the basics of a good social post. Write a strong lead-in post text that poses a question and hints that the video has the answer. Don’t forget your hot links! If you’re promoting an event, link to the Facebook event URL. And always link to your website, and hot link anyone featured in the video.

Second, once you’ve decided to boost the post or run an ad, take advantage and “Add a button” which lets the user click through to “Learn More,” “Shop Now,” “Get Directions,” etc. I’ve seen higher responses from simply adding the Call To Action button than I’ve gotten from spending 5X as much on the advertising budget!

Sprinkle in Facebook Live

Facebook Live is a live video broadcast feature that works especially well for event-oriented organizations and solo practitioners selling a professional service. Facebook Live videos receive disproportionate views just like regular video. To use Facebook Live effectively include advance promotion since most of the views occur when it’s LIVE. Further, be sure that your broadcast site has excellent Wi-Fi. Outdoor venues frequently have weak Wi-Fi, which results in lower quality video. When video quality is poorer, Facebook won’t deliver to a very big audience. So sprinkle in some Facebook Live into your content marketing plan, but don’t bet the farm on it.

Boost It!

Once you’ve created some compelling video content and optimized it using these silver bullet strategies, it’s time to take aim at your target market and fire off a good ad campaign. Just pick an audience, a budget, and a duration, and you’re ready to hit that penny a response “Bullseye!”

Using these 7 strategies will help get any business started with using Facebook video, which will attract more viewers and followers.

7 Strategies to Get Started Using #Facebook #Video by @LaurieShook #RocksDigital
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I woke up in the middle of the night, heart pounding and in a cold sweat. I was worrying about getting ready for Halloween, and frantic about finishing up this week’s Rocks Digital post. My dreaming brain had monster-mashed the two worries, and created this digital marketing nightmare.

So what scares the bejeebers out of a digital marketer?

Marketing Nightmare: The Internet is Down

Eek! I’ve got to post my blog in WordPress immediately. I need to track my keyword ad spend, stat! What about backing up my website?  Fahgettaboudit! Go to Starbucks and grab a latte.

A New Search Algorithm

Will Google follow up Panda and Penguin with a Zombie Apocalypse update? What would that look like? Do SEO techniques disappear, only to be overtaken by clear writing and engaging content? If everyone starts to search using virtual assistants and “bots”, what’s left for Google and the SEO expert?

Slapped with a Penalty

Your website traffic takes a nosedive. You check in the Webmaster tools and find a manual action against your site because they think you’ve violated guidelines. Uh, oh. Know what you’ll be doing the next 6 months—if you still have a job, that is.

Hacked Website

Even worse, your website gets hacked. You lose revenue and customers until you fix it, plus you have a mess to clean up. The horror! First steps: exorcise the malware, clean up any nastiness from the attack, clean out the cobwebs and check Google Webmaster tools for a blacklisting. Then, it’s time for some risk prevention. Update your content management system, update plug-ins, review your firewall strategy, lock down the backend and make sure you have a solid back up plan in place.

Sudden Social Platform Shut Down

That growing, engaging platform you built your marketing strategy around is going out of business. Scary and true. Bye, bye Meerkat, bye, bye Blab and now Vine is disappearing faster than a ghost. No wonder they keep saying “own your website vs. renting on social media.” 

Social Media Crisis

You plan trick-or-treating with the kids, but instead your fun is pre-empted when a disgruntled customer complains about your company…and it goes viral! This shouldn’t be too frightening because you have a crisis management plan in place. Right? No? (queue silence punctured by howling winds).

Slapped with a Copyright Claim

You open an official-looking letter from Getty images claiming they own the copyright to an image you used without a license. Don’t be that guy! Use your own art, photographs or purchase them from any number of stock photo sites like Adobe, Big Stock, iStockphoto or Shutterstock, to name a few. This is a nightmare that you can easily avoid.

Privacy Surprise

Information you think is safely private is suddenly public due to a change in Facebook policies, default values or user error. Oops! Or on a grander scale, regulatory changes impact how your business gets access to customer data you need for targeting your prospects. Now how are you going to hit your numbers? Sound far-fetched? It just happened last week when a new FCC ruling was issued.

No wonder I woke up in a panic from my digital marketing nightmare. These career-impacting, customer-impacting external events can cause fear in even the most confident digital marketer.

And who needs a special holiday like Halloween that’s all about fear and horror? A career in digital marketing is frightening enough!

Welcome to a Digital Marketer’s Nightmare by @LaurieShook #RocksDigital
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What’s the scariest marketing nightmare you’ve ever experienced?

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Mobile ordering apps have taken the world by storm, with a deluge of downloads. You want proof? When Chick-fil-A released its new mobile app, it hit #1 in the app store, with over a million downloads in just 3 days.

Mobile ordering apps allow you to order and pay in advance, skipping the line when you pick up the item from a retail store. I have been testing the user experience on a couple of mobile ordering apps. I picked apps from Starbucks, Chick-fil-A and Dunkin’ Donuts since they are smack dab in the middle of the hungry mile in my hometown.

But first, why are mobile ordering apps gaining in popularity? Blame the millenials. Chick-fil-A says that 82% of millennial parents would do ANYTHING to avoid waiting in line, and that 48% would rather not eat than stand in line.

Business Benefits of Mobile Ordering Apps

In addition to improved customer satisfaction, that translates to solid business value:

• Faster Throughput. Chipotle says it can handle 6 more orders per hour via app (since apps don’t tie up the line with indecision and small talk).
• Higher Spend Per Order. Taco Bell has reported 30% higher sales per order via app vs. walk in.
• Incremental sales. When I’m running late, I can still squeeze in a run by Starbucks if I order ahead with the app. Without the app, I would have to skip my fix.

App Design Considerations

There are 5 main factors digital marketers and small businesses should consider with mobile ordering app design.

Product Mix. Do you include your entire product line in the app? Or just the most popular items? A popular UX design adage says keep it simple. Feature rich=user poor. I think that Starbucks has nailed this by including most of its menu. On the other hand, Dunkin’ Donuts is overly restrictive, only allowing 7 types of donuts to be ordered via the app.

Another interesting menu design aspect is to allow a filter on menu items. Chick-fil-A allows the user to select a filter that screens out specific allergens like wheat or soy. Wendy’s lets you screen by calorie count level.

And then there is the issue of extras and special orders. Do you slow down the customer experience by asking users to specify onions, pickles, mustard lettuce? If you must include extras, how do you keep them out of the ordering path for people who are in a hurry but not picky?

Location. Most apps ask you to share your GPS location. This will automatically send the order to the nearest location, which may delight or exacerbate the user. It threw me for a loop once when Starbucks sent my coffee order to a new site I didn’t know existed! They’ve since developed the ability to stipulate multiple favorite sites and then more clearly override if you’re in a remote location.

Loyalty. Almost all mobile ordering apps are intertwined with loyalty programs, which provide rewards and freebies after certain order thresholds are met. Should you allow someone to use the app without joining the loyalty program?

And do you require the user to stipulate when to use reward points? That emphasizes the value but slows down the ordering process. Dunkin Donuts uses a “hope and pray” approach that automatically adds in the earned reward. Although that sounds quicker and more convenient, app store reviews have complaints because people don’t trust that they got the discount.

Payment. Do you design the app to use Wallet or Apple Pay in addition to credit cards? Or does offering all the payment options confuse people? Do you require customers to pre-load a value in their loyalty account, which saves the business transaction costs? A drawback with the Chick-Fil-A app is that although you can pay via credit card instead of the loyalty account, you won’t get any loyalty points.

Passwords/Upgrades. This is perhaps the bane of customer experience. When a customer downloads a new version of the software, do you require that they re-input their username and password? Many simply won’t remember. Since some retail establishments have been hacked, its understandable that they require reauthorization. But what a hit to user experience!

The Best Mobile Ordering App?

So where does all this lead, and how do I end this blog? We have two questions left to answer: which app did I like best, and do you need a mobile ordering app for your business?

Without a doubt, Starbucks is best that I tested. With an app store rating of 4 stars, I love the way I can go to the special order ahead area, grab the coffee and go. I also like the way they effectively use the app to communicate reward points, new specials and even charitable causes.

Chick-fil-A is just OK. It’s well worth downloading because it will save you time in line. One drawback is that pushing submit on the app doesn’t initiate the order. They wait until you arrive and select “check in.” So the app just puts you at the front of the line, it doesn’t prepare food in advance. I’m sure that keeps the food fresher but makes the wait longer.

Dunkin’ Donuts is of no use to me since it doesn’t include what I want to order. With a rating of 1.5 stars, apparently others agree.

How do you decide if you need a mobile ordering app for your business? You’ll notice some common aspects to brands mentioned. Do you have a retail business with multiple locations, frequent repeat purchases, a loyalty program and customers who are in a hurry? Then it’s time to push the button on mobile ordering app development.

The best #mobile ordering apps nail these 5 #UX design traits says @LaurieShook #RocksDigital
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Are you actively using mobile ordering apps? Which are your favorite and why?

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