However, even though Pinterest is just now starting to become popular with teens, women and average people, most marketers have not yet embraced it as noted in this tweet:

>>> How do you or people you know use Pinterest? Let us know.

In what could be a potential hiccup with Pinterest is the large potential for copyright violations by its users. Richard Rosenblatt, the CEO of Demand Media tweeted about this problem this afternoon:

So what is Pinterest? Who is on it? How can businesses use it? Why should they?

1) What is Pinterest?

Let’s get it straight from the horse’s mouth.

“Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes.”

A “virtual pinboard”, is the answer you get in most places. Imagine a large bulletin or “cork board”. You can put pictures up there for any reason. They could be wedding dress ideas, pictures on recipe cards, vacation destination possibilities, redecorating ideas, etc. Now, you do that in Pinterest. The ability to share those images and even collaborate with someone anywhere in the world on building that board is tremendous.

But, it’s not just one board. You can make as many “boards” as you like. Give them different themes. Share them with different people. One for clothes you’d like to have. One for mixed drink recipes you want to try. One for birthday party ideas, including recipes, cake themes, decorations, gifts, locations, etc. One for games for your kids. Anything you can find online, you can “pin” to a board and organize it however you like.

2) Who is on Pinterest?

Simply put, women. 80% of Pinterest users are women. Men are finding that there is plenty to be excited about on Pinterest, and certainly there is no reason whatsoever that it be a “girl’s thing”. But, the initial promotion of Pinterest was female-focused. Notice that description, above, again.

People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes.

However, there are lots of male-centric things being shared on Pinterest. Even some of the stock categories on Pinterest trend “male”:

But, of course, any of the standard categories could be chock full of men’s materials, including:

3) How can businesses use Pinterest?

Obviously, it depends on what kind of business you have. But, the sheer numbers that Pinterest is posting should be quite the convincer that it is worth looking into. As social sites go, it is different from the usual suspects like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. There is no real messaging element built into Pinterest. No statuses. No fast-moving commenting. There are comments, sure. But, not like the conversation-focused layouts of Facebook and Twitter.

One important thing to remember about Pinterest is that it is image-driven. I cannot emphasize this enough. Your “pin” will be posted on a long page of many others. Your graphic has to be the thing that catches the eye of the browsing user. It has to translate to the pin sizes Pinterest uses on that front page (max width 222 pixels, lengths can vary greatly). Text is a possibility, but only as a graphic.

Thus, some of the most obvious benefactors from Pinterest right out of the box are businesses that already deal in graphics as their stock-in-trade: photographers, designers, architects, retailers that already use catalogs or web images.

I dug into an example of how a photographer might use Pinterest in this article.

But really, any business that can express itself in a graphical manner can benefit from the notice they get on Pinterest. How that notice is converted to sales depends on the business. Is there a direct purchase possibility on your website? Or does the potential customer have to pick up a phone or some other contact method? Typical marketing rules begin to apply here. The main idea is to get traffic to you. What you do with it from there is up to you. And, Pinterest is amassing a great record for getting them to your door/site.

AMC Theaters is currently running a sponsored ad on Twitter promoting a contest that uses Pinterest to promote the AMC Best Picture Showcase. Now that’s an interesting way for a business to promote itself via Pinterest:

The New York Daily News used Pinterest to pay tribute to Whitney Houston following her death yesterday afternoon:

The National Guard even used Pinterest to welcome home infantry from Afganistan:

Other types of businesses that are using Pinterest include journalists, news agencies, schools, health and beauty product sales, gadget companies, and many more.

Another key thing about Pinterest is that it has already established itself as not having ads, sponsored links (per se) and other “you’re being sold to” materials. Even a recent dust-up over affiliate links was a minor scandal. Keep that in mind. No one comes here to shop. They come here to find things they like. Respectfully converting that sale is key.

Like other social media sites it is important that you participate in the Pinterest community. Shortly after creating a “Board” and uploading some “Pins” and creating some categories of your images, click the “Invite Friends” button. It will open up a window allowing you to email some of your friends who are likely not yet on Pinterest. These friends will follow you back to get you started on gaining followers.

The second task you should do is to mouse over your name and picture and click the “Find Friends” link. You will need to “connect” to Facebook inside of Pinterest and a list will appear with all of your Facebook friends that are on Pinterest. I recommend clicking the “Follow All” link. Like Twitter and other social media sites, following others will gain you followers back. This is the best way to get your community of Pinterest friends going!

Add Pins everyday, add new categories regularly, follow others and their pins on an ongoing basis and before you know it you will see Pinterest traffic flowing to your website.

Does your business already use Pinterest? Tell us about it.

4) Why should businesses use Pinterest?

Frankly, because it is the hottest thing coming. A few quick facts.

The best thing you can do is head over to Pinterest and get signed up. You almost certainly have a friend who is already on Pinterest, probably a female. Ask for an invite from her. It will get you in much faster than waiting for Pinterest to send you one. Then poke around a bit. Make a few boards, pin some items, follow some people. Nothing will blow up on you. When you first land on the front page, you will think you walked into a wedding planner’s boutique. Explore the categories and soon you will realize that there is much more to the site than that.

There’s probably someone already on there in your line of business. Go have a look.

>>> What features would you like to see Pinterest offer? Is Pinterest the next big thing in social media? Tell us.

>>> What is your opinion of Pinterest? Add your comments here…

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/marketing-with-pinterest-2012-02/feed 25 http://www.webpronews.com/google-search-funnels-interface-redesigned-2012-02 http://www.webpronews.com/google-search-funnels-interface-redesigned-2012-02#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:53:37 +0000 Chris Crum http://www.webpronews.com/?p=97612 Back in 2010, Google launched Search Funnels, an AdWords tool, which helps advertisers make decisions based on search impressions and clicks so they can try to improve their conversion rates.

The tool has received a refresh. The previous version will be available for the next few weeks, but if you use the tool, you may as well start getting used to the new one.

One new feature is the ability to compare date ranges. This helps you determine how your funnel has changed on a year-to-year basis.

Another new feature is the ability to access drill-down dimensions via tabs, which appear at the top left of the Search Funnels tables.

Users can also view total conversions and conversion value right next to each other.

“We’ve also made it easier to create persistent drill-down filters so you can view multiple reports focusing on the same analysis,” says product manager Laura Holmes. “For example, if you’d like to do an analysis based on ‘all the Top Paths where the first click was Campaign XYZ,’ you can now Save this drill-down and then click through multiple reports. If you no longer want to have this view, just click the ‘Clear’ button above the report title and you’ll return to the unfiltered version of the report.”

Keep in mind that this is the firm behind such viral hits as Evian Roller Babies and Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (not to mention the campaign that got Chrome’s PageRank penalized):

“Notably, it was found that viewers are far more likely to recall a brand name and engage with an ad’s message if a branded video has been recommended to them by a peer,” an Unruly spokesperson tells WebProNews.

The firm points out the following highlights from the research:

• Brand recall and brand association rose 7 percent among viewers who had been recommended the videos versus viewers who found it by browsing;
• 73 percent of respondents who viewed a peer-recommended video recalled the brand when prompted versus 68 percent of viewers who had browsed to the video directly;
• There was a 14 percent increase in the number of people who enjoyed the video following a recommendation versus those who had discovered it by browsing;
• People who enjoyed a video were 97 percent more likely to purchase the product featured in the video

Here’s a closer look at the enjoyment comparison between recommended vs. non-recommended videos:

As Unruly notes in its report, the enjoyment level is important because it has a direct impact on key brand metrics:

The entire report is available in white paper format.

Need some pointers on what makes a video go viral? Here are some good points made by Robert Knorpp at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo in November.

This infographic finds that LinkedIn may not be all that it’s cut out to be. Sure, it’s great for business, but people only use it for that – business.

They found that people of the business mindset are still in that mindset even when on Facebook. Using it effectively could tremendously help your business. We’ll let the infographic give you the rest of the details:

We put out a list of our top five best Super Bowl ads and the comments make it abundantly clear – the average consumer has vastly different notions of what makes these ads good. Taking a look at the Super Bowl admeter on USA Today provides a good measure of what consumers thought were the best ads. This is important to advertisers as the average consumer is there number one target. This should helps them refine their ads for the next year’s game.

What makes a good super bowl ad? What do you look for when you’re rating your personal favorites? Let us know in the comments.

Looking at the admeter, the top five ads all have a common theme – humor. People love to laugh. Ace Metrix seems to agree rating the top 10 most effective ads with the most effective being the ones based around humor.

The two ads that scored the highest tying for first place with a 671 Ace score was the M&M’s “Just My Shell” ad and Doritos “Sling Baby” ad. Filling the rest of the top five are humor-based ads that appeal to consumer’s base instinct to laugh.

The CEO of Ace Metrix, Peter Daboll, confirms this by saying to Forbes that humor was the most effective advertising strategy at this year’s Super Bowl which is confirmed by so many ads trying to be funny.

Daboll says that animals go hand in hand with humor as Coca Cola’s polar bear ads both ranked in the top 10. Doritos and Skechers both used dogs in their Super Bowl ads that catapulted both companies into the top 10 ads as well.

Not all ads are created equal though, and not all ads are intended effect to make people laugh. Serious ads that get the attention of viewers on something that they can relate to, such as the current financial landscape, can get people interested in products. Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime America” ad scored well at sixth place with an Ace score of 633. GE’s “Building Something Big in Louisville” got tenth place with an Ace score of 600.

Daboll calls it the “Made in America” ad that connects especially well with men. These kind of ads really “connect with the American people” in a way that the humor-filled ads cant. He goes on to say that these ads can “deliver a serious, emotive message and connect with viewers during the Super Bowl.”

He also points to the success of longer than usual ads that he calls “storytelling” ads. The Chrysler and Volkswagen ads both nailed this effectively by lasting more than the usual 30 seconds without losing interest of viewers.

Looking at the reaction to the ads across social media platforms reveals totally different results. While the H&M David Beckham underwear ad performed poorly with an Ace score of 450, the ad was the number one on social media platforms garnering a whopping 108,914 comments across all major social media platforms according to Bluefin Labs. Bluefin gathered their data in a 45-minute window after each ad aired to provide a fair estimate of how they do since the ads will most likely get more exposure over the coming days.

Compared to the Ace Metrix score, the Bluefin scores may be less effective as they just measure the comments. Comments can be negative and negativity usually outperforms anything else when it comes to online comments. Still, bad press is better than no press so H&M can take that as a sign that at least people were talking about their ad even if they didn’t like it. Unruly research shows brand recommendation as being an effective tool and social media provided that during the Super Bowl.

There is a third metric to consider when rating these ads’ effectiveness. After last year’s Volkswagen ad that premiered before the game garnered more than 90 million views over the past year, other advertisers wanted to cash in on that exposure. Honda’s Ferris Bueller ad has gotten over 18 million views on YouTube since its release with Volkswagen’s new Star Wars ad getting over 17 million views. Both ads used a teaser that led up to the actual ad that boosted their effectiveness.

AutoTrader and Edmunds.com both showed an even newer form of ad effectiveness as well through search and Web traffic. They rated auto ads by how much search and Web traffic they received during the game confirming that ads don’t necessarily have to be crowd pleasers to be big winners. While AutoTrader’s graph shows that search for vehicle models boomed during their respective advertisements; Edmunds.com’s research shows Web traffic to a specific model increased dramatically once its ad aired.

AutoTrader and Edmunds clash with the Ace Metrix numbers as well. Ace is showing that Fiat, while getting the most Web traffic according to Edmunds.com, was seventh in overall auto ad effectiveness.

Once again, as evidenced by our own picks, Super Bowl ads are different for everybody. It’s becoming harder and harder for businesses to pinpoint exactly what ads were effective or not. There are so many metrics and scores that advertisers can go off of that it makes it hard to tell where a company went wrong. While the Ace score can be a good indicator, other ad watch groups show that social media can go in the completely opposite direction.

It doesn’t seem like there’s any one way to really tell whether or not an ad was effective at this year’s Super Bowl. The best bet is to use the USA Today admeter as it’s directly from consumers voting on the ads they liked and combine that with the results from ad firms like Ace Metrix and Bluefin.

With so many different metrics to choose from, should advertisers look to all of them or stick to traditional metrics like Ace? Let us know in the comments.

As a final piece of wisdom, almost all studies confirmed that sexy just doesn’t really work unless you’re David Beckham. Sorry, GoDaddy, maybe you should try something else next year.

Take a look at our picks below and compare them to the researched best picks. There is a massive difference in opinion here, but it serves to show that Super Bowl ads are completely subjective and tastes change. While humor remains a strong contender, what people find funny is going to change year after year. There may even be a year where viewers want more “storytelling” ads with a serious topic.

Our picks confirm what this research has shown us – one man’s, or ad firm’s, picks do not exclusively determine what the best ads are anymore.

Here’s our picks for the top five best Super Bowl ads in no particular order:

Pepsi’s ad seemed to please scoring a 628 Ace score. The ad nails all the important parts of a good ad – great celebrity casting, a fun premise and good music. Check it out to see if you agree.

Volkswagen made a lot of nerds happy last year with their Darth Vader kid ad. While this year’s ad may or may not match up to that, the ending featuring classic Star Wars characters comparing the ad to last year’s ad makes up for it. It received a 590 Ace score.

Audi made us laugh this year with their Vampire Camp ad that’s sure to strike fear into the hearts of night creatures everywhere. It received a 536 Ace score.

The ad for the The Voice makes a great first impression by being action packed and featuring one of the best Betty White cameos ever.

Rounding out the best, we have Doritos. Ever since they started to let their fans make the ads, they have consistently turned out fantastic Super Bowl ads. This year is no different. It received a 645 Ace score.

What were your favorite ads of the Super Bowl? Let us know in the comments.

“While the USA TODAY Ad Meter has historically been the authority on what brands had the best, most popular commercials, this year, USA TODAY partnered with Facebook to let the more than 800 million global Facebook users share commentary online and view their favorites even after the Super Bowl Champs leave the field,” a representative tells WebProNews.

“Designed to marry the industry authority of USA Today’s Ad Meter with the social engagement of Facebook, the collaboration will open up how people discuss and rate iconic Super Bowl ads by putting consumers at the center of this long-standing annual event,” she adds. “We’ll be interested to see who reigns supreme this year based on the social vote!”

It’s still early as of the time of this writing (kickoff isn’t until tomorrow evening), but may of the ads have already been going around online. Have any stuck out to you so far as being particularly good or bad? Let us know in the comments. Then after kickoff, let Facebook know.

There is still plenty of room for Facebook to grow ad revenue, even if there’s less room for it to grow users. For example, they don’t even have mobile ads yet, though that is expected to come soon. That should be another huge source.

Recently, Facebook began showing Sponsored Stories in the news feed. These are posts that are arleady out there on Facebook, which brands can decide to promote for increased visibility among the people connected to that post, whether it be from a friend or from a Page they “like”.

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting piece about how brands are essentially being forced to pay for advertising on Facebook to reach users, simply because the visibility of free Page posts has declined so much. There is so much content flooding users’ News Feeds, and of course Facebook controls what users are seeing via their algorithm, based on what the company calls “EdgeRank.” More on EdgeRank here.

Some are finding it harder to get posts to gain traction.

The Journal cites a study from BlitzLocal, saying that between June 1 and Dec. 31 of 2011, unpaid displays of marketing posts to users decreased 33% among the firm’s over 300 clients.

“Content that used to live for a day may now live minutes in a user’s News Feed,” CEO Dennis Yu is quoted as saying. The piece looks at retailer Gordman’s specifically, as a company which has felt the need to turn to sponsored stories just to gain some visibility. The company reportedly found that sponsored stories increased the number of users who saw a post by over 100,000.

Basically, what this all means is that if you don’t pay Facebook for ads, you’re left to the mercy of their algorithm for visibility, and who knows just how Facebook is tweaking that? Does it remind you of the search marketing game?

There is one key difference, however. Facebook does allow users to adjust the way they view their News Feed, so you can see stories by time, rather than what Facebook’s algorithm handpicks for you to see. This is the way many users do view their news feed. I have no idea what the numbers look like in terms of how how many people do this, and how often, but I’m guessing many, many people don’t bother. That’s likely where those extra 100,000 users come in.

Whether or not advertisers choose to pay for sponsored stories, brands are still going to want to take full advantage of the free marketing benefits of the world’s largest social network. To do that, you have to consider that EdgeRank algorithm, and of course engage on Facebook.

Sundeep Kapur, a guest author on BlitzLocal’s blog, said in a recent post:

Successful brands need to focus on increasing interaction effectiveness with their consumer base. You do this by increasing the frequency of exposure, paying close attention to what is being discussed, and focused advertising.

Interactions with consumers will occur as you post and more than 70% of the interaction occurs within the first hour. So keep up your efforts on posting more often and monitoring right after you post versus posting and “going to bed.” Also, a post with a “question” tends to drive increased interaction.

Don’t forget that advertising does work. Your engagement rate can go up by 21% to 43% by knowing what to say, when to say, and of course how you say things on Facebook.

In a separate post, the firm, after conducting research on both large and small brands, also suggested:

Some valuable tips. At least only one of these (sponsored stories) is something you have to actually pay Facebook for. Unfortunately, that might be the one that helps you drive visibility more than anything. That is, unfortunately for businesses with tight marketing budgets. Fortunately for Facebook, as it aims to boost revenue as a public company.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become even harder for brands to get their messages through without sponsored stories. What do you think?

In spite of all the excitement around the news, there have been some questions regarding the impact of the IPO on users and marketers. Without users, Facebook would not have turned into what it is today, and without marketers, the business value of the platform would not exist. But, does the IPO change this?

According to Chris Treadaway, the founder of Polygraph Media as well as the author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day, Facebook will still have to please its users and marketers but will have the additional strain of maintaining profitability. He says it will face a scrutiny that it’s never been subjected to before.

“Users will be affected because Facebook will be trying to do everything they can to increase revenues, increase profits, while kind of gradually, incrementally making the user experience a little more… advanced with every passing day,” Treadaway pointed out.

Facebook faces a tough battle because, on one hand, public markets will demand to know what its plans are, how it will monetize personal data, and what its financials are. On the other side, users may counterattack the company if it feels Facebook is using too much of their personal data to make money.

Although users often complain about the power of Facebook, Treadaway tells us that he doesn’t think they will be too quick to abandon the service that has brought so many people together, and essentially, kept the world connected.

“For the last 15 years, we’ve been gradually giving the Internet broadly a lot more of our personal information, and, over time, we’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with what we’ve done,” he said.

“There are just too many benefits of using Facebook currently… for people to just stop doing it altogether, or be, all of a sudden, so concerned about it that it causes people to use it different ways.”

On the marketing side, we know that Facebook provides a great opportunity for brands to connect and sell to consumers, which, in turn, creates revenue for both the brands and Facebook. In fact, the filing showed that 83 percent of Facebook’s revenue in 2011 came from advertising.

“Even though click through rates and impression-based costs have increased a little bit over the last few years… there’s still a ton of room for that to grow,” said Treadaway.

“If you combine Facebook’s targeting options with the price that people pay at least on an impression basis currently, there’s really no better deal out there on the Internet… and there wouldn’t be even if Facebook increased their rates 3 or 4-fold over time,” he added.

But since there will be a stronger pressure on Facebook to bring in revenue, questions are being raised about how the company will ramp up its ad platform. Some are speculating that a new behavioral ad targeting system called “Open Graph action spec targeting” could be the answer.

In a nutshell, these “action specs” are verbs that Facebook collects from the statuses that users provide. Users constantly let Facebook know what they are “watching”, “playing”, “purchasing,” “eating”, and “drinking.” The idea is that Facebook would take these actions and generate leads for brands.

Treadaway tells us that he believes Facebook will play a more active role between consumers and brands selling goods going forward. He also said tools that help marketers do this would likely be available sometime over the next year.

How do you see Facebook’s IPO impacting users and marketers? Let us know.

Exact Target is actually based in Indianapolis, where the Super Bowl is being held. The two companies, Exact Target says, have a relationship that has lasted fo over three years, and that they’ll be “providing a central hub” for execs to connect in downtown Indy.

“Twitter has been a catalyst for change, fueling brands’ ability to connect with consumers in real time online,” said Exact Target CEO Scott Dorsey (apparently no relation to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey). “Through our Social Media Lab in San Francisco and the continued evolution of our social media management solution SocialEngage, we’ve developed a deep relationship with Twitter and look forward to becoming Twitter’s Indianapolis headquarters for Super Bowl 46.”

It’s worth noting that Exact Target owns the popular social media management tool CoTweet.

The two companies intend to host over 200 people this weekend.

“If early volumes are an indicator, this is likely to be most socially engaged Super Bowl in history,” said Dorsey. “Working closely with Twitter, we’ll provide daily updates throughout the week as fans from around the world join the conversation on Twitter.”

Exact Target will utilize its SocialEngage product, in partnership with Twitter, to identify Super Bowl-related tweets and provide insights into related Twitter volumes and topics.

But anyway, some search results were showing up, leading to sponsored blog posts from bloggers talking about the benefits of Chrome. At least one was found to have what appeared to be a paid link, leading to sharp criticism that Google was not playing by its own rules.

Google ended up putting out the following statement (via Danny Sullivan):

We’ve investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days. We strive to enforce Google’s webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users. While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site.

Google’s Matt Cutts said in a Google+ post:

Google was trying to buy video ads about Chrome, and these sponsored posts were an inadvertent result of that. If you investigated the two dozen or so sponsored posts (as the webspam team immediately did), the posts typically showed a Google Chrome video but didn’t actually link to Google Chrome. We double-checked, and the video players weren’t flowing PageRank to Google either.

However, we did find one sponsored post that linked to www.google.com/chrome in a way that flowed PageRank. Even though the intent of the campaign was to get people to watch videos–not link to Google–and even though we only found a single sponsored post that actually linked to Google’s Chrome page and passed PageRank, that’s still a violation of our quality guidelines…

Unruly Media was the company behind the campaign. They’re also known for successful viral campaigns like the Evian Roller Babies and the Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like”.

One Googler said the whole thing illustrated “why you should pay attention to what any marketing, advertising, or SEO companies might be doing on your behalf.”

Danny Sullivan is sharing an email that Unruly has emailed to partners to avoid another fiasco. The email points to guidelines and terms of service. Within that email, the firm says:

First, let’s talk about links. Unruly’s video player typically links to the advertiser’s site, YouTube channel or Facebook page. It does this in a totally safe way (using nofollow, redirects, and JavaScript embedding) that does not transfer PageRank from your site to the advertiser’s site.

Second, let’s talk about disclosure. Unruly’s video player always has a disclosure underneath it making it totally clear that the video is sponsored. This is fine if you just embed the video in a column or area reserved for commercial content. However, if you embed the video in a blog post, you should always put the phrase ‘Sponsored Video’ as the first two words of the title of your post. If you link to a page containing the video in a tweet or status update, you should mark it #ad. It doesn’t matter that you’re not being paid to tweet or post the video – Because you stand to benefit commercially every time someone watches the video on your site or app, you need to make sure you disclose this clearly.

Interestingly, at the height of the whole Google controversy, Unruly announced a new $25 million round of funding.