Pique a Little Pinterest

The rise of Social Media has catalysed the rise in visual content. Facebook has been a key driver in this, encouraging user and brand-generated images and infographics. Visual content is encouraged online by sites like Flickr and Tumblr. High quality cameras on Smartphones and apps such as Instagram have allowed us to upload original, quality visual content to the internet at an extremely fast rate.

This has now lead to the online world being flooded with visual content and Pinterest fulfils the need to curate this content in an easy-to-use interface. Basically an online pinboard, users can upload, pin from the web and share from other users images, or ‘pins’. These can then be categorised onto different ‘boards’. We're even seeing a recent development in the US of 'Pinterest Newsrooms'.

What are the Opportunities for Brands?

Trend Reporting:
Be one of the first to announce trends and improve your reputation in the industry. Become the 'go-to' online source for all the latest happenings in your industry. You will be attracting the same audience you want for your business, not just your Pinterest account.

Gain Feedback:
Do a bit of market research using your pins. What is getting repinned like wildfire and what is being ignored? What are pinners commenting on your pins? This is a great way to find out what people like/don’t like simply by monitoring the activity surrounding your pins/repins.

Crowdsource Ideas:
Want to know what your followers really want? ASK! Pinterest doesn’t have the same restrictions surrounding competitions as Facebook does. There are still guidelines, but it’s fine to run a competition straight from Pinterest without using a third-party app.

Define Your Content:
Just like all other Social Media channels, it is important to define your voice. You need to decide what your content will focus on. For each board, define what percentage will be pinned from your own content, from bloggers, media and other 'industry voices' in your circle of influence and of course, re-pins from other users.

Spread the Word:
While this is a great tool to raise brand awareness and spread knowledge of your products, it's best to keep self-promotion to a minimum. Roughly 2 out of every 10 pins should be showing your product/linking to your site. With each pin that you upload from a website, it will automatically link back to that URL. This means that when your website pins ‘go viral’, users are still linked back to your website as the source.

C'mon Commonwealth!

So I prepared to write about all the wonderful things the Commonwealth Games had done in reaching audience’s through social media only to discover in that there was actually more to say about what they hadn’t done!

 Social Media NZ Creative Director John Lai (@iamjohnlai) recently wrote about the poor efforts in linking and utilizing the Commonwealth Games Twitter, Youtube and Facebook accounts, and failing to implement any sort of strategy across all fronts.
“..What differentiates a brand from the others, is the hard work and service a brand puts in order to connect with their fans/followers, which the Commonwealth Games Twitter page shows none of that connection whatsoever.”
 He suggests that with all the controversy surrounding the Games, they had better things to worry about than updating the Facebook, Twitter or Youtube pages. Perhaps they did, but here are a few of my ideas as to what else they could have done:

I personally feel that they could have taken a lot of heat off all the controversy by plugging the talent before, during and after the actual games.This could have been done via Flickr for a display of photos and descriptions of the world’s best, or perhaps an official Commonwealth Games iPhone app for even faster dissemination of information.
In terms of crisis communications I just wanted to profile WAYN.com, the largest travel and lifestyle social network with over 15.7 million members globally. They actively tried to lower the negative publicity around the Games by encouraging all Indians to upload pictures and leave messages of support to showcase the ‘positive face’ of the Games.
The UK Guardian reported that when team officials threatened to pull athletes out, the panel of influential’s behind the Games had only a matter of hours to put a plan into action, and there was talk of it already starting to affect the 2014 Games set for Glasgow.
Popular English bloggers One Chocolate Communications described the Games rightfully as a “PR disaster” – no better exemplified than when the head of the organising committee took to the stage at the opening ceremony and received boos.

“There have been allegations of corruption, ongoing concerns about the state of the facilities, outbreaks of Dengue fever and outcries of mismanagement.”
Seems to me that the basic steps of communication were missing from this recipe of disaster, lets hope Glasgow have a fully fledged strategy on board!
Written by Jess Miller

  

Canterbury Quake - Crisis Comms In Action

It struck at 4:30am, which didn’t leave much time for the local and national media to organise the morning report for Sunday September 5th.

Despite this, the coverage gained was flawless, which can be put down to the fast thinking crisis communication strategy behind New Zealand’s Civil Defence.

Minister of Civil Defence, John Carter commented earlier thisyear that New Zealander’s were unprepared to deal with a disaster. People only began to seek information about how to deal with a potential Tsunami in March after several warnings were issued. The clear message Civil Defence were sending: it's too late to seek information well after a disaster has occurred. The Canterbury 'quake was too severe to ignore, and we listened.

Carter definitely presented an exemplar performance, and fronted on television extremely well in a matter of hours following the first 7.1 sized tremor, as did Mayor Bob Parker.

The output that Civil Defence were generating was enormous - there were curfews ordered, school’s staying closed, a CBD lock down, a state of emergency, buildings getting torn down before they fell down, burst water mains, and power outages. Widespread panic was avoided completely, as the dissemination of this information was clear, concise, regular, and at no point did it seem the disaster was bigger than us.

The somewhat confusing response to the Tsunami in the Pacific last year left many unsure about the confidence held in our Civil Defence, however they managed every level from declaring a state of emergency to discussion around recovery with caution and attention, and was applauded by the Minister.

More than 3,000 followers of the @NZcivildefence Twitter account watched closely as updates were fired through with only minutes in between. The hashtag #eqnz was quickly adopted into most tweets, despite the official tag for the Civil Defence being a long winded #christchurchquake (click here if you want to know why).

Prominent researchers Neilson looked into the drive of social media following the biggest earthquake seen in 80 years. Over 27,000 comments and posts on various different social media engines in the 6 days that followed with aftershocks.

The strength of our social media, and the successful crisis communication response entailed that the heads at Fox News, Good Morning America, The Bangkok Post, and UK’s BBC News broke the story around the world, and were trawling Twitpic well before any professional photos had been taken.

Written by Jess Miller.

iPad Release Causes a Stir Across NZ

It’s only been available in New Zealand one week, and for months it’s had all the workings of a huge PR stir around town. If you follow the success of Apples latest phenomenon, the iPad, you’ll know it sold more than 1 million units in its first month alone. At a casual $800 a pop, these little pockets of technology are drawing a line in the sand to what we know to be social media.

While the heads of social media around town wait for the stats of sales over here, New Zealand media have also recognized the potential at hand. The NZ Herald has launched an app specifically designed for their readers, and, rumor is, North and South also have something waiting in the wings.

Vodafone have also tried to jump on the iPad bandwagon , by releasing a “watch this space” type statement, which ruffled some feathers at NZiphone.com. See our post on what constitutes good news!

This new addition to Apple’s family of products has attracted interest from not just our chic&geek, techno-crazed, GenY society, but older users as well. Portable and personalized to your virtual library, and able to zoom in with the pinch of a finger.

While the iPhone is best on-the-go, and the iBook for getting down to work, the iPad is creatively positioned in the middle, as a leisurely browsing experience.

If you find yourself justifying a whole family of Apple, I don’t blame you.

Written by Jess Miller

PR Practitioners Talk Punk...

PR analyst Gerry McCuster has an analogy: "Social media is like punk rock." It's about breaking rules, about being heard, about being noticed..."The best campaigns are the best that take a risk"...and risk Gerry did by showing this campaign (warning: not for the faint hearted) at the recent PRINZ conference. It captured many eyeballs around the room (and globe thanks to YouTube and bloggers) yet most importantly, achieved the goal of changing undesirable behaviour.

Plain old search engines don't exist any longer either; they're "reputation search engines" according to Gerry.

More ORM (online reputation management) handy hints followed:

- Use the free tools on the web "manage your intelligence, it will save you."

- Monitor and track the trends.Fact check.Gauge reactions for tonality and tenure.

- "Word of mouse" is being used to spread "word of mouth."

- Own the first 30 search finds about you/your brand on Google/Yahoo.

- Engage your audience but be prepared for push back if it's edgy like this campaign!

- In a crisis, the benchmark for responding is within 2-4 hours.

- "Managing a social media crisis is like talking to a punk rocker."

- Think of yourself as a "broadcast centre."

- Editorialise, entertain and keep it "REAL."

PR MD Jenni Raynish once said: “Advertising is what you say about yourself and Public relations is what others say about you.” Bearing that in mind, it's safe to say that if you're not actively familiar with Web 2.0 and social media, how can you know what's being said about you, not to mention; where it's being said about you?

Facebook - To Powerful To Ignore

Best Practice tips for companies and case studies.
Click here for more handy tips from the PR Pulse.

Big Brands & Facebook: Demographics, Case Studies & Best Practices

20 Social Media Best Practice Tips

How to create exceptional blogs, videos and podcasts.
Click here for more handy tips from the PR Pulse.

20 Social Media Best Practice Tips