Pinterest

In the month of May, the entire city of Indianapolis is taken over by “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” – The Indianapolis 500. And for one weekend each year, this historic race captures the country’s attention. That short span of attention is the perfect opportunity for the sport to capitalize. In the digital era, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing becomes the greatest spectacle in social media.

In years past, the “500” – a race so famous it can be called by a number – has been criticized for its lack of enthusiasm around the social media arena. For an event this big, with so much attention...

As a marketer, it's your job to keep up with new technologies that can help drive your business forward. With social media, it can be a challenge to keep up with the changing landscape that includes Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, Flickr, and more every day!

And what's worse, most social media teams are still very small. Even some of the largest brands in the world have surprisingly small and very busy teams. From our experience, the most successful brands focus on one or two networks that best suit their audience. Let's look at the 2012 Edison Survey Data and summary...

As many of you know, Pinterest recently acquiried Livestar. For those of you who have no idea about the origin or function of Livestar... here is a brief breakdown from VentureBeat: "Rolling in the best parts of Foursquare, Metacritic, and Yelp, Livestar’s app lets you see reviews for restaurants, movies, and music from reputable sources such as newspapers, local news blogs, Facebook friends, or people in your contact list."

What exactly does this mean? Check out the following blogs, publications, and pundits on the importance (or stupidity) of this acquisition. 

1. Pinterest Acquihires Local...

Sunday, February 10, was the biggest night of the year for the music industry, with the live broadcast of the Grammy Awards on CBS. Every year, millions of viewers huddle around their televisions to take in the many performances (and the few awards) that make up the 3.5 hour event. After host LL Cool J prompted viewers to engage with the show via Twitter hashtag #Grammys, it seemed like the awards show's social presence would be one of the evening's highlights.  

The big surprise for followers of television ratings came the next morning, when it was reported that AMC's cable program "The Walkin...

In addition to writing here on the ExactTarget blog, the good folks over at MediaPost let me wax poetic about travel marketing on a monthly basis. This month, in an article called The Social Photo Wars and You, I tackled a subject that warrants a bit more analysis--especially after this week's hubbub over Instagram's revised terms of service. The subject at issue is the battle royale brewing between Facebook/Instagram and Twitter over digital photographs.

Why digital photographs? Why now? Well, to answer those questions, I give you the words of legendary Scottish rock n' roll philosopher, Rod...

In Part 1 of this post, we explored the new "Pinterest for Business" and suggested some questions you should ask in deciding whether it's time to get your business on Pinterest.

Think you’re ready to get started? Here are some tips and tricks:

1. Choose only a few people and organisions to follow initially.
   Following more people than what follow you shows desperation for followers and a forced attempt at creating awareness. Instead, follow only a few, build awareness by repinning popular content from those boards, and keep track of what is being repinned off of your boards, so you can mold your...

Now that Pinterest has launched “Pinterest for Business,” it is important for organisations to recognise the opportunities that this presents. Although Pinterest usage in the UK has not quite caught up with the US, Econsultancy reports that it has seen a 786% increase in the last year, growing from 901,767 visits in September 2011 to 7,985,316 a year later.

One of the fascinating differentiators between Pinterest usage in the US and the UK is the gender demographic. Women make up the majority of users in the US (83%) however the majority in the UK are, surprisingly, men (56%). This difference...

Pinterest is all the rage this year and will continue to be this holiday season. Not only are consumers using this social sharing site as a way to keep track of new recipes and style tips, they’re also actively engaging with brands and purchasing the products they love. In fact, a PriceGrabber survey found that 21% of consumers have purchased a product after seeing it on Pinterest. In addition, ExactTarget’s SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS report, Retail Touchpoints Exposed, found that consumers have pinned products from 93 of the 100 fastest growing retailers in the U.S. and the average Hot...

Welcome to this week's edition of the Baer Facts. For those of you new to the program, the Baer Facts is a weekly video series where Jay Baer and I talk about a trending topic in the world of digital media. The video interview is released every Friday. 

Today's topic - What do you think about Facebook Collections? Is it a Pinterest killer?

According to Janrain, a user management platform, 58% prefer signing into a brand’s site with their Facebook ID. This is the preferred social ID by a long shot, but most people prefer the flexibility of signing in with whatever social ID they choose. You’ll find that many sites offer options at login.

As Facebook, Twitter, and other social channels like Pinterest become the largest source of referral traffic, you need to make sure your site is optimized for social, just like it's probably optimized for search.

In fact, while Pinterest is still relatively new, 23% of users search for the brand...

Why Pinterest?

You probably know what it is by now, but if you don't, find out here.

• It's big: With 20 million unique users already, it's the fastest growing social network in history. (comScore)

• It's connected: It drives more referral traffic than Twitter, and more than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined. (Shareaholic)

• It's viral: 80% of pins are re-pins - only 1.4% of tweets are re-tweets. This shows a highly engaged, self-sustaining user base and stream of content. (HubSpot)

• It's sticky:Users spend an average of 88.3 minutes on the site. (MarketingProfs)

• And most importantly, it converts: 21%...