A virtual pinboard may not strike you as vital to your business. You’re probably focussing your social media efforts to Twitter and Facebook. But don’t discount the new kid on the block – it’s gaining traction, especially with the female demographic, can help you market your products and increase traffic to your website.
Popular images (with links back to the original source) can get repinned on hundreds of other users’ boards – so if one of those images is something you sell…well, you do the maths.
Pinterest now has over 10.4 million registered users, 9 million monthly Facebook-connected users, and 2 million daily Facebook users, according to Inside Network’s AppData tracking service. With gorgeous photography, and links to shopping sites, Pinterest is becoming an obsession for flocks of women. AppData and Facebook’s advertising tool show that over 97% of Pinterest’s Facebook fans are women.
Here are five ways to improve your click-throughs, and spread the word about a new product:
1. Keep it simple
The main appeal of Pinterest is that the site is exceptionally easy to use. Everyone has a “board” where they pin images that are all the same size. Make sure each pinned photo/image on your board includes one link back to your site.
2. Tie in with your online store
Feature online ads and Pinterest promotions. Have a Pinterest button and tie it all in with your social media strategy. Use Tumblr and Facebook to point people to Pinterest.
3. Give more
Don’t just promote the products you sell. Post interesting news snipits, tips, and products from other companies. Pinterest users are savvy in spotting a board that is too self-serving and only posting product photos.
4. Follow
Start following the big names on Pinterest. This is the proven method on Twitter: When you follow popular figures, and they follow you back, other Twitter users get the message and follow the leader.
5. Curate well
Pinterest caters to those who love to “curate” or weed out the good from the bad. Make life easy for them by tagging your images cleverly – help people unearth special, niche products – for example, “made in England” products or “limited edition”.
When you are writing your Tweets it’s good to know that someone is reading them. Hell – better than that, Twitter has a great way for people to demonstrate that they not only read your Tweet, but that they thought it was soooooo good that they wanted to share it with their friends.
It’s called the ReTweet.
Better still for you – being ReTweeted means you’ll attract more followers and if you’re looking to reach more people with your thoughts, business ideas, products or your wit you need to get ReTweeted.
Here are five ways I write my Tweets to ensure my Tweets are spread around. Spread the love!
1. STAY SEXY
I wrote in an earlier post about research showing Tweet content which was hugely unpopular. Things like, “I’ve just had a prawn sandwich for lunch. Yum yum!”
What you’re writing should be sexy and cool.
Brief is good too – but if it takes 140 characters to be sexy and cool, then use 140 characters. And stop right there if you think you can’t do sexy and cool. Look at a trending list, watch the news or listen to the radio and say something sarcastic, witty, incisive or rude about what’s happening. Go on – try in NOW – it’s not as hard as you think.
2. DON’T BEG
Writing “Please ReTweet” in your Tweet is NOT sexy or cool (see above). Don’t be a wimp. Be confident and you’ll find you’re inner ‘sexy and cool’ (see point 1).
3. GET YOUR TIMING RIGHT
There’s two sets of timings to get right:
a. The time you press ‘send’. It’s not rocket science that more people are reading Tweets at lunch time, the end the working day and on an evening. This makes 1pm, 6pm and 10pm (GMT) good times to Tweet.
b. The time you comment on popular culture. EG if there’s a big news story on Saturday at 2pm (“Breaking news – Madonna has heart attack!”) don’t start Tweeting this ‘news flash’ on Sunday. News gets old very fast on Twitter so try and stay ahead of the pack, otherwise comment on what’s being said about the event, rather than trying to break it.
4. GET A TRENDNG APP
A trending app (or the free lists on Yahoo! and on Twitter homepage) are essential reading if you want to join in on the conversation and get ReTweeted. See what other people are saying, add your comments (remembering point 1 above).
5. DON’T WORRY
On re-reading some of your Tweets will NOT be sexy or cool. In fact, you’ll cringe. The good news is that Twitter moves so fast, it’s not worth worrying about. Plough on. Write another (better) Tweet. And wrote a huge bunch more.
Good Luck!
You may be a brilliant writer, but writing that is going to be read on a website requires something a little bit extra. When you write for web pages you also need to have the eye of a designer.
Whilst not everyone can appreciate the finer art of design, you shouldn’t let this put you off. My trick is to see what i’ve written through the eyes of an online reader. I also think about the pages that I enjoying reading and ask:
*why do I like them?
*how are they operating that make them a pleasure/easy to read?
*what is it about the layout of the page that makes it easy on the eye?
In fact, if you analyse this post you can already begin to see what I mean. Each paragraph is short – only two sentences long – and I’ve already broken up the text with bullet points.
FIVE TOP TIPS
The shorter, the better: Readers appreciate writers who do not waste their time. Simple, direct language communicates your thoughts more efficiently than your bloated demonstration of all that stuff the rest of us slept through in English class.
Contextual hyperlinking: Online narratives should allow readers to “branch off” and click through to other, more detailed, supporting content, depending upon a reader’s level of interest.
Use formatting: Break up that boring mass of gray type by using:
- lists
- bold headers
- blockquotes
Easy to read: No block of text more than five lines on the screen.
Make it clean and clear. Yes – use pictures and colour but don’t overdo it. A clean and clear page is far more effective than something that is all-singing and all-dancing but impossible to navigate.
Here is an example from a project I have just completed. The factory makes fine bone china in Stoke on Trent. They re-launched their website to reflect modern business that was future looking and hot on design. The web builders did a great job but the copy lacked a little fizz. This is the original version:
Now, this is the same page with my copy:
There are FOUR simple things I did that makes the righ-hand side page much more reader friendly. Can you work out what they are? What else would you have done?
An analysis of 43,000 Tweets has led to the publication of a study: “Who Gives a Tweet: Evaluating Microblog Content Value”. It took a year to compile but the researchers came up with a list of essential dos and don’ts on the social network.
The team created a site, Who Gives a Tweet that asked users to rank a selection of tweets according to the emotional responses they provoked (“positive,” “neutral,” “negative”). And then to explain those responses in their own words.
The Most Annoying Tweet Imaginable, they found, would be overly long, it would contain stale information, it would #totally #overuse #hashtags, it would be excessively personal, it would be aggressively mundane and it would be whiny.
You could say that it would read something like this:
Tweets that are informative or funny (ideally both) garnered the best responses. Tweets that contain old information, repeat conventional wisdom, offer uselessly de-contextual news, or extoll the virtues of of something mundane (like what you had for lunch) ranked poorly.
The Top Eight Things To Learn
• Old news is no news: Twitter users love real-time information, so keep information fresh and up-to-date.
• Contribute to the story: To keep people interested, add an opinion, or a pertinent fact to the conversation.
• Keep it short: 140 characters is short but users like it even shorter. Use as few characters as possible.
• Limit Twitter-specific syntax: Overuse of #hashtags, @mentions and abbreviations makes tweets hard to read.
• Keep it to yourself: Mundane personal detail (“eating a prawn sandwhich”) are hugely disliked by followers.
• Provide context: Don’t just Tweet a link – give it context. Preferably give it an intriguing lead-in to create a reason to click.
• Don’t whine: Negative sentiments and complaints were disliked.
• Be a tease: News or professional organizations that want readers to click on their links need to hook the reader, not give away all of the news in the tweet itself.
What do you think? What else would you add to a list of “Twitter dos and don’ts”?
Choosing a copywriter is a big decision. You need to choose someone who can convey the correct tone and image for your business. If not, you’ll end up in a cycle of endless rewrites – with both parties tearing their hair out – or you’ll end up not recognising your own business. And how are you going to make sales if your speil doesn’t match your written word?
There are many different kinds of writer. There is copywriting niche specialist. For example: copywriters who only write for alternative health, or financial, or self-help markets. Second, there are copywriters who specialise in the type of copy: landing pages, white papers, video scripts, etc. Then there are the advertisers. There’s corporate copy writeres such as marketing collateral, newsletters, and product literature. There’s slick ad agency copy. There’s branding, direct response, and B2B. Add to the lisst the web SEO content and web sales copy.
It suddenly sounds like a bewildering choice. But in reality most copywriters will be able to perform several functions. For example, I have written website copy which has been optimised for the web. I’ve also written corporate copy as well as branding.
Whatever the type of writing you need, first you need to ask yourself ‘what is my marketing strategy?’ You’ll never be able to get your copywriter to convey the correct message unless you both know what function it is to perform. When you know your outcomes, you will be much more likely to find the copywriter that can help you achieve that outcome. If you are unclear about it, how likely will you be able to find a copywriter who can achieve it?
There’s a structure to sales so your copywriter must also be a salesman. You’d actually be better served having a door-to-door sales person write your copy, than an English teacher. There is a process that takes a person from not interested, to interested, wanting to know more, and deciding to make a buying decision. That process is different from any other style of writing and your copy writer must be good at this.
Finding a good copywriter and seeing their work for your business is an exciting moment. When you find the right copywriter you’ll find that all your plans, strategies and ideas come to life. Hopefully you’ll also see the sales come rolling in!
What do you think? Are there any other qualities you need to find in a copywriter?