Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Pinterest.com - a rapidly growing visual content site!

If you haven't joined Pinterest.com - here is a breakdown on everything you need to know about this rapidly growing site - http://www.blueglass.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-pinterest/

It's a great site for visual content and for all your work/interests/ to be seen, build brand advocacy, create interesting boards and share to other social media sites. 

It's also a great site to find inspiration, tips and ideas. There are quotes, clothes, home decor, locations, tutorials, infographics as well as delicious cupcakes and cakes for you to drool over. It's extremely visual and you can search for anything and everything.  

Often when you click on a pin, it leads you to a site you have never seen before - this is a huge advantage for marketing your business or blog.

It's also easy to use, people can like,comment on, repin or share your pins, so it's a great site for start ups, bloggers, people who work from home and small businesses.

For creative companies like designers, architects, bloggers, cooks, chefs, moms, illustrators, artists, musicians - this is a great site to share your work.

And if you're curious top designers and musicians are starting to use the site as well - so there is a branding advantage for businesses and individuals.

Michael Kors is an early user and his boards are divided up between his work and his interests - http://pinterest.com/michaelkors/ - it will be very interesting to see how people make use of this site!

Here's a Pinterest Guide for beginners from Mashable - http://mashable.com/2011/12/26/pinterest-beginners-guide/

And for people like me who love quotes, reading books and infographics - http://pinterest.com/ebbye/ - I am using it to pin info about social media and business - I spend a great deal of time online researching and searching for content to train my clients and this site is a source of inspiration for me!

Are you on Pinterest.com yet? I'd love to know what you think of this site?

One of my pins today http://pinterest.com/pin/76631631129250424/

The Top Twenty Social Media Blogs Finalists

2012 is the 3rd year for Social Media Examiner to pick up 10 social media blogs among all nominations. The top 10 blogs will be announced in its newsletter and also on their blog. 

Here are the 20 finalists with a brief introduction (in alphabetical order) - written by Kate - thanks to http://evanhugh.com/2012/01/22/the-top-10-social-media-blogs-in-2012/

  1. Bundle Post: It is founded by Robert M. Caruso with passion in tech and social media. It takes the first step to automate and schedule the social media contents in one place.
  2. Digital Brand Marketing Education: It holds continuing learning philosophy to educate empowered professionals in using digital to brand and market their businesses.
  3. Heidi Cohen: She brings you into the world of digital and direct marketing through her established experiences so that readers can easily apply to their current social situation.
  4. Hubze: Social media marketers and lovers share how to start the social media engine to engage with customers and manage social media accounts like an elite.
  5. inBlurbs: It shows you how to get found on the Internet and convert the traffic into physical customers to bring up your own brand and prospects.
  6. Inbound Marketing Spot: It belongs to Trust eMedia and provides inbound marketing strategies to build a loyal social media community to support brands and businesses.
  7. Jeff Korhan: He is an inspiring speaker who can help and present the closer connection between social media and small businesses to grow through Internet and social media.
  8. Jeff Bullas: The blog, which is being ranked #87 in AdAge Power 150, offers public some useful hints and advices on how to make advantage of social media tools.
  9. Likeable Media: It purposes on leveraging social media to build up marketing castle that supports brand, value and services.
  10. Marketing Tech blog: There are media marketing experts to analysis the current development and provide technology and marketing tips for social marketers.
  11. Media First: A blog from a public relations agency to help clients to win new market share and grow revenues and profits with unique marketing tactics.
  12. Media Tapper: The purpose is to discuss day-to-day developments in the social and online media world and share the piece of information globally.
  13. My Social Agency: Provide a series of expert advices and solutions in social media management to keep in touch with the current racing world pace.
  14. Pushing Social: It tells you to do what to publicize and market around through Stanford Smith’s words. He is an online marketing strategist who loves amplifying social tools.
  15. Sales Lion: Read “Why Subscribe” in its site and realize that it is an experience sharing and writing to help people who are involved in sales hardcore and marketing mistakes.
  16. Social Mouths: “I help people be successful online” brings readers to meet Francisco Rosales who determines to help every potential reader creating their brand and expertise.
  17. Social Strand Media: Provide marketing solutions, from social media to marketing campaigns, at free consultation to accelerate your brand beyond the borders.
  18. Spiderworking: Teaching small to medium business how to promote brand and drag online traffic using social media, Amamda Webb shares her knowledge after her first business, Feelgood Organic Hampers.
  19. Splash Media: Contains opinion and analysis from a group of social media, marketing and video professionals. Specifically tailor solution and monitor progress for their clients.
  20. ViralBlog: Ranked #71 in the AdAge Power 150 as well as collects the daily viral and social media cases over the global, in order to inspire people and create the best social strategies.
All these blogs provide businesses up to date  information regarding social media, case studies, success stories and great marketing tips.

I love reading  weekly mashups from We are Social  - http://wearesocial.net/blog/2012/01/we-are-socials-monday-mashup-103/ and Jeffrey Thomas's weekly EdTech Resources Treasure Chest - http://jeffthomastech.com/blog/?p=11829

Alltop covers news from everywhere about social media - http://social-media.alltop.com/ - so this is another great resource to use, share and provide you with inspiration to write your own blog posts, Tweets and updates.

Social Media keeps growing, so it means we have to keep learning! So there has to be a lot reading, reviewing, researching and staying up to date.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A Short History of Social Media

Here's a short history of social media with the launch of  SixDegrees.com in 1997, Blogger in 1999, Friendster in 2002, Myspace in 2003, Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. 

The pdf highlights key events which occurred from 1978 until 2011.

source: http://socialtimes.com/short-history-of-social-media_b76075