If you have an interest in marketing online, then you have an interest in Pinterest. Pinterest provides an opportunity for brands to reach consumers in the golden moment when their intent to purchase is forming- as their boards of product images are growing.

Announce your arrival

Pinterest does not offer promoted content or advertising to brands yet. So how can a brand announce their arrival on Pinterest if not through ads? Here are 3 sure fire ways to jump start your Pinterest presence:

• A magic formula that is 2 parts Facebook and 1 part Pinterest. Create a Pinterest app on your brand page and support it with Facebook ads aimed at Pinterest users within your brand’s target demo.
• Email! What happens when you take an old fashioned email and insert ready to pin images? BOOM- pinning a plenty!
• Add Pin It! buttons to images on your website to remind visitors to share their fav pics on their own

Use awesome images

Want to be repinned? A perfect Pinterest image is 600 pixels wide. There is no maximum length on Pinterest, so aim for pins that are long. Images, taller than 800 pixels will stand out in the crowd.

Fill your brand’s boards with images beyond everyday product shots. Funny, beautiful and touching images have better odds at being repinned. Whether you are creating images for your pinboards or scouring the Internet for cool, repinnable images, chose high contrast images. Break out of the photo mold and create pins that include text, just make sure it is brief and bold.

Read the rest of our tips for marketing on Pinterest by downloading our latest white paper: Pinterest Best Practices for Brands 2013.

The post Pinterest Best Practices for Brands 2013 – How to Get Consumers Pinterested! appeared first on Flightpath.

But, lets be real it is a one-way street.  My old school writing partner wouldn’t know me from Kurt Vonnegut.  And, Nike knows me mostly as the obedient discount reacting Pega$u$ guy.

Today, even with all the big data abounding, brands know you behaviorally.  Think about it, only by your actions, purchase patterns, click throughs and by the perks they throw your way.  Few brands (or the people who manage them) know you emotionally or get you empathetically.  They may be using Radian6 like tools on your Facebook comments or Tweets or what you blog.  There is a lot of heady ( or hoody?) extrapolating and projecting, but for all they know about you, not the persona you, but your emotional you, brands still have along way to go in getting real.

Brands of course want a deep and meaningful relationship, but it’s difficult, let alone really creepy for the “inanimates” to know too much, get too close.   Unless you’re a “people” who position themselves as a brand like Jillian “5 more reps, now!” Michaels or Justin “Be a Belieber” Bieber or anyone with the surname “Kardashian”, then it’s cool.  It’s like who needs another bud, when you just want another Bud?

All I am really saying is, all of us in brand land (all of us!) need to take it easy on the over the top ways of getting attention and penetrating our hopeful or loyalist lives. Just because we now know way more about the navigational and transactional pathways of our “friends” doesn’t mean we should use it against or for them. Most brand and digital brand people especially, live in the never-ending world of new and cooler “shiny objects.”

So  given this, what I’m REALLY saying is just maybe the only way to truly navigate the future of effective brand marketing and cultivate sustainable relationship value is say or sing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” and practice RESTRAINT.

The post Brand Mis-Deception appeared first on Flightpath.

Here are the top reasons not to use stock photos in your social posts:

1. Who are these people anyway?

If your grandparents looked like they crawled off a Clairol box, then congrats on hitting the genetic lottery. For the rest of us, stock images showing perfect people in perfect families just aren’t relatable.

Showing images of real people using your products, who are truly enthusiastic, are going to go much further with your target audience. Your brand’s likes,  share and overall engagement will go up.

2. Cans lack soul.

It’s a can of cat food. Yes, if you are a cat owner you probably have a brand of cat food that you like. And, if you are the cat food company then you probably paid thousands for a photo shoot in which each piece of niblet of meat in this can was arranged.

But, chances are if you saw this can of cat food pop up in your newsfeed accompanied by copy like “Like this if your cat eats this”- you would not even pause for a second look. Even if it had the most gorgeous label in the world. It’s still just a can.

On the other hand….

If you are a cat food company and post a pic of a real cat a user shared on your wall or on another social platform, who is super cute, and put your branding on it, BOOM. Magic happens…

People will share. Fancy Feast rocks this tactic all the time on Facebook, and their images get a lot of love. Always think about your brand’s content from the user’s perspective- not just the brand perspective.

If your brand is posting cans, bags and other product shots- not matter how lovingly poised that product may be, it will never have the soul of a user generated image.

3. Stock photos aren’t funny, smart or interesting

Think about it for a moment. You went to school for photography. You have to make extra cash. So, you create the most generic images possible like the above “couple brushing teeth” and add a million random tags to the photo in the hopes that your image will be downloaded enough times that you can buy groceries this week.

The result: Boring images.

This image was posted on Colgate’s wall. A consumer is proving the whitening power of their toothpaste with a photo taken in black light.

That would be a very funny post from the brand as well, but instead Colgate responded “HAHAHA” and let the post wither on the “Recent Posts by Others” vine, instead of using the image in a post on their own wall with thanks to the user who submitted it.

Instead they use images like this…

I don’t mean to pick on Colgate or their agency or in-house person tasked with picking stock photos of perfect people with perfecter teeth.

They are just typical of the way brands use images to little effect on social.

So, use real user generated image on your wall and consumers will see that you are paying attention to them, and even better that you are celebrating their relationship with your brand. They may also post a pic in the hopes that they will get a star turn in your brand’s posts.

Have you made the switch from product beauty shots and stock images to user generated on social? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

The post Still using stock photos on social? It’s really time to stop. appeared first on Flightpath.

So why didn’t Mr. Johnson’s strategy of getting rid of the hundreds of coupon and discount offers with everyday low price (EDLP) work, as well as, dramatic and fundamental changes to merchandise?

Some point to hubris, others to deep-rooted conviction born out of incredible experience.   Here’s my two pennies:  I say the issue was not about changing the discount culture of a store, but the broader reality of brand culture and habitual behavior/expectation that Johnson may have underestimated.

Changing people’s belief about a brand or changing its transactional soul is danger on steroids.  People are creatures of habit. Consumers even more so regarding the ritualistic behavior of imagining they’re winning with a coupon or discount. People like winning at retail and EDLP takes the game away; while, framing a new “believe me/trust me” mindset- without the dopamine.  Plus, for over 100 years J.C. Penney has meant something to its loyalists (dwindling as they may be) and that something was the feeling of special- discounts, days, savings.

Target let alone Apple never had that historical baggage to negotiate.  From day one Apple wrote its own way of defining its unique user experience.  Target with designers like Mr. Graves and Mr. Stark evolved and enhanced the product portfolio without alienating the consumer or their expectation.

Both defined their respective channels through innovation. From a brand POV innovation doesn’t have the negative reverb like change does.  The obvious proof point is Coke changing formulation into New Coke- the #1 “don’t mess with my brand” case study in history.  Coincidentally or ironically one of Mr. Johnson’s advisors, Sergio Zyman was the senior marketing exec. at Coke at the time of the re-launch.  So clearly, Mr. Johnson had first hand and learned experience with this kind of fire.

In the coming days much will be written about Ron Johnson’s tenure- was he given enough time, was he fighting an impossible product, merchant culture battle, did his senior staff leave because they sensed what was happening or not?

Regardless of what gets said or not, this much we know “if change was easy, everyone one would do it!”

The post Change is never easy or fast enough and that won’t change! appeared first on Flightpath.

Brands on social seem to struggle with tragedy. PR agencies, ad firms and digital shops are filled with people who are affected, even if indirectly when tragedy strikes. Everyone struggles with coming up with the right thing to say. There is a very human need to say something.

But brands are not humans.

Even though the people who staff accounts have the best intentions, creating a post in the vain of “We Remember…” or “Our thoughts are with…” is inappropriate. People are turning to each other for comfort, for news outlets for coverage. They are not turning to consumer package goods or B2B companies for solace.

In the aftermath of tragedy, brand posts do two things:

• Clutter up newsfeeds when people are looking for instant information.
• Give the perception that a brand is leveraging a tragedy for their own benefit.

So, if you manage social media for brands what should you do? Halt all posts, especially in the hours after the tragic event. By staying quiet, your brand will be doing something important- giving people space to find news, connect and find solace in their friends.

The post In the Wake of Tragedy What Should Brands on Social Do? Be Quiet. appeared first on Flightpath.

Image via Tumblr.com

1.  Spelling Fail – How to Edit Post after It’s Out There

Keep in mind; this only applies to posts that have images attached to them.  Nonetheless, good to know when you’re in a pinch and already established high engagement.

Let’s just say you found a tiny little mistake (oops!), well this is how you can fix it after it’s been put out there for the world to see.  The best part is… this also applies for the scheduled posts in your Activity Log.

 Here’s how:

a)  Click on the time stamp of the post you want to edit

b)  Click on “Edit”

c)  Then make the necessary edits in the text box and then hit “Done Editing”

Huzzah!  All fixed.

2. Keyboard Shortcuts for Facebook

Thanks to Mashable we can now do our daily Facebook routine sans mouse.  It’s sort of like playing a game on our keyboard.

Shortcuts are based on your browser so you need to memorize the sequence:

For the action shortcuts visit Mashable.

3. Organize Your Inbox

Want to move messages that you know you’re done with?  Then you can move them out of your inbox and into the “Other” folder. This way you can control how many messages are in your inbox.

Here’s how:

Image via Facebook.com

Tag you’re it!  What other quick tips do you have to share with fellow social media ninjas? Sound off in our comments below.

Can’t get enough of Facebook tidbits and news from Flightpath?  Have no fear just click here.

Related articles

• Facebook Like a Ninja With These Keyboard Shortcuts
• Pinterest Asking Brands What Features They Want – Pinterest Analytics Anyone?
• Facebook isn’t Real…Why This Matters for Marketers
• How to Rank Better in Google & Bing

The post Facebook Quick Tips for Community Managers appeared first on Flightpath.

No doubt we have all seen the pervasive rise of data creep in virtually every aspect of our life and business decision making- including creative.  If you buy into the assumption that “numbers speak louder than words” then you’re not alone, but there are also “contrarians at the gate.”  Ad Age covering a panel at Adverting Week Europe heard the unequivocal push back from John Hegarty founder of BBH advertising “You’d expect a creative person to pour slight scorn on data.” He explained, “It’s because I’ve spent my life dealing with people who’ve got all the data in the world and yet they can’t invent anything.” That said, RG/A founder and Chairman Bob Greenberg responded with his own evangelistic zeal “I think creative use of data is also a possibility. Data visualization has created ways in which you can take the data that’s available and tie it into a live event – like when I walk into Nike Town [wearing a Nike + band] and they’ll know who I am and they’ll be able to serve up really relevant content.”

The Ad Age link is really worth clicking not just because Mr. Hegarty wouldn’t have any of it, but because data is clearly here and becoming louder and more pronounced everyday in countless ways. And, as Mr. Greenberg made clear, data is about the end game of customer personalization and engagement. Which is why analytics, especially in reference to “big data” is so compelling.

To bring it back to today, if you haven’t, I urge you to read John Lee’s (head of our SEO/SEM practice) compelling/insightful post How to Rank Better in Google & Bing that he wrote right after attending a SXSW presentation on landscape issues of search effectiveness.   John and I laugh about how we “couldn’t come at it” any more different, but we both agree that the most compelling ideas and themes only matter if they engage a human being in a very human way. Enough said!

Related articles

• SXSW Session – The Next Frontier of Interactive: Smart Fashion
• How to Rank Better in Google & Bing
• Pinterest Asking Brands What Features They Want – Pinterest Analytics Anyone?
• Life Is In Your Hands: Truer Words (and Video!) Were Never Spoken!

The post The Mainstreaming of “PDA” appeared first on Flightpath.

Webmaster Tools
Both Google and Bing have their own versions. The tools are used to monitor the health of your site and to help see things from a search engine’s perspective. These are must haves to make your site as visible and crawlable as possible for search.

Fetch as Google/Bingbot
Within Webmaster Tools, this lets you see pages the way search engines would. Behind the scenes within all that heavy code is text that search engine bots are trying to find and crawl. You can also use a text browser or view the cached version of a page on a Google SERP, then click on “text-only version” at the top right.

JavaScript
Both search engines claim they can properly crawl simple JavaScript such as navigation or drop downs. But because this is not 100 percent, I still say avoid these. And large Ajax pages are an issue. In this case, provide alternate static HTML. Something we do here at Flightpath.

User Satisfaction
Is it fair that some sites providing poor a user experience can rank better than those that don’t? For example, an e-commerce site with great service is outranked by a competitor that receives many customer complaints. No answer to this just yet, but search engines are aware of this, and Google is trying to work this into its algorithm.

301 Redirects
301s are a SEO necessity. They pass PageRank from old pages to new. This can be a nightmare when dealing with legacy sites that tend to layer 301s in almost endless daisy chains. Clean up old links and you’ll be better off in the long run.

Schema.org
Yes, it’s good to apply structured data wherever possible. Will this directly improve rankings? No. It’s just there to help search engines better understand content on your website. But the more crawlable a site, the better its chances of ranking well. And if you’re already using microformats, there’s no need to switch. Google will understand.

It may seem odd to some that search engines are giving tips to help out SEOs. But in fact, it’s in their best interests to have well-structured webpages that they can better understand and therefore index properly. In fact, Google has their own Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. And they even admit that they’re not perfect either. See Google’s Report Card.

The post How to Rank Better in Google & Bing appeared first on Flightpath.

In short, wearable technology remains disconnected. Darmour researches how hardware manufacturers, software developers, and designers can collaborate to make wearable technology more integrated and also more mainstream. With this in mind, Darmour highlights three obstacles that must first be overcome.

Problem 1: Logistics. There are still limitations to where and how we can place batteries and microchips on clothing. No one wants to wear a shirt with a bulky battery. Electricfoxy, a wearable tech design studio, has experimented with stitching electronics into the fabric seam itself. Problem 2: Data management. Biometric data produces numbers that are huge and difficult to manage. The challenge is to make this clunky data meaningful to the consumer. Problem 3: Interaction. How can we make wearable technology fit more seamlessly into our lives with minimal disruption? Darmour uses Nike Fuelband as an example. Users need to stop exercising and press a button on the bracelet during a workout in order to display different types of information. Doing so is highly disruptive and forces the user to stop what they are doing in order to interact with this technology. The goal would be to eventually to make these responses automated– where the watch would be  able to automatically detect when you’ve begun your workout, or when you want to view certain information.

Darmour also outlines three must-haves in the integration of technology and wearables. Firstly, is the aesthetic value relevant? Fashion is a part of our identity. Bicycle helmets are often bulky and cumbersome, and certainly not a way to make a fashion statement.  A design firm has designed a fashionable scarf that doubles as an inflatable mobile airbag for your head. Wearability happens when function meets form. Secondly, is the concept of periphery, which is an area that remains to be explored. With Google Glass, data is displayed directly in the center of the user’s glasses, obstructing the line of sight. What is the value of visible vs. non- visible periphery? Are there other methods of gathering useful data and displaying it to the user without it being disruptive?  Thirdly, is meaning.  For example, there are a lot of heart rate machines that give your heart rate and spit back a number.  You get a number like 69, and you don’t know what to do with it or what it even means. A design firm has created a piece of jewelry — a ring that is worn while working out. The ring monitors heart rate and processes the data to give meaningful feedback. For example, when the ring turns blue, it means that your heart rate is too too slow and that you need to increase running speed. When the ring turns red, your heart rate is too fast and you need to decrease running speed.  In this case, function becomes the aesthetic.

The wearable technology industry is still in its infancy.  As Darmour states, in order for it to become mainstream, it needs to be wearable and fashionable, as well as add value to our lives.

The post SXSW Session – The Next Frontier of Interactive: Smart Fashion appeared first on Flightpath.

5. AT&T – Phone Charging Lockers

AT&T allows conference goers the opportunity to securely charge their phones while they experience the conference. Just grab the key from the locker. Even though there are many charging stations throughout the conference, this is the only station that allows you to walk away for a period of time without worry.

4. Chevrolet – Catch a Chevy

If you’re in line to catch a shuttle to or from the convention center,you should keep an eye out for a Chevy in traffic. Chevrolet is offering complimentary rides to and from the event, allowing people to save time, money, and skip the line to see Grumpy Cat.

3. Samsung – Blogger Lounge Hosted by TechSet
Whether you’re between sessions or looking for somewhere to get done, this lounge is the place hang out. It’s where you can collaborate with others, be surprised by guest appearances, and win prizes.

2. American Airlines – Travel Hackathon

It’s time to relax with American Airlines. Sign up for free mini massages and get re-energized for the rest of the conference.

1. Oreo – Grab & Go

The most interesting set up comes from Oreo, a first time SXSW sponsor. Not only do they entice people to grab some oreos, they engage the crowd with their interactive screens and game play. When playing, a person has their photo taken and it is super-imposed with an environment in Austin. They need to guess where they are for a chance to win a gift card to that place. But even if you don’t guess correctly, Oreo doesn’t let you walk away empty handed – with Oreos and Wireless phone chargers.

The post Brands Take Over SXSW appeared first on Flightpath.