What is Pinterest? Pinterest is a virtual “pinboard” and a way for us to visually organize and bookmark things and places we like. Users can create pinboards for just about anything: Travel, Movies, Events, Fashion, Home Decor, Weddings, Food, the list goes on.

Why is it so popular? One of the appealing features of Pinterest is its simplicity. Adding items to your pinboards is easy when you add their Pin It Button to your browser.

Pinterest contains a very social element that makes it easy for users to find and share items they enjoy. Friends can follow other friend’s activity, and “repin” something that they like or want to share on their own pinboards. Users can then announce their new finds in Facebook or Twitter.

Why should marketers pay attention to it? This network is exploding in popularity. According to a recent report on Hitwise, U.S. traffic to Pinterest is up 40 percent over the last six months. Pinterest is now listed as the No. 10 social site among the 6,581 properties that Hitwise tracks.

I found a great infographic with some valuable tips for marketers. I must credit LinchPinSEO for creating this!  I found it so helpful, I wanted to share with our readers as well!  Enjoy.

Facebook
Outside of your Website, Facebook is the most  important resource for a non-profit; and worth your energy and time. It can be used as a tool to organize your supporters to further your cause, communicate your events and news, conduct research, launch fundraising campaigns and more.  Think of Facebook as an extension of your Website. The advantage of Facebook page is the ability to interact directly with supporters.

If you don’t have a Facebook page for your non-profit, setting one up is free and easy.  Facebook will walk you through the process in the step by step set up guide.

Once you have your page set up, follow these tips to give your page a boost:

1.Tell the entire world that you have a page.  Place a link to your Facebook page on your Website.  Give your page a custom url by going to facebook.com/username so you can easily direct supporters to your page by including the url on all printed materials, business cards, email signatures, signage, etc.

2. Design a large profile picture that shows who you are (logo, website)- it makes a great first impression. Profile pictures can be 200pix wide x 600pix high

3.  Include a sentence or two that clearly says who you are and what your non profit organization does in the “About” section. Keep it simple and to the point.

4. Make  your page relevant and current by making 2-3 updates a week:
-If you have a blog, all posts should be a part of your FB updates.
-Post photos and video
-Good to ask questions, encourages people to respond
-Communicate event information and fundraising initiatives

5. Interact with other organizations by tagging them in your posts. To do this, you must “Like” their business page, then place an @ symbol in front of their name in an update and it will create a live link to their Facebook page.  This is a great way to develop relationships with other businesses.  You can’t do this with personal profiles however.

6. Designate 2-3 people responsible to managing your Facebook content.

7. Use Facebook Insights! There is a lot of valuable information here, it helps you gage your audience, and the effectiveness of your posts!  Watch this video tutorial to learn how to use this free tool.

Twitter
Twitter can also be a useful way to gain support and spread awareness for your cause. Socialbrite has a great article with some valuable tips: 24 best practices for nonprofits using Twitter.

Here are some of the tips from the article that I found to be very helpful
-Don’t over think your Twitter entries. Use your own voice, not a detached, institutional one.
-Use the “60-30-10 rule” 60% retweets and pointers to promote items from other users or sites, 30% conversation and responses, 10% announcements and events.
-Use Twitter to conduct research, to solicit ideas, to identify experts, to thank donors
-Link to newsworthy events that people are already talking about and how they relate to your cause
-Be current/in the moment- “Live Tweet” from events
-Reach out to other influencersIf you have a blog, always tweet about an updated post

Want more info?  Here are some additional resources
How Non-Profits Use Social Media
How Non-Profits Can Use Social Media
Non-Profit Social Media Success

Video: Use social media to connect with donors

To me, its a no brainer. Of course we need to utilize social media to distribute press releases (in my humble opinion). But I was so intrigued by the question, that asked the Web Marketing Therapy team what they thought- here are the responses I got from them:

Nowadays with the world wide web being so accessible, information about almost anything is available at a moment’s notice. With this being the case, I believe that the more people ‘know’ about a company or product, the more they will trust or like the brand or product. Press releases give the public another glimpse into a business that, in the old days, they may not have been privy to.  So, yes, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to use social media as another way to leverage a company or product because people want to be ‘in the know’.- Anne Orfila

Press releases should go out in social press release distribution tools like prweb.com but only if they are educational….not overly promotional. We use tools like prweb and pitchengine and love them!- Lorrie Thomas Ross

Distributing Press Releases using Social Media is must! Tools like Pitchengine allow the release to live on the web with branding – company logo, relevant images and videos, news bites, a Twitter feed and links. Pitchengine is great for SEO (highlighting keywords in natural searches). The distribution tool, PRWeb can be found by other high-level online publications and helps gain your story exposure by getting picked up and shared. To continue the visibility a Facebook “Notes” version of the release gives a whole new audience one more way to get your news! To ensure that all of this PR mojo doesn’t get lost in cyberspace – sign up for Google Alerts and use key pieces of the title and content to keep up with where your release can be found on the web.- Darla Bea Smith

The article presents an ongoing conversation marketers are having and there are credible arguements on both sides by some of our industry’s top thinkers.  Here is a breakdown of what they had to say.  Please note, these are my summaries of their comments and not actual quotes. To get the full story read the article on Forbes.

YES
Stacey Acevero, Social Media Community Manager, Vocus/PRWeb.
Share your news in relevant platforms Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter and create conversation around your news.  It is also good to incorporate engaging features like pictures or video into your release.

Charlene Kingston, Social Media DIY Workshop
Yes, but don’t over do it- send out releases only when you have significant news for your target audience (otherwise, make it a blog post).

Jennie Smythe, Founder, Girlilla Marketing.
Use the news in your release, then personalize it.  Link to the release from your website or an outside outlet.

IT DEPENDS
Marcus Fagerlund, Area Director, North America West, Meltwater Buzz
You should judge on a case by case basis.  Some releases can be used to successfully engage your community while some releases are not appropriate to share on social media platforms because they contain sensitive info only relevant to your industry.

Neal Rodriguez, Online marketing expert, Forbes.com blogger
Simply posting a press release in social media is not effective; but if you link the press release to interesting and relevant content on your website. “Just think of your objective, which is promoting your own digital asset, not the press release.”

NO
David Meerman Scott Lecturer, Author, The New Rules of Marketing and PR (Third Edition)
Press releases are good for two things: reaching members of the media and improving your search engine ranking by publishing it on your own website and using one of the press release distribution services.  Press Releases are too formal for social networks.

So- based on the comments above.  When should marketers use Social Media to distribute Press Releases?  Robert Wynne sums it up:

Facebook – Rarely, almost never. Make sure the news is BIG.
LinkedIn – Sometimes, with short intro and a link. Better for groups.
Twitter – Maybe, with a snappy intro and a link.
Blogs – always.

For those who may not know every single web marketing buzzword; there is help! Maggie Georgieva at Hubspot has released a new Ebook many of you will consider a gift from the heavens: The Ultimate Inbound Marketing Glossary. In this book, 250 marketing terms are defined.

Take this quiz to see how well you know the lingo:

1. What is a landing page?
a. The main page of your company’s website
b. Your business Facebook page
c. A website page containing a form that is used for lead generation

2. What is a Bounce Rate?
a. The rate at which a visitor clicks away from your page without converting
b. The rate of visits to a website per minute
c. The rate of sudden growth of Twitter followers

3. What is Hashtag?
a. A new brand of clothing popular among teenagers.
b. A tag used on Twitter as a way to annotate a message
c. A link that encourages a website visitor to visit a landing page

4. What is Navigation?
a. When Facebook users click on a link in their newsfeed
b. A web page element with links that help visitors go through a website
c. A method used by Twitter users to create buzz about a news story or event

5. What does KPI stand for in marketing terms?
a. Key Practice Initiatives
b. Kill Page Instantly
c. Key Performance Indicators

6. What does “Above the Fold” Mean?
a. When a web site gets an unusually high number of visits during a short period of time
b. The first sentence in a blog post that should grab the reader’s attention
c. The part of a web page that is visible without scrolling

7. What are Variations?
a. The changes you make in order to optimize a landing page
b. Changes in search engine results from week to week
c. Utilizing different social networks to increase search engine results

Answers: 1(c) 2.(a) 3.(b) 4.(b) 5.(c) 6.(c) 7.(a)

In the article, 10 Words That Will Increase (or Decrease) Your Twitter CTR, Dan shared the result of his research on 200,000 link-containing Tweets. Some of his results might surprise you (it surprised me!)

Words and Phrases to Avoid

The following words and phrases were found to lower CTR in Tweets with links:

1. @addthis” which is a signature for the Tweets that come from the automated AddThis sharing functionality.
2. Tweets that mention the word “marketing” have a lower CTR than Tweets that don’t mention it.
3. @GetGlue system have a lower CTR than Tweets that don’t come from that system.

More words to avoid
Read The 20 Least ReTweetable Words by Dan Zarrella to find more words to avoid using in your Tweets.

Words or Phrases that help drive traffic to your site:

1. Tweets from the online newspaper paper.li that contain phrases such as “Daily is out” had much higher CTRs than Tweets that did not.
2.  Tweets using the word “via” had a higher CTR.
3.  Tweets specifically directed at a person tend to have a higher CTR
4.  Tweets with “RT” in them had a higher CTR than those that did not.
5.  Tweets with “Please”
6.  Tweets with a specific call-to-action (like “check out this link”)  seems to result in a higher CTR than not doing that.

Interesting, eh?  Thanks Dan for sharing your research with the rest of us!