The holiday season is just around the corner, and of course we can hardly wait. This is a wonderful time of year to celebrate with family and experience hope, cheer and peace with our fellow man.
However, it can also be an insane time of year where the pressure to do so much and the stress of so many activities piled on top of each other can cause real grief. Here are a few tips to make the holidays feel less like a grind and more like what they ought to be—a time of joy: 1. Plan and Prepare. Now, before the holidays officially commence, is the time to start managing all the hoopla (and hopefully avoid some of it) by sitting down and planning ahead. Tentatively fill out your calendar and lay out a budget you can stick to. Let someone else—your spouse, your best friend, etc.—know what the plan is. That will help you be accountable. Make sure travel arrangements are taken care of well in advance and parties are scheduled without conflict. If there are overlapping engagements, prioritize everything into two lists: “have to do” and “want to do.” If you have to cancel something, do so from the latter list. 2. Share the Load. You can’t do everything on your own, and nobody expects you to. Delegate some of those holiday tasks and assignments. Give your kids jobs that they can easily do. Younger children can help clean the house, while older teenagers can make runs to the grocery store. And if you have the resources, save the headache and consider hiring help when it comes to catering parties, stringing up lights on the house, or any other job that professionals can do. 3. Simplify. When something can’t be canceled or delegated, do what you can to make whatever it is less complicated. If you have a lot of people to shop for, save the hassle of driving from store to store and shop online. A lot of retailers offer great online deals and even free shipping. If you have to make dessert for a family or neighborhood party, skip the experimentation with complicated, detailed recipes and stick to the tasty treats you can make with your eyes closed. 4. Learn to Say No. There will be a plethora of events you’d like to attend, dishes you’d like to make, and things you’d like to buy. You won’t be able to do it all. That means if you want to keep your spirits up this holiday season, you’re going to have to repeat the words of that famous Disney song and just let it go. Don’t be afraid to say, “Enough is enough.” Just make sure you say it politely. Be courteous if you have to turn someone down. They understand how hectic this time of year is. Don’t Lose Sight. The holidays are filled with so many things that demand our attention but really don’t matter all that much. Don’t forget what’s really important, and take comfort in the simple pleasures. Watch the snow fall while sipping hot cocoa, give lots of hugs, laugh with your loved ones, and count your bless
0 Comments
Since it launched in 2010, Pinterest has helped businesses of all shapes and sizes find success. In 2012, a small startup got 48,000 Pinterest hits on one photo in a single week. And global icon Sony has successfully integrated Pinterest into its marketing strategy.
What makes Pinterest different than any other social network, says one Pinterest executive, is its focus on the future. Just stop and think about the way you use your different social media: Facebook is focused on the past. It’s a way to stay connected with your friends and family and find out what they’ve been up to. If there is someone in your past that you want to reconnect with, then Facebook is your answer. It operates like an online phone book. Twitter is all about the present. It focuses on what’s happening right now. Like Facebook, Twitter lets you follow friends and family—and just about anyone else. However, Twitter is not an online journal of people’s past adventures; it’s the go-to source for breaking news, up-to-the-minute thoughts and real-time micro-blogging. “Here’s what I’m doing right now” or “Here’s what’s happening right now” is essentially what all those tweets are saying. Pinterest is focused on the future. It’s where people go to plan their future by exploring what they’re interested in. That’s what makes Pinterest so different from its social network competition: It’s a place where people can discover things they didn’t know they wanted, which they can decide to try tomorrow. Pinterest users use the site to browse destinations they may like to visit, recipes they may like to cook, projects they may like to undertake, and most importantly for businesses, products and services they may want to buy. In that sense, Pinterest can be an online catalogue for your business. If people are going on to Pinterest to plan their future, don’t you want your business to be part of that future? Basically, having a Pinterest business account is like having billboards and magazine ads that can magically multiply and find their way in front of millions of prospective customers. Experian Market Services says that Pinterest guides more people to retail websites than any other network, including YouTube and Facebook. That may be because sharing a pin is extremely easy and public. With Facebook, people share things just with their friends; but with Pinterest, anyone with the same interest as you can see what you share. And because Pinterest is a visual medium based on images, it does a better job of advertising products than a purely textual medium like Twitter. Images and graphics can convey meaning and information more effectively and in less time than it takes words to do so. Pinterest continues to grow in popularity, so its future likes bright. If you run a business, large or small, Pinterest may be an opportunity for you to grow as well. Source: www.usnews.com
Pinterest is largely viewed as a feminine brand. The San Francisco Chronicle points to Pinterest’s curvaceous logo, flowery content, domesticity and social scrapbooking reputation as reasons for its girlish image.
It’s no wonder, then, that women are the dominant Pinterest demographic. That means there are a whole lot of men who aren’t pinning, and Pinterest is well ware of it. To get more men onboard, Pinterest has been focusing on marketing directly to guys. For example, new Pinterest users are welcomed with images of male users. Pinterest has also introduced gender-neutral Place Pins. However, one expert believes that if Pinterest really wants to attract more men, it will need to undergo a complete rebranding. But if Pinterest could garner more male attention by making their site more macho, all those women who have made Pinterest so successful could be turned off. Even with a relatively smaller male contingency, Pinterest still does very, very well at a $3.8 billion evaluation. Online data miner RJMetrics recently collected and analyzed information pulled directly from Pinterest’s public pages. Here’s what they found: • 80% of Pinterest users are women; 20% are men. • Women account for 92% of all pins; men account for 8%. • Since July 2011—the earliest date from which RJMetrics found reliable data—the percentage of pins from men has been steadily declining from 13% to 6% in April 2014. • As of April 2014, there are 15 pins by women for every one pin by men. • In the last 12 months, the average woman on Pinterest has pinned 158 times. • By far, the three most popular Pinterest categories are Food and Drink (20% of all pins), DIY and Crafts (12% of all pins), and Home Décor (11% of all pins). Rounding out the top 10 categories are Holiday and Events, Hair and Beauty, Women’s Fashion, Design, Kids, Art, and Weddings. • Etsy.com has more repins than any other website. • With 34 million followers, Lowe’s has the most popular Pinterest board. • Users pin different categories at different times. Holiday categories see an increase in pins beginning in August; gardening categories see an increase in pins as early as December; and health and fitness categories see an increase in pins after New Year’s. • Pinning activity steadily increases throughout the day, from its low point at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning to its peak at 10:00 in the evening. Just to put that into a larger social media perspective, Facebook and Twitter traffic both fall steadily after 3:00 in the afternoon. • In the past three years, there has been a 50% attrition rate among male Pinterest users, but only a 16% attrition rate among female users. • Over the last three years, the average male Pinterest user has become slightly less active. However, the average female user has become much more active. The average female user pins 42 times in her first year and 152 times by her fourth year. According to RJMetrics, thanks to all the women out there, Pinterest’s position as a key player in online commerce will only get stronger over time. They even go so far as to wonder if Pinterest could unseat Google as the top starting place for product searches. Source: www.rjmetrics.com Are you trying to use social media to grow your business, but you’re not sure where to start or how to do it? In our first post, we introduced the idea that Pinterest can enhance your company’s marketing strategy.
As reported in a recent Forbes article, 22% of Americans use Pinterest at least once a month. That’s the same percentage of Americans who use LinkedIn. (And it’s ahead of the 19% of Americans who use Twitter.) That means a lot of your customers and clients—both existing and potential—are watching what’s on Pinterest. Here are six ways to use Pinterest to help your business: 1. Be active. When you have an image outside of Pinterest that you want to display on your board, you “pin” it. If there’s an image from another Pinterest board that you want to add to your own, you “repin” it. In addition to still images like photos or graphics, you can also pin and repin gifs and videos. Focus on pinning and repinning all three to give variety to your board, and be sure to do it on a regular basis, once a week at the very least. 2. Diversify. Even though you’re only one company, consider having more than one Pinterest board, based on your varying product lines, services, etc. For instance, Lowe’s has 65 boards ranging from grilling ideas to gardening tips to inexpensive projects. Each board should have a specific, unique title but still include your company logo or a cohesive cover image to let users know it belongs to your business. 3. Have great titles. Your board title should be clear and specific. The more vague or ambiguous, the more likely people will ignore your board. For example, boards titles “Easy Supper Ideas” or “Delicious Desserts” are generally going to be more popular than a board simply titled “Recipes.” 4. Use hashtags. Use lots of hashtags on Pinterest. You should limit your hashtags to no more than two or three per pin. Your hashtags should also consist only of keywords; if it’s not a recognizable word, don’t use it. A good example for a company like FedEx would be #greatpackingtips. 5. Analyze. A really cool Pinterest feature, and one you should take advantage of, is the free analytics tool. Once you’ve verified your site, you can use this tool to track how people engage with your site, what they pin, and what type of consumer they are. All this will help you learn what it is your target audience is really looking for. 6. Open a dialogue. It’s important that you engage other Pinterest users—your existing and potential customers—and respond to questions and comments they post on your pins. Remember, Pinterest is a social media platform, and if your business is seen as anti-social, you’re missing the big picture. Sources: www.smallbiztrends.com Picture having a corkboard or bulletin board at home that displays a collection of your favorite snapshots, recipes, inspirational proverbs, funny quotes, newspaper articles and more.
Next, imagine that you have a new item you’d like to pin on your board. Even though your board is full, you don’t have to remove an old item to make room for your new one. Instead, your board magically gets just a little bigger. Every time you find something new to pin, there’s space provided. Now imagine that all of your friends have the same magical board. You can see their boards, and they can see yours. Let’s say one of your friends has a great magazine article on how to de-clutter your kitchen pantry. With a snap of a finger, you can make a copy of that article and pin it on your board. If your friends like the Abraham Lincoln quote on your board, they can just as easily add it to theirs. And the best part of these magical boards? You can view and pin to them whenever you want, wherever you want. That’s Pinterest—a relative newcomer to the social media universe. Where Twitter is primarily a galaxy of words, Pinterest is a galaxy of images. Many refer to its function as “social scrapbooking.” Perhaps that’s why the overwhelming majority (30 million out of 34.9 million total users at the end of 2013) of Pinterest users are women—the traditional scrapbookers. We’re sure the folks at Pinterest are very interested in and focused on getting more men to use their platform. That’s an interesting topic, so we’ll definitely want to revisit it at a later time. To us, Pinterest and the social individual are a perfect match. It makes sense for a housewife to share a photo of her favorite cheesecake and a link to the recipe. She’s not doing it for the money; she just wants everyone else to know about her go-to dessert. But what about businesses? Every company wants to grow in its respective market. So how does Pinterest help a company market its products, services, or overall mission to its existing and prospective customers? The best way to answer that question is to ask Pinterest itself. The Pinterest home page has multiple success stories of businesses that have made headway with their Pinterest boards. For example, Sony has a board featuring videos and photos taken with Sony products. It’s an ingenious way to utilize the visual nature of Pinterest by involving pinners who also happen to be Sony customers. Sony is an established Pinterest giant with 35 different boards, thousands of pins, and tens of thousands of followers. But some businesses are just undertaking their Pinterest campaigns. Take, for instance, the health and wellness company Melaleuca on Pinterest. Their mission is displayed on their Pinterest board: Enhancing the lives of those we touch by helping people reach their goals. While their Pinterest presence is small by comparison, with time, they could create a massive, popular board or several boards unique to their mission and products. How? By pinning and re-pinning content that shouts wellness, whether it’s specific to them or not. That’s just a start, but we’ll look at Pinterest and business in more posts to come. Sources: www.pinterest.com www.howstuffworks.com www.forbes.com |