Thank you for joining me for “The Shareable Content Revolution: Are You Ready?”

I’d appreciate your feedback via this brief survey. (NEW AND IMPROVED, WORKING LINK!) If you include your name and email address, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a $10 iTunes gift cards. Names of the three winners will be posted on the KD Web Strategies Facebook Page by 3pm.

If you would like a copy of my slides, please find them on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/KellyDuffort1.

Thank you!

Best regards,
Kelly

Content marketers who want to be superheroes must create content that is great and shareable – if they want it to be found with social search. *

In the age of social search, content marketers who want to be superheroes must take their content to new heights by making it not just great, but “shareable.”

My theory is that in today’s age of social search – when our social connections are impacting more and more of what we see in our unique search engine results  – content marketers must plan, write, edit and publish messaging that encourages readers to pass it along. Content that is created to promote and sell products and services must inspire a brand’s followers and fans to share it with their online networks.

With social search, if we put content out there, but no one shares it … it’s going to be harder and harder for people to find.

Here’s my breakdown of content that is great and then content that is great and shareable.

Great Online Content

1. Well-written and has a point.
2. Not too long and not too short.
3. Employs smart use of target keywords.
4. Scannable with subheadings and bulleted lists since most users scan, not read, web content.
5. Written for a specific audience.
6. Written for a specific distribution channel (e.g., website, blog or social media site).

Great, Shareable Online Content

All the qualities of great content plus…

1. Not 100% promotional. Instead, provides useful and valuable information even for a user who is not interested in buying at that moment.
2. Solves a problem or entertains.
3. Considers the community’s interests and speaks to those interests, when possible.
4. States (or clearly implies) what a user should do after reading the content. (e.g., click link to go to another page on the website, offer a public comment, share it with his/her network).
5. Written and built to be shared on multiple channels:

• Introduced by an intriguing headline for users and a descriptive page title for search engines.
• Includes an image (photo, illustration, chart) to attract initial readers and to encourage them to share the content with their networks/connections. (Image filename and ALT tag are carefully chosen and applied.)
• Meta description field is consciously completed (with target keywords) since social networks often pull this text in underneath the headline as the content is shared.
• Sharing buttons are prominently displayed for users to click.

Question: What’s the most recent online marketing content (from a company trying to promote their goods or services) that you’ve shared with your social connections? What inspired you to share it?

 * “Up, Up, Away” photo by @Kindercapes, Flickr, available via Creative Commons License.

My topic will be “The Shareable Content Revolution: Are You Ready?” Geared toward  marketing and public relations professionals who create and manage online content, my presentation will include:

• an overview of social search and why it rewards shareable content
• recommendations for increasing your online content’s “shareability” and
• tips on monitoring and responding to people who are sharing your content.

My interest in social search (see this October 3, 2012 HubSpot blog post for one of the best social search explanations I’ve found) is rooted in my fascination with the impact it will undoubtedly have on content marketing.

Some of the concepts that I’ll share at the seminar come from ideas that I formulated after reading countless web articles and two thought-provoking books: Eli Pariser’s “The Filter Bubble” and Lee Odden’s “Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing.”

• In “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You,” Pariser analyzes the fundamental change in the information that we see on the Internet due to the growing number of personalization features on countless websites. Your browsing history, your participation on social networks, your searches and more, whether you realize it or not, determine what you see on the Internet. Watch Pariser talk about his observations at a TED 2011 conference in his presentation, “Beware Online Filter Bubbles.”
• In “Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing,” author Lee Odden explains why and how content marketers must take a holistic approach to creating content that can be found and shared.

If you create, edit or manage online content, I highly recommend both of these books. If you create, edit or manage online content AND you’ll be at the NCPRSA PR & Marketing Seminar, I hope you’ll attend my session, “The Shareable Content Revolution: Are you Ready?”

Registration for the NCPRSA 2012 PR & Marketing Seminar is open, with the best rates available until October 31, 2012. Speakers will cover a range of topics including interactive marketing, social media, branding, consumer PR, media pitches, business development and more. See the NCPRSA PR & Marketing Seminar webpage on the North Carolina Society of America’s website for a link to the seminar’s complete program and registration details.

Looking for ways to repurpose your content in Pinterest-friendly formats? (Photo by Sarah G, Flickr, Available via Creative Commons License)

Do you work for an image-challenged business who is trying to decide if a Pinterest presence makes good marketing sense? Are you concerned that you don’t have enough business-related pictures to fuel a Pinterest profile? Does your marketing budget lack the funds for hiring a photographer/graphic designer/Pinterest-experienced intern?

Spend 30 minutes with the three image-focused apps below – PicMonkey, Pinstamatic and Share As Image – and see if you can “picture” your content differently.

My bet is that you could use one, two or all three of them to convert some of your existing web content marketing ideas into pinnable images.

PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a web-based photo-editing app that offers an amazing range of tools. Professional photographers can manipulate their works of art in countless ways with PicMonkey. But, for the image-challenged business looking to establish itself on Pinterest, here are the app’s offerings I recommend you try – “add text” and “frames.”  These are the two features you need to turn an ordinary picture into a traffic-driving photo badge.

Do you blog? Do you include pictures in your blog posts to help convey your message? If yes, going forward, you should use PicMonkey to convert those pictures into photo badges that prominently include your blog post title (via “add text”) and your blog’s URL (in a caption-type area via “frames”). With this information added directly onto the picture, it will appear front and center for all to see every time the image is pinned and repinned on Pinterest. (For an example, see the photo badge I created with PicMonkey on my “Pinterest for Business Part I” post, then see how it appears/works on Pinterest on my “Pinterest for Business” pinboard.)

PicMonkey is not a Pinterest-centric tool. So, you will use it to convert a picture to a photo badge, save the photo badge to your computer and then upload it to Pinterest. When you upload the photo badge, be sure to enter the URL for the relevant blog post.

Cost: Free (At this time)

Pinstamatic

Pinstamatic allows you to turn a variety of objects into visual representations that can be pinned. With Pinstamatic, you can:

• grab a screenshot of a website and pin it
• type up a quote and pin it
• turn any text into a sticky note image and pin it
• capture a Twitter profile and pin it
• find a song on Spotify, grab the album cover and pin it
• and more.

By default, images that you create with Pinstamatic link to the Pinstamatic website and include a Pinstamatic attribution in the description, which they rightly deserve for such a cool tool. But, if you are pinning something to drive traffic to your website, keep in mind that after you create something in Pinstamatic (and pin it via their site), you can hop over to Pinterest, navigate to the pin, edit the link (to point to your content) and edit the description (to include a line or two about the image).

Note: Pinstamatic’s inclination toward “less is more” on documentation confused me. To get started, simply click on one of the eight icons at the top of the site and all-you-need-to-know instructions will appear for that particular object.

Cost: Free (At this time)

Share As Image

If all you have is text to work with, Share As Image (formerly Pin a Quote) is the tool for you. It lets you highlight text anywhere on the web and convert it into an image.

By default, Share As Image associates its own link to the pin. If you’re creating an image that should direct people elsewhere (i.e., your website), after you use Share As Image, go to Pinterest, edit the pin and change the “link” field.

Pinterest Tip: Think of a quote that represents your company values. Use Share As Image to turn it into an image. Pin this image to your “About Us” pinboard. Maybe even make it your board cover.

Cost: Free for the basics of plain backgrounds and limited fonts. $6.99 for Pro version that allows customization of fonts, text size and colored backgrounds.

There are other web-based apps that are helping image-challenged businesses create pinnable content. Most of them are built for folks like you and me with little to no design skills. Perhaps Pinterest is right for your business, perhaps it isn’t. Hopefully the three apps covered in this post helped you to envision some pinnable possibilities.

Question: If you have already played with creating images just to partake in the Pinterest craze, what apps are you using? What are their best features?

Transform your Pinterest sandbox creations to an attention-grabbing sandcastle.

After you’ve spent some time playing in your Pinterest sandbox from Part II of “Pinterest for Business,” it’s time to pin with purpose. Via recommendations in this post, you’ll transform your Pinterest sandbox creations into an admirable, eye-catching sandcastle.

Refining Your Pinboards Checklist

Take these steps to ensure that your pinboards appear appealing and active.

1. Finalize your pinboard titles. Perhaps you’ve played with a few different pinboard titles (and a few different categories) for pinning. Decide which ones are working (i.e., you can easily find content to pin on an ongoing basis) and which ones best represent your business. Before you officially launch your Pinterest profile, aim to have 6 solid, final pinboard titles. Note, you can create a new pinboard at any time.
2. Add descriptions to your pinboards. Tell people what you plan to pin on each pinboard (and give them reason to click that “follow” button.) Include keywords, hashtags and URLs, when appropriate. (To add a description, click on a pinboard title and the “edit board” button.)
3. While you’re in “edit board” mode, place each pinboard in a Pinterest category. You’re not required to assign your pinboards to one of Pinterest’s 33 (at this time) categories, but if you do so, you’ll increase the chances that your pins will be found.
4. Pin 5-8 images on each board before official launch so that you 1) have the five needed to avoid a blank space on your profile and 2) some additional images for people to peruse once they navigate their way to your boards.
5. Review your cover photos. Looking at your Pinterest profile (http:// http://pinterest.com/username), how do your cover photos collectively look on your profile? Is there a pin that would be more eye-catching for this or that board? If so, make the change. (Click on board title, place cursor over image you want to make cover photo and click “Set Board Cover” button.)

Likes and Comments

If you haven’t already, spend some time liking and commenting on other people’s pins. Clicking the “like” button is a way for you to acknowledge a pin without adding it to one of your pinboards. On your Pinterest profile page, Pinterest users can click the “Likes” link and see all the pins you’ve officially admired.

You can comment on other people’s pins to answer a question, ask a question or participate in a conversation. Commenting is a way to engage with pinners, but before using this feature too often, take note that hardcore pinners prefer little to no text associated with their pins and repins.

Housekeeping

Making time now to do some Pinterest housekeeping (i.e., cleaning up your “following” list) will mean that each time you log into Pinterest going forward, the images that you’ll see will be much more relevant to your interests – and therefore, much more likely to contain content that you can repin to freshen up your pinboards.

• Following
  When you created your account, Pinterest supplied you with a group of people to follow. What these people pin is what you’ll see, by default, when you log into Pinterest. They may and may not be pinning content that appeals to you. Scan your “following” list and unfollow those who pin content far removed from what you plan to pin.
• Followers
  After cleaning out some of the pre-selected people to follow,  search for new people (or brands) to follow. Below are three ways to find people (or brands) to follow on Pinterest:

1. Conduct a search by entering keyword(s) in the search box in the top, left corner. Remember that after you see results, you can filter them to pins, boards or people (brands). Note that you can choose to follow all the boards managed by one account, or select boards.
2. When you find someone to follow, click on their “Following” link and determine if people on their list are right for you.
3. As you surf the web, keep your eyes out for the Pinterest icon. If it’s connected to an active Pinterest user, check out their boards and find ones to follow.

Officially Announce Your Pinterest Profile

Although your Pinterest profile is live from the day you created it, we have taken steps through this series to minimize its visibility. Now, you understand Pinterest, you know what you are doing and why you are doing it. So, it’s time to announce that your business is officially on Pinterest.

1. Considering what you plan to pin and what you want to achieve on Pinterest, complete your “About” section, which will appear on your main Pinterest page, just to the right of your headshot/logo. (Click on “Settings” in the top, right corner.)
2. While you’re in the “About” section, confirm that the “Hide Your Pinterest Profile from Search  Engines” option is turned off.
3. Add the Pinterest icon to your website or blog.
4. If you blog, include images with each post and make a “Pin it” button easy to find.
5. Announce to your Facebook fans that you’re on Pinterest. Be sure to ask which of them are on Pinterest so you can follow and connect with them in the pinning world.
6. Occasionally share a Pinterest link via tweets so that your Twitter followers (who are on Pinterest) can decide whether to follow you on Pinterest as well.

Well, you made it! Congratulations on the official launch of your Pinterest profile! I’d love to hear if you found some of my tips helpful. And, if you post your Pinterest profile link below, I’d love to check it out and find some new pinboards to follow!

Happy pinning!

Pin it!

Because you have a Pinterest account, you can click the “Pin it!” button that you’re seeing on more and more websites and blogs. Give it a try the next time you see it. Just remember that you’ll need to add the pin to a pinboard. You can continue to use the “Pinning Preparation” pinboard we created in Part I (which you’ll eventually delete) or you can create new pinboards. (We’ll talk more about pinboard later in this post.)

Another way to pin new content is via a “Pin it!” button that you can add to your browser’s bookmarks bar. You can find instructions on the Pinterest website via “About” and “Goodies.” Once the button is installed, you can grab an image from any website and add it to one of your pinboards. Note that when you pin from a website, the “Pin it” button will automatically grab the source link so that later, when people click on your pin, they’ll be directed to the website on which you discovered it.

A Word About Responsible Pinning

If you want to be a responsible pinner and repinner, be sure that the URL to which an image or video points directs the user to a place where he/she can see the original source and/or learn more about the topic. It’s important to pin responsibly so that you 1) avoid copyright infringement and 2) provide quality links to legitimate websites.

For example, on a “Fun for Fall” board, if you’re pinning a picture of the best pumpkin patch in town, the image you pin should link to that farm’s website, preferably a page with directions. Not to a standalone image that you uploaded from your camera.

Getting Organized with Pinboards

So, let’s talk about pinboards.

Each time you pin or repin something, you need to place it on a pinboard. Pinboards are the categories in which you organize your pins. They are also the headings that people see, at a glance, when they visit your Pinterest profile.

“Creating Pinboards” Tips

Take note of the promotion (“Destinations”) + personality (“Plane Party Ideas”) mix in Southwest Airlines pinboard titles.

Here are five tips to consider as you decide your pinboard titles.

1. Make your pinboard titles clear and short. On your main Pinterest page, users will see your pinboard titles (up to 25 characters) and decide rather quickly whether to click to see more and/or to follow them. Pinboard titles can have up to 180 characters, but users will have to click all the way onto that pinboard to read the complete title.
2. Create pinboard titles (categories) to which you can regularly, easily add content. In order for people to easily find you on Pinterest, you’ll have to pin on a steady, ongoing basis. Choose pinboard titles that you know you’ll be able to regularly add to by finding and pinning relevant images.
3. Strive for a mix of personality and promotion. Again, your pinboard titles are the headings that users will see when they glance at your Pinterest profile. If all your headings are strictly about your business, expect most users to immediately click away. On the other hand, if you have pinboards that relate to the interests of your target market and/or contain images that inspire people to repin, you’ll increase the chances that people will click the “follow” button.
4. Consider how you will categorize your pinboards with regards to Pinterest’s 33 (at this time) categories. You aren’t required to fit your pinboards into one of the categories, but you’ll increase the chances that your pins will be found if you do. (We’ll talk more about Pinterest categories in Part III.)
5. Note: You are not locked into the pinboard titles you create. While you are getting started with Pinterest, you can change your board titles (e.g., “About Us” to “Our Team), but keep in mind that if you distributed a link to the original board, that link will break when you change the title.

Pinboard Sandbox

Play around in your Pinterest sandbox: Spend some time building up and tearing down your practice pinboards before officially launching your Pinterest profile.

While you are playing with pinboards, I recommend you create 3-5 of them and consider them your Pinterest sandbox.

Why the sandbox reference?

Until you officially announce you’re on Pinterest and you have a significant number of followers, you can build up and tear down pins and pinboards as much as you like. Only with practice, will you discover which pinboards…

• are easy to maintain and expand upon
• appeal most to the Pinterest community (based on number of repins, likes and comments) and
• make the most long-term sense with regards to your other content marketing plans coming down the pipeline.

In closing for Part I of “Pinterest for Business,” I’m providing some suggestions for pinboard titles that any business can use along some examples for you to review and consider.

• Where We Work/Our Hometown: Could include pictures of landmarks, city hotspots and/or images within your office walls. Example: Dayton Children’s Medical Center “We love Dayton!” board, http://pinterest.com/daytonchildrens/we-love-dayton/.
• About Us/Meet the Team: Pins on this type of board can be cut-and-dry with headshot photos and links to bio pages or preferably, used in a way to show some personality behind the people that make your business great. Example: PetPlan Pet Insurance’s “Meet the Team” board,  http://pinterest.com/petplan/meet-the-team/.
• Quotes:  You’ll find plenty examples on Pinterest. Choose ones that relate to your company’s values, beliefs and personality. Example:  Mr. Rooter Plumbing’s “Quotes and Inspirations” board, http://pinterest.com/mrrooterllc/quotes-and-inspirations/.
• Humor: Who doesn’t appreciate a bit of humor in their day? Example: Salesforce’s “Humor/Fun” board: http://pinterest.com/salesforce/humor-fun/.
• Upcoming Holiday: Not sure what kind of content you’ll share to connect with the typical Pinterest user? Give a holiday board a shot. It will be easy enough to find relevant pictures to repin. The challenge will be finding ways to insert some of your own holiday-related pins into the mix. Example: Windows’ “Mother’s Day” board: http://pinterest.com/windows/mother-s-day/.

Stay tuned for Part III, the last post in my “Pinterest for Business” series, in which we’ll cover liking, commenting and making good use of pinboard description fields.

If you have been tasked with setting up a Pinterest business account asap, my “Pinterest for Business” series will point you in the right direction.

Ideally, before you launch a Pinterest business account, you have months of experience with your own Pinterest personal account. You know how to pin and repin. You understand how and why Pinterest has jumped from launch in March 2010 to 20 million U.S. monthly unique visitors in April 2012.

If, however, Pinterest is an enigma and you’ve been tasked with launching a Pinterest business account asap, my “Pinterest for Business” series is for you.

In addition, if you are creating a Pinterest account for a business that is “image-challenged” and you have no idea what you could or should pin, stay tuned. I’ll have specific tips in the series for you.

Create Your Pinterest Account

Go to Pinterest.com and click the “Join Pinterest” button. You can connect with Facebook or Twitter or sign up with your email address. I recommend email address. You can connect with Facebook and/or Twitter later.

Provide the requested information for username (at least 3 characters, no more than 15), email address, password, first name, last name and photo. Before you click the “Create account” button, consider the following key points:

• Username: Your username becomes part of your Pinterest URL. For example, my Pinterest username is “kellyduffort” and my Pinterest URL is http://pinterest.com/kellyduffort.
• First Name and Last Name: If your business name is one word, you can enter it in the first name field and enter a descriptive industry word in the last name field. Or, if you want to use just a single word, you can leave the last name (kind of) blank by entering an asterisk. If your business name includes multiple words, you can split them up in the two fields.What you enter as your “first name” and “last name” is what people will see when they receive Pinterest notification emails about your activity and in various places on the Pinterest website.
• Photo: Instead of a photo, you can upload a company logo. Preferably, the logo will include your company name in a font and size that are legible. The ideal dimensions are  160 pixels x 160 pixels.

With these points in mind, go ahead and click that “Create account” button!

You Have a Pinterest Account, Now What?

To help get you started, Pinterest will invite you to “click a few things you like.” Choose five images from the options they present and click “Continue.” Based on the images you selected, Pinterest will direct you to a webpage with similar images and assign you approximately 40-60 people to follow.

Take a few minutes to admire the beautiful images that Pinterest has served up to you. As you mouse over images, take note that three options appear: Repin, Like and Comment. In Part I of this series, we’ll focus on repinning. In subsequent posts, we’ll work on liking and commenting on others’ pins and more importantly, pinning images, video and content from sources outside Pinterest.

Before You Pin, Repin

Repin, Like and Comment buttons on Pinterest

Repinning is the easiest way to start your presence on Pinterest. Eighty percent of the pins on Pinterest are repins. (As a business, your challenge will be finding original images, video, content to pin, but we’ll get into that in another post.)

Back to the beautiful images you were admiring…Mouse over an image you like and click “repin.” When the image floats to the middle of your screen, enter a title for the pinboard on which you would like this pin to appear (e.g., “Pinning Preparation”) and click the “create” button. Add a comment. Click the “X” button.

To see how the pin appears on your profile, go to the upper, right corner and under your name, from the dropdown, choose “Boards.” Note that you are now looking at what someone else would see if they went to http://pinterest.com/yourusername. (But don’t worry, chances are they won’t find you now. You’ve got a lot more work to do before your Pinterest profile becomes more visible.)

To get back to a place where you can find more images to repin, click on the “Pinterest” logo in the top, center of your screen. Click on “Categories” and browse hundreds and hundreds of images in the categories that are most relevant to your business. Or, use the search box in the top, left corner. Enter keywords and take note that after results appear, you can choose to have results for those keywords appear by pins, boards or people (and brands).

Have fun adding more images to your “Pinning Preparation” board. By the way, these images don’t have to represent your business. This is an area for you to play around before we get down to business in “’Pinterest for Business’ Part II: Pinning Practice.”

Should Pinterest Be A Part of Your Content Marketing Mix? Check out my five “To Pin or Not To Pin” questions for the answer. (Photo by Herr_Hartmann, Flickr, available via Creative Commons License.)

Let’s say you’re a business owner who has been somewhat curious about Pinterest, but not curious enough to try it. Let’s say your current web marketing efforts consume enough of your time without devoting even an hour of it to the latest social media darling. After all, you’ve been pretty sure “pinning” is a fun hobby with no great business marketing potential.

Until now.

Lately, you’ve heard a couple of rumors* that are making you wonder if you should find the time to explore Pinterest. The five “To Pin or Not To Pin” questions below are for you.

“To Pin or Not To Pin” Questions for You

1. Is your target market on Pinterest?

The majority of Pinterest users are female and 46% of them are between 23 and 44 years old. Many of Pinterest’s biggest fans live in the Midwest. These statistics are illustrated nicely in an BuzzReferrals.com infographic included in a June 2012 Search Engine Journal post, “Pinterestingly Enough: Interesting Pinterest Stats.”

But, these numbers are changing. A study of Pinterest demographics at the end of 2012 will be very “pinteresting.”

Even if the demographics of your target market don’t match Pinterest demographics, I’ll argue that you shouldn’t completely discount it yet. (Pinterest is the third largest social network, after all.) Use demographics as one of your determining factors in deciding whether to get busy pinning.

2. Do you have existing content that would fit in the Pinterest framework?

If you have an image library overflowing with professionally-taken, high-resolution photos, getting started on Pinterest could be easy and fun. On the other hand, if your image library is somewhat bare, don’t despair.

Mix creative thinking + content strategy + Pinterest tools for the image-challenged (future blog post) and you’ll be surprised at what you can create.

Plus, keep in mind, as with all social media channels, your content (images and videos in this case) should be only a small percentage of what you post. A large percentage of what you share on Pinterest will be images from other sources.

3. Over the next six months, what events, initiatives and topics could you cover on Pinterest?

Perhaps there’s messaging you can start creating with greater consideration to imagery. Maybe you’ll decide to create some consistent graphics to accompany written content. Or, maybe you’ll have an event that, combined with your Pinterest exploration, will be a perfect reason to pay for some professional photos that you can strategically pin over the next several months.

4. Do you believe building an online community is important to your marketing success?

If you don’t believe that what fuels successful social media marketing campaigns is the quality of content + the level of engagement with followers, then Pinterest is not for you.

In addition to your own content, you will need to pin: a) images shared by others, your followers in particular and b) images that appeal to your followers’ interests.

You will need to identify pinners with whom you’d like to connect. You’ll need to listen to them. Respond to them. Comment on their pins. Like their pins. Repin their pins.

If building a community sounds like too much work, cross Pinterest off your “To Do” list.

5. Are your competitors on Pinterest?

Checking out what your competition is or isn’t doing on Pinterest is a good step to take during your “To Pin or Not To Pin” decision-making process. If they’re out there, take note of what they’re pinning and if it’s working for them. Decide if similar or different approaches could draw more Pinterest eyeballs your way.

If your competition isn’t on Pinterest, maybe it’s a reinforcement that Pinterest is not the place for your industry.

Or maybe, it’s a sign that Pinterest is an opportunity yours for the taking.

*Perhaps the rumors you’ve heard include the following headlines:

• Pinterest Drives More Referral Traffic Than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn Combined, Shareaholic, January 31, 2012.
• 21% of Users on Pinterest Have Purchased An Item That They Found on The Site, The Next Web, March 28, 2012.

If I had wanted to take our content strategy discussion up a level, I would have made some suggestions on making the content not just consumable, but shareable. In today’s social + search world, we don’t want people simply to absorb our content, we want them to share it. (If “social + search” is a new term for you, check out Mashable’s Social Search definition.)

Smart chose of words with “Quick Share,” brief text and sharp photos inspire Lowe’s fans to spread Lowe’s helpful content on Facebook.

Yesterday, I stumbled across Lowe’s Home Improvement “Quick Shares” on Facebook. Taking note that over 1,000 people had shared that day’s “Quick Share,” I had to stop and examine why people were inspired to click that golden “share” button. Here are three observations:

1. They are labeled “Quick Share.” There’s a double-meaning here. They are sharing this tip with you. You should share it with your friends.
2. The written text is concise. Making it easy to understand and easy to pass along.
3. Images are included – for multiple reasons.

The images that Lowe’s has selected for their “Quick Shares” stand out beautifully on the company’s Facebook Page. The pictures are nice, but they also take up more screen real estate than a text-only post would. As a result, each time a fan shares a “Quick Share” tip, the image (and a link to the Lowe’s Home Improvement Facebook Page)  stands out great on their post for their friends to see.

Lowe’s wisely has started repurposing these images – sharing them with their Pinterest followers on the Lowe’s Pinterest Helpful Hints board. (Kudos to their content marketing team for using this one piece of content on multiple channels in smart ways!)

Lowe’s “Quick Shares” on Facebook are excellent examples of succinct, easy-to-understand and not-too-self-promotional posts that fans enjoy sharing.

Question: What content do you have or could you generate that could be your “Quick Shares?”

Sharing Ideas from “Teavana Summer Tea Party: Pin It to Win It”

I recently came across a brilliant example of a brand successfully enlisting the help of its followers to share the brand’s content – “Teavana Summer Tea Party – Pin It to Win It!” competition on Pinterest.

Poking around the contest rules (and okay, I admit it, entering myself), I noticed some smart rules and regulations that other brands – large or small – should adopt in their own Pinterest campaigns to inspire greater pinning (and content sharing) among their followers.

Five Pinterest Moves by Teavana to Adopt in Your Next “Pin It to Win It” Contest:

1)    Drive followers to your e-commerce website for a fun, yet targeted purpose.
In the “Teavana Summer Tea Party: Pin It to Win It” contest, Teavana points contestants to their main website for a scavenger hunt. Contestants have to find items on the Teavana website, return to Pinterest to create their own “Teavana Summer Tea Party” board and pin Teavana products to it.

While they were poking around the main Teavana website, how many folks do you think found something they decided to buy – either then or in the near future?

2)    Enlist followers’ help in showcasing your products with their followers.
Teavana doesn’t want participants to pin six different tea blends. They want items in six different product categories (e.g., tea, tea sets, sweeteners, etc.) pinned. Why? So later, when other folks come across these boards, they’ll become aware or be reminded that Teavana sells more than just tea.

3)    Inject competitive spirit into the sharing process.
Contestants have to return to the main Teavana Summer Tea Party board on the Teavana Pinterest account to post the URL of their newly created board in the comments section. When they do, they easily can check out their competition (and more Teavana products) by clicking on the URLs of the competition’s boards. People who are pinning to win will most likely check out several other boards to get ideas for improving theirs … and at the same time, discover more Teavana products.

4)    Offer prizes that will motivate both brand lovers and avid Pinterest users to participate.
Prizes are $500 for the winning board and $25 Teavana gift cards for four runner-ups. This is a smart offer because it inspires avid Pinterest users (those with hundreds of followers who pin on a regular basis) to participate, whether or not they are tea drinkers. (Note: If you are building a presence on Pinterest, you want to be pinned by people who are out there often. Pinning new things. Attracting new followers.)

5)    Require your brand name in the contestants’ Pinterest board titles.
Long after the contest ends, my guess is that a majority of participants will leave their “Teavana Summer Tea Party” boards up on their profile. Even if they don’t win, the board is something they created and something they’ll want to keep, at least foor a while.

With all these Tevana-branded boards floating around, it would be interesting to see, even months from now, the amount of Pinterest-sourced traffic that teavana.com receives.

Question: Which of these fine Pinterest tips would be easiest to adopt in your next “Pin It to Win It” contest?