Pinterest users create a number of pin boards for categories such as interior design, food, fashion and as they discover things they like they can “Pin It” to one or more of their boards. This is nothing special in the social bookmarking field, but Pinterest’s heavy emphasis on imagery has seen it become popular amongst women, who are interested in fashion and other aspects of retail.

Since September Pinterest has seen its user base increase fourfold, resulting in 7.51 million new visitors in December and in a single week (Dec 10-17th) it received 11 million return visits. This obviously resulted in the amount of traffic Pinterest was referring to other sites increased substantially

Brands that were early to use the service, such as Nordstrom, have used Pinterest as an online catalogue where other users can re-pin their favourite clothes items and outfits to share with their friends, while always linking back to their online store. More apparel brands are odopting this strategy help users share their favourite clothes.

This is  a trend that is likely to come across the pond as more and more people become aware of Pinterest in the UK, but unfortunately you will have to wait for an invite. You can add yourself to the waiting list here.

Below is an infographic about Pinterest potentially becoming a social commerce game changer, made by Monetate.

With the latest update, page admins now have access to information on the number of people talking about their content, their weekly reach and the virality of the content they create. Below are the explanations of the new features provided by the New Facebook Page Insights tutorial:

People Talking About This and Weekly Total Reach
People Talking About This is the number of unique people who have created content about your page on Facebook in the past week. The more people that talk about your page, the more distribution it will get. The number of people that have seen your message is displayed in Weekly Total Reach.

Virality
Virality measures how likely a person is to share something about your posts with their friends. This is a great indicator of the kind of posts your audience responds to.

These extra features provide Facebook Page admins with knowledge on what their fans find interesting to the point at which they believe the content is worth sharing with their friends. With this knowledge future updates can be tailored a certain way to achieve objectives. To start with though it’s down to experimenting to discover what your fans engage with.

As of the 15th December 2011 the old Insights tool will stop collecting data, but thankfully all your page information is already being collected for you in the new Pages Insights. If you would like to keep the old data collected by Facebook before the switch over to the new Insights then you will need to export it because all the old data will be deleted on 15 February 2012. The export process is relatively simple. Just use the “View Old Insights” link on the right hand side of your page. From here you can choose the date range of the data you would like to export and the file format.

To discuss how these new Insight features can give you a more in depth knowledge of what your fans are interested in the please feel free to get in touch.

KMP Digitata’s Facebook Page

Here we look at what’s been done, what we suspect might happen and what it all means for brands.

Update to OpenGraph vocabulary

A update to the OpenGraph system means that the current “Like” system could be ready for a major change. The current system of liking a page or a product is a good one keeping up to date about what you’re interested in and then sharing with peer but it didn’t always fit with certain products. The latest update will bring new vocabulary that will allow people to interact with content more creatively by not being restricted to just “Like”. In the future brands will be able to define the verb and the noun before their product or brand, making it possible to create activity updates such as:

• KMP Digitata “read” a “Book”
• KMP Digitata “Watched” a “Movie”
• KMP Digitata “Designed” a “Website”

So for a company that is about to launch a product they can let people announce that they “want” it, for example “KMP Digitata wants an iPhone5″,  and then once the product is launched the Facebook user can update their activity to “has” or “owns”. With the information this feature would provide brands can create focused updates targeted towards those who want and those who have the product. To those who “want” the product, updates can be targeted towards them containing information to entice them to purchase or special offers, whereas people who “own” wouldn’t be shown those updates and instead could be shown updates about the latest developments or fun things being done with the product.

Updated News Feed Structure

The news feed on users home screen now consists of multiple feeds. For a brands their updates still appear in the main feed but those who rely on the appearance of friends “Liking” a page in order to achieve more fans will be disappointed to hear that “Likes” no longer appear in the feed and instead appears in the Friends Activity ticker in the top right mean that the updates are buried deeper and harder to find. Although it means “Like” update will be a lot less visible we are believers that if you rely on the Like feature to attract more fans then your strategy is flawed and instead you should be actively engaging your fans to get them talking and truly sharing your news.

Although activity updates now appear in the top right of the home screen Facebook now recognises when multiple people are doing the same thing and promotes that activity to the top of the news feed. An example of this would be if a number of friends were listening to the same album or mentioning a movie, then it will now feature at the top of the news feed.

Focus on Engagement

The change to how Facebook promotes popular activities is a shift from trying to get more people on Facebook to trying to get people engaging with each other and the brands they are interested in. No longer will the focus be on how many people “Like” your page but instead it will be about how engaged your fans are with you. If you have 100,000 fans but only 1% of them actively comment or share your news then you will be less likely to be promoted in the news feeds then another brand that might only have 20,000 fans but 80% of which engage with them regularly.

Potential of Timeline

Timeline is designed to create an individual’s life story through their Facebook profile, where they are able to identify key points in their life, for an example of what Timeline is then watch the video below;

There was no official word on how Timeline will fit into Brand pages just yet, but if the design is applied to pages then brands will have the opportunity to express themselves creatively and create a page that features updates as usual but also build an engaging story to how the brand got to where they are now. A good example of how it could be used is by Coca-Cola who could set their brand designs over the past 125 years as a key point and so their Timeline would feature large images of each new design.

Increased Advertising Space

Facebook has played around with its measurement metrics to provide marketers with a larger premium ad format that although it’s not too noticeable to the end user it does provide more space for adverts. With this extra space Facebook will apply a similar system as the Sponsored Stories feature, so that adverts will display friends who have engaged with the brand presented. This will add validity to your Facebook adverts because people will see that their friends have also chosen to click on the advert or engage with the brand another way.

The demise of the Discussions Tab

Facebook alerted Page owners about the removal of the discussions tabs with a message saying “The best way to encourage conversation and feedback is through posts and comments on your wall” despite AppData showing that there are 22 million monthly discussion users.
The problem with removing the Discussions Tab to focus on the wall is that the wall doesn’t provide the functionality to group comments around a single topic or archive them. Facebook did comment about the issues though, saying “We’ve removed these tabs for now as we work on tools to help you moderate and filter content. Our goal is to help you can manage everything from one powerful place. Stay tuned”. Whether this means that discussions could return in another form or if the wall will receive new functionality we can’t be sure just yet but we are keeping a close eye on it.

What are your thoughts on these latest updates for brands? Leave us a comment below or tweets us at @KMPDigitata.

It is important to stay ahead of the curve to get the most out of your Facebook strategy. If you would like to discuss anything above or your digital strategy on a whole then please get in touch.

The winning entry was for TrekAmerica’s Ultimate Road Trip and the viral Facebook application we created at the heart of it.

The reasons given for winning this award was the campaign’s “Expert knowledge of the target audience, strategy to encourage engagement and the outstanding results it achieved”.

We were up against some stiff competition in this category, including promotions for brands such as ASDA and Cobra beer so we’re delighted to have won. We were also nominated for “Best Social Media Campaign” for the same work.

We are regularly nominated in these types of awards for the work we do and it’s worth noting that great work comes when working for clients, such as Trek America who are willing to put their faith in an idea and devote resources to social media and digital channels when competing with budget for more traditional marketing endeavours.

All that’s left now is to decide where the award will be proudly displayed.

Twitter

Twitter can be many things to many brands. A news source, brand monitoring tool, a customer feedback and support tool, a promotional channel. However you decide twitter best fits in with your business make sure you stick to your goals.

Twitter Tips

• Don’t just broadcast. Think of twitter as a conversation
• Find the conversation – engage with like minded users using @mentions and #hashtags
• Think about how you can add value – hold competitions for your followers in exchange for content or loyalty
• Use Twitter Search to monitor mentions of your brand and competitors. You can gain valuable and actionable insight before actively engaging

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is of particular use in B2B marketing. Think about what your profile says about your business, not just you personally. Use LinkedIn to build and maintain relationships that could lead to sales.

LinkedIn Tips

• Keep your profile up-to-date and make sure your public summary contains all the information necessary for people to understand what it is your business does
• Claim your Business profile and update with the messages that you want to communicate to your audience
• Use the search to find relevant individuals in industry related groups. Contribute to these group discussions to become an authority in your field
• Find questions relevant to your industry on LinkedIn answers. Share your knowledge and connect with individuals who have expressed a need
• Research individuals for recruitment purposes

Facebook

Facebook is primarily a tool for interacting with friends and family. However, 38% of users “like” a brand page. A facebook page can be a useful B2C tool. If you give people a reason to “like” your page, you with have an active, living, realtime audience just waiting to interact with your content.

Facebook Tips

• Give people a reason to follow. Discounts, exclusive content, brand affinity and peer endorsement are all incentives for liking a brand page
• The aim is to get your content into the News stream of your audience and your audience’s friends
• Encourage interaction by sharing engaging and exciting content. Photos, videos and links are more engaging than text updates
• Use facebook ads to grow your userbase. Target your ads to your intended audience based on demographics or consumer behaviour

Foursquare

Foursquare, a geolocation app that allows users to check-in to various venues and locations from their mobile devices. A newcomer in the social media landscape but is gaining traction with users. It’s especially useful if you are a business with that relies on foot-fall, e.g. bars and shops.

Foursquare Tips

• Claim your venue. This will allow you to set up special promotions with foursquare which will be presented to users checking in nearby
• Leave tips and encourage users to leave tips on your venue

Blogs and Forums

Social media isn’t just about the broadcast tools; it’s about being involved with the conversation.

Social Media Tips

• Find the conversation and monitor influential blogs and forums. See what is being said about your business or your industry
• Don’t engage in a conversation unless you can add something of use. Comment spamming is not the way forward!
• When you do engage, consider your business messages and if possible, provide a link to your site/blog/linkedin profile for further information
• Abide by the Ackura Rules of Social media Engagement

The key to social media marketing – Influence

Listen – People want to know that their opinions are valued.
Be a voice of authority – By providing people with useful information and being knowledgeable you establish trust and credibility.
Create a Dialogue – Engaging with users and enabling them to question and discuss your content will generate conversation and prologue the relationship.
Generate awareness – People who are engaged with your content will want to share it within their networks; encourage them to become “Connections”, “Retweet” and “Like” you.
Generate Loyalty – Keep your audience informed with regular news, products or service updates.

Rules of engagement

Be active – Post content regularly but also comment on and share
other people’s content.
Be interesting – Remember the aim is to be viewed as an authority
and get links/shares to your content. Make sure to add your
own opinion or extra insight when commenting on or sharing other
people’s content.
Be humble – Social media etiquette lets every user have a voice:
Give credit for people’s content and opinion.
Be human – Avoid slogans and brochure-speak. Try to inject
content with your personality. Include profile pictures for author blog posts and LinkedIn profiles.
Be honest – Always be transparent about who you are and who you are representing. Don’t plagiarise content or bad-mouth competitors.

Adrian Graham, a project manager for Questions said;

There are a lot of places you can go on the internet to ask questions of people who you don’t know, but there are very few places you can go to get responses from your friends.We thought that this is where we should focus.

The new Questions feature allows users to create questions with either multiple answers or the ability for receivers to add their own answers, which when publish, gets pushed out to their friends. From a friend to friends point of view this can be used for social recommendations, an example of this could be asking friends what film at the cinema they recommend seeing. Once a friend answers a question their result is shown on their own profile and pushed out to their friends, potentially spreading the questions to millions of people.

Nice feature that Facebook have added is the ability to chose a Facebook page when answering a question. An example of this is when someone creates a open question “Who is the best digital agency in the North West?”, their friends are able to add their own answer and if their choice has a Facebook page they can include that as an answer.

The improved Questions feature is more importantly available to Brand and Businesses who have a Facebook page allowing them to perform market research in an effective manor. A business can publish a question which will be pushed out to all those who are fans on Facebook, allowing them to answer and pass it onto their friends. Facebook questions could be used by a restaurant to find what people’s favourite dish is, a sports team to find the favourite player or a tourist information board to discover what people think is their best location.

It will be interesting to see how companies will use this feature and see whether it will truly develop into a strong market research tool or just a fun gimmick used every now and again to increase customer engagement.

If you want to add Facebook questions to your Facebook profile or page then follow this link.

KMP Digitata helped Manchester Airport set up their hugely successful Twitter account and aided them with their strategy for the first few months. Here at KMP Digitata we had already had success with TrekAmerica‘s 8 Mates Across the States and VIE at Home Facebook applications and we knew that there was an opportunity for Manchester Airport to take advantage of the popularity of Facebook.

The Task

Manchester Airport came to use with 2 objectives that they wanted to achieve through any means that we saw appropriate. Following on from KMP Digitata’s and Manchester Aiport’s success with Twitter and the Tweeting Departure board we felt that something with Facebook was the next step.
The first objective was to inform people of all the destinations that the public can fly to from Manchester Airport outside of the destination map on the Manchester Airport website.
Secondly Manchester Airport wanted to increase the number of contacts in their CRM database in manor where the contact would be happy to provide their details.

The Solution

Drawing inspiration from a campaign run by Manchester Airport back in spring 2010, featuring a piggy bank, KMP felt there was a game in the concept of an airport making a pig fly. The idea of pig-a-pult was born and to fulfil the objectives given by the airport. The aim of the game is to launch the pig (named Piggles) via a catapult from Manchester

Airport and get him to land at one of their many destinations and in doing so subtly inform the user of where Manchester Airport can catapult them to. By applying a scoring system that rewards those who get nearer to the furthest destinations we can create a leader board and give a top prize to whoever scores the highest then smaller prizes to randomly selected players. To be entered into the competition the player enters their email and so fulfils the 2nd objective.

The Prizes

With Social Games the main pull is getting the bragging over your friends as to who have the highest score. To add extra incentive to play the game, Manchester Airport is giving away an iPad to the person who gets the highest score. In addition to the iPad there is also a lucky draw to win £500 worth of holiday vouchers.

So if you want to win an iPad or £500 give pig-a-pult a go and make some pigs fly.

VIE at home specialise in selling beauty products through consultants in a Party environment and online. At Parties customers can try their products first hand, whilst enjoying a fun night with their friends. With this social interaction between the consultant and their clients, KMP Digitata saw the perfect opportunity for VIE at home to utilise Facebook’s API and create an application that could help Consultants organise parties and sell products.

The objective

The objective of the application was not necessarily to increase the number of VIE at home consultants. Instead it was to provide their existing Consultants with a tool that would expand their customer reach by allowing them to easily share VIE at home products with all of their Facebook friends. The application had to announce that the user was a VIE at home Consultant to other Facebook users and also provide a means of navigating to the consultant’s VIE at home profile where they could then purchase products or sign up to host a Party.

The Application

Firstly, the application was decided that it would not be customer facing meaning only VIE at home Consultants can take advantage of the applications capability.

The application has two features. The first is that a Twibbon is added to the bottom of the user’s profile picture saying “I’m a VIE at home Consultant” and publishes the picture on their News Feed.

The second function is that the application creates a profile tab for the Consultant that sits alongside the “Wall” and “Info” tabs so that Facebook friends of the user can easily access their VIE at home profile.

Louise James – E-Commerce Marketing Manager for Vie at Home said;

Over the past 12 months the VIE at home Facebook community has grown dramatically. In particular we noticed a number of our Consultants using it as a place to talk about their VIE at home Party Plan businesses and successfully grow them. We therefore approached KMP to help us develop a Facebook app that would be exclusive to our Consultants, would help them interact with their Customers and identify themselves within their community as a VIE at home Consultant.

Although the application was designed for Facebook the VIE at home consultants are already using their profile picture created by the application as their Twitter Avatar and on the internal messageboard system on the VIE at home website.

More often than not social media has been used to raise money by people who then do activities like marathons and sky dives but Christian Aid has seen an opportunity to use social media as the activity rather than just a communication tool.

Christian Aid’s Twitter QuizAid

The Twitter Quiz launches Christian Aid’s annual fundraiser, Quizaid which takes place between 13 and 19 September and aims to raise £230,000 for Christian Aid’s work with communities in 50 of the world’s poorest countries.

The Twitter QuizAid is a live Quiz that takes place over Twitter, with comedian Omid Djalili being this year’s official Quizaid Master. He had this to say about the event:

Twitter is the perfect way to get thousands of people quizzing at the same time, no matter where in the UK they are. The challenge will be to keep the questions under 140 characters. There are no prizes, just the glory of beating your friends, family or work colleagues.

Anyone can get involved in the Twitter Quiz and also set up their own own QuizAid event at home, work, school or in their local pub by simply applying for a free Quizaid pack online at www.christianaid.org.uk/quizaid. The pack includes the quiz questions and answers and everyone who enters a quiz makes a donation.

The money raised will help change the lives of some of the world’s poorest communities. £2 could buy four school books for children in Burundi, £12 could pay for six months of school fees for one child displaced by conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and £29 could pay for a year’s supply of stationery and uniforms for a child orphaned as a result of HIV in South Africa.

So whatever you’re up to, log on to Omid’s Twitter account, get your brain into gear and get quizzical!

More news to come at Christian Aid’s online PressRoom.

With TrekAmerica Live KMP Digitata wanted to develop a place that brings past, present and potential trekkers together to share their experiences. TrekAmerica Live is not in competition with Facebook (where Trek already has a strong community of nearly 15,000 fans) but integrally linked, allowing for content to be published across both networks.

How It Works

After booking themselves onto a TrekAmerica tour each passenger receives a unique URL, linking him or her to their own individual Trekker Profile on TrekAmerica Live. The system pre-populates the page with the Trekker’s details and loads an interactive map of the tour they have booked themselves on.

The system is designed to allow the Trekker to invite their family and friends to login and keep track of their progress during the trip. The interactive tour map displays exactly where the chosen Trekker on any particular day and provide the users with extra information on all the destinations they visit.

In addition to allow friends and family to follow Trekkers the site encourages users to interact with people who will be travelling on their chosen trip or speak to previous Trekkers to receive advice.

The personal profiles allow passengers to upload photos and videos, write travel blogs, post comments to Facebook and send Twitter updates whilst on the road. To save time on uploading photos the site is able to publish photos the user has already uploaded to their Facebook account, avoiding the issues of uploading the same photo multiple times on different sites.

TrekAmerica Live is fast becoming a reliable resource for anyone researching travel in North America and the site has been designed so that none members can still browser the site and find information about the tours in addition to that of the main TrekAmerica website.

The Results so far

TrekAmerica Live launch on and has over 500 active users who have uploaded 1200 photos and 85 Trekkers writing their blogs as they travel at the moment of this release.

With a 99 per cent satisfaction rating, comments about TrekAmerica are overwhelmingly positive. This what some of the current users had to say about the service;

• “Seen a couple of the blogs on here, so I’m making a little diary of what we did – hope it will be useful to other Trekkers”
• This is a really great feature for the website, I hope I can find some fellow travellers…!”
• “Would love to find out a bit more about the people we are travelling with. It makes it easier when we meet for the first time, no strange looks hahaha”
• “I’ll be taking my camera and netbook as I was planning on making a blog about the trip anyway, so this will be very handy for me.”
• “Loving this new site. Joined up straight away”

We are excited to see how the community around TrekAmerica Live continue to embrace this new platform and look forward to more and more user generated content being uploaded to the site.