More Than Just a Passing Interest in Pinterest

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Michele Warther

Like many people over the past few months I have become more enamoured with the Pinterest each time I visit. The site is now a daily along with my staples (email, Facebook and LinkedIn). On my initial visit I was reminded of del.icio.us when they first came out and how I quickly moved all my bookmarks to the site as well as searched through what others were bookmarking.

A quick peek at the redesigned delicious site, re-launched in September last year, shows quite the resemblance to Pinterest which launched in March of 2010. As Pinterest continues to grow many people have quickly followed suit launching similar sites like Pinspire, vi.sualize.us, We Heart It and FFFFound with more popping up daily. Marketers and Investors Are Taking Notice As highlighted in TechCrunch, early adopters to Pinterest are not your typical tech-obsessed early adopters. Investors see the same trends, which is why they think Pinterest is only at the early stages of its growth. Recent stats show in Pinterest over took Etsy for unique visitors (below) with a giant spike in the summer of 2011. Taking notice, Etsy just announced the addition of a Pinterest Pin It Button to their listing pages.

The sites large draw isn't lost on Real Simple who says Pinterest is driving more traffic for them than Facebook. A lot of businesses are getting involved in Pinterest, mostly from what I've encountered they are either personalities (Paula Deen, Nina Garcia, Michael Kors) or products/retail company (Bob's Red Mill, West Elm, Nordstrom) but it is just getting on the radar for many B2C and B2B marketers. Is Curation King? Elad Gil (Director of Corporate Strategy at Twitter) wrote a blog post recent which highlights the mega trend of social media: evolving from long form to push button and asks Is Social Content Curation The Next Big Thing? And if isn't the next big thing, is it a replacement for what we've already got? Is Social the new SEO? Clay Shirky once defined curation's role this way: "Curation comes up when search stops working". More on that and an interesting analysis by Mathew Ingram from GigaOM when he reported on the recent Google changes. Looks like they are catching on to what Scoble called The New Billion-Dollar Opportunity in September of 2009. Are You Ready To Join? Here are 9 tips for boosting your business on Pinterest and once you've got rolling 13 tips and tricks for cutting edge users. Search Engine Journal says one should “think of Pinterest SEO in terms of linkable image assets.” Since all pins are links, they show up in Google search results. To leverage Pinterest for search, add a pin it button to your site for each product, use appropriate tags in pin descriptions, and make sure your pins and boards have titles that have relevant key terms. All your Facebook and Twitter who are on Pinterest contacts will automatically be loaded and you will be sucked in immediately. And for hours. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Happy 3rd Anniversary to the Webtrends Blog

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Michele Warther

It was three years ago today that the Webtrends blog was launched with an inaugural post from Barry Parshall. I recall being at home when it got finally got online around 9:00pm, we originally hosted it with WordPress.com using their VIP services (many thanks to the Automattic team!) about 5 minutes after the launch was surprised to see our first comment from Avinash Kaushik come in - he is definitely on top of what's happening. The launch was quickly followed by securing our brand name in about 85 other locations and establishing our corporate standards for social media. The first piece I created was for the blog, which was later modified to be more encompassing of all channels and integrated into our HR polices which are reviewed during the on-boarding process for new team members.

Earlier this year the blog won a top 10 corporate blog award in great company with Radian6, Exact Target, Hubspot and Playstation. As the editor I was humbled to be included along with the best-of-the-best examples of businesses using blogging for real results. Over the years the blog has gone through many changes from a change in the corporate palette (from Orange to Blue to Black) to a mobile version and migrated to a WordPress MU hosted with Network Redux which now what many of the Webtrends sites run on from the Engage Conference to the Webtrends Agency site and Release Notes to the recent re-launch of the Webtrends.com. Many thanks to the vibrant, bright and opinionated authors who have put together some prolific content over the years and many thanks to all the talented developers, designers & code-monkeys who have have poured their heart and soul into the blog through it's many iterations. Thank you Vince, Mark , Jeremy, Mr. Diggles, Ben, Peter, David and Ilana - you are all amazing! Below are a few highlights of those changes over the years from the original launch including the mobile site.

How to Raise a Happy and Healthy Community

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Michele Warther

During curriculum night at my daughter's preschool this week I was struck by some of the recurring themes they had around building community. It reminded me of a brief exchange with Rachel Happe recently following this tweet:

Both our preschoolers are in emergent learning or child-led programs and I mentioned I should reread positive discipline to polish up my community management skills. There are so many parallels between the negative tweeter or blogger, forum member etc. and the misdirected child; they both need to be heard, be involved in the solution, share their ideas and they quickly become happy contributing members of the family/community. I took the basics of the philosophy and updated them from child POV to more of a community-focused. Do you think your community meets these criteria?

Helps community members feel a sense of connection. (A sense of belonging and significance)
Is mutually respectful and encouraging. (Guidelines are kind but firm and people know what to expect)
Is effective long term. (Considers what the member is thinking, feeling, learning, and deciding about himself and his community – and what to do in the future to thrive within this or the greater community/industry. Are you facilitating continual growth and learning experiences?)
Supports important social and community skills. (Respect, concern for others, problem solving, and cooperation as well as the skills to contribute to the larger community.)
Invites the community member to discover how capable they are. (Encourages the constructive use of personal power to solve problems and when/how to reach out for assistance when needed)

A Good Intention Clothes Itself In Sudden Power - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every community’s success is based on each individuals understanding of the core values and philosophy of the organization. Whether that organization is a preschool or a global corporation. Each year our daughter's school goes over their intentions - more on this later - and their focus for the year. 2011-2012 brought us:

Strengthen the idea of school as a place of collaborative research.
Focus on exploring the values, structures and rituals that make up our school community.

Each classroom then decides how they will support those focuses - think taking corporate values and then creating departmental goals. Our class chose exploration around:

I am a contributing member of a community. To develop a learning community based on what each individual brings to the whole.
I am a communicator. To define and support how children document what is important to them and use their documentation for observation, reflection and sharing.

The teachers also invited parents to share their hopes, dreams and wishes for their child's year. Our wish for our daughter was that she never stops asking questions that don't have easy answers. The conversation following "Does King Tut, my goldfish and Jesus all play together now that they are dead?" has been an on-going discussion that isn't answered with a yes/no. I've been asked hard questions by members of the communities I participate in over the years and I approach them in the same way- from a place of curiosity and interest. What is the focus for your community? How do you nurture and grow it? What is your "wish" for those communities you are a part of?