Next up in our Pros and Cons of Social Media series? Haunt of brides to be and succulent enthusiasts, Pinterest.

PROS

GENERATES REFERRAL TRAFFIC

Companies use Pinterest boards to build a culture around their brand as images can be linked to specific landing pages. Pinterest has an active and targeted user base, and can often be a direct link to a purchase. Pinterest’s high referral traffic outranks Twitter and YouTube.

PINNING AND RE-PINNING

Users can “pin” content from anywhere on the web, re-pinning expands reach, as each re-pinned post creates another link to your content.

LONGEVITY

Content has a long life span and due to layout of Pinterest, old pins can be easily stored to revisit later.

IDEAL FOR ARTISTIC EXPOSURE

If you are a business such as architecture, interior design, fashion or other similar industries, you’ll find Pinterest an ideal site to exhibit content online. Just ensure you are uploading high quality images - users come to Pinterest for appealing imagery and creative ideas.

CONS

SIGNIFICANT GENDER SKEW

Around 80% of Pinterest users are female, creating the largest gender skew of any social media platform. Businesses targeting men should consider other platforms in their mix.

LIMITED CONVERSATION

It can be hard to build engagement and initiate conversations with users, as it is a fairly two-dimensional interaction by nature. Being a content creator and driving what others save and share is important to maintain a consistent user base.

PROPER ATTRIBUTION

Whilst re-pins can be a great advantage, similarly it can be disadvantageous when it comes to proper accreditation of work, and may water down any branding or allow others to benefit off the back of your work.

It also needs to be considered as a business re-pinning others’ content, and ensuring the original source is properly attributed to adhere to best practice and avoid any headaches.

In the US, Pinterest has recently introduced ‘Buyable Pins’. This lets users buy your products right from Pinterest. They are being very selective with the brands using this feature to ensure a high bar is set for Buyable Pins. There is no update as to when this will be available to smaller brands and in Australia. We will keep you posted as more news become available.

Whilst Pinterest is definitely a growth area and is not to be discounted, the above points need to be considered when investigating the platform for your business. Rather than doing it on a whim, ensure the activity supports your brand’s objectives.

GOOGLE ALGORITHM UPDATES

In April this year, Google updated their search algorithm to boost mobile-friendly pages and penalise non-mobile sites in order for users to find high-quality and relevant results. Some of the criteria include, text is readable without tapping or zooming, tap targets are spaced appropriately, and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal scrolling.

THE RISE OF HTML5

We touched on this earlier in the year, see our post here.

MOBILE, MOBILE, MOBILE

2015 has seen for the first time ever, digital and mobile advertising spend surpass traditional media spend, which signifies great change in the industry. Some quick facts and tips:

Approximately one third of all web traffic comes from smartphones and tablets, as the public become better equipped with smart devices, this statistic is set to rise.

As such, there is (or should be) an increased focus on creating online advertisements with these devices in mind, reflecting the different ways people use mobile devices compared to computers.

This goes beyond just the nuts and bolts of ad length, legible font and image size; and moves into when they appear and how they stream to the user to create the wider user experience.

As the internet becomes an inherent part of most people’s lives, web users are becoming more discerning in their choices of content to follow and engage with.

Born of this selective power the audience holds, advertisers must collect and respond to data about how their user engage with online content, and gain an understanding of what drives their target towards engagement.

Advertisers must think of the online advertising and marketing system holistically, rather than seeing each digital segment as separate parts. 

OUR FAVOURITE CAMPAIGNS OF 2015

Puppyhood: An excellent example of branded content this year is the Purina ‘Puppyhood’ campaign, watch the series here.

Slap Her: An interesting little piece from Italy, looking at violence against women, plus it’s very cute. Watch it here.

Love Has No Labels: An excellent message from the Ad Council. Watch it here. 

Instagram Husbands: Hilarious take on the behind the scenes agony of Instagram, watch.

OUR FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS CAMPAIGNS

Christmas is always a fertile period for advertisers, with campaigns ranging from heart wrenching to hilarious. Here are just a couple of our favourites this year.

Spare the Act ft. Jeff Goldblum, watch it here.

Edeka, a German supermarket chain delivered this tear-jerker. Something in my eye… 

That's a wrap! Happy holidays everyone.

Next up in our Pros and Cons of Social Media series? Home of the Celebrity Beef, Twitter.

PROS

FIND A MARKET

Twitter is big. Big enough that, even as a small business with a unique niche, you’ll be able to find an audience. Twitter advertising allows you to narrowly segment who your ad is shown to – you can narrow the audience by keywords, common interest, or even your own CRM list.

On Facebook, each post you make only goes out to some of your fans because of Facebook’s algorithm. On Twitter, unless you tweet directly to someone, each and every tweet goes to all of your followers.

SIMPLE INTERFACE

Twitter has a simple and uncomplicated user interface and the tweets themselves are incredibly easy to create, meaning it is not a time consuming platform for businesses to engage in.

While some brands share links to longer content, a simple tweet takes less than a minute to write and send, but can still be very effective. This allows you to be more reactive to current events or serendipitous opportunities for your brand, provided you have your finger on the pulse.

GET TO THE POINT

With 140 characters to play with, you can’t be too verbose – succinctness is key! On Twitter, you should still be polite, but you can be more direct than other platforms.

INTERACTIVE

Twitter offers the opportunity for businesses to address customer concerns and comments directly, and start a conversation with individuals.

CONS

TEXT BASED

Twitter is mostly text based, if you want to share a lot of photos, Pinterest or Instagram may be a better fit. That said, tweets that include a link to a photo have twice the engagement of tweets without a photo.

CLUTTER

There are almost 340 million tweets per day, and most users follow several hundred profiles. If you only tweet once or twice a day, your tweets are quickly buried in your followers’ feeds. It’s difficult to monitor how many of these tweets are being read.

LIMITED CHARACTERS

Whilst it can be a relief not to have to say too much sometimes, thoughts cannot be expressed in such short bursts. But like any limitation there is opportunity in this; tell a story with multiple posts or other executions to be creative with the platform.