New Pinterest Changes In the Works

Pinterest announced yesterday they are testing out a design overhaul. Well, overhaul may be an exaggeration. Let's call it a facelift instead. Whatever you call it, people are bound to freak out. These changes aren't radical and, if they work, will make it easier to get to content you like faster. Let's check them out!

1. Navigation-

     The Navigation isn't the center piece anymore. It's been moved off to the right side. It will work essentially the same way but I'm going to assume that it will have even more categories as they figure out exactly what people are looking for. This isn't a big change but they promise it will make "getting around easier".

2. The Pins Themselves are Bigger

    The pins are going to be larger than before. This obviously makes sense for the visualized-content social media site. The bigger, more brilliant the picture the better! If seeing a medium-sized picture of a cat is cute imagine a large-sized picture of that cat! Me-Ow!

3. More Information

    You had to know it was coming. People are going to love being able to see a whole "Cats" board where they can "ooo" and "ahh" at those allergen filled fur balls. The bottom will also show you other pictures from the picture's url as well as related pins.
   From a Marketing stand point, this is the most important. I imagine this is where you'll start to see "sponsored pins". Take the cat example, you're looking at a picture of a cat? Oh look, the humane society's adoptable cats board or even a cat style board with all the latest in cat fashion from coolcatgear.com.

Do you think that sponsored pins or boards is in the near future for Pinterest? Will people actually leave the site if there are?

The Double-Edged Sword

I was recently talking to a friend. He owns a restaurant in an up-and-coming neighborhood in Tampa, Fla. He asked me to come in for a meeting to discuss what "social media can do for him*." Naturally, Urbanspoon and Yelp were addressed since he is running a restaurant. This got him fired up. He opened without a full kitchen and most of the comments and reviews were less than flattering. I told him not to worry. This is a great chance to turn an unsatisfied customer into a loyal customer. This got me thinking. Social Media is a double-edged sword.

In Unmarketing by Scott Stratten he says, "If I offered you a tool 10 years ago that allowed you to listen and respond to the casual conversations of your potential, current, and past customers, you would have paid me $20,000 a month for this 8th wonder of the world." This is what is so great about Social Media. You can literally see what your customers are thinking, where they are going and so forth. This is amazing. It's wonderful when people put "I like it" on Urbanspoon and tell everyone how great you are, right?

But, when you give everyone a voice you also get unsatisfactory reviews. This makes a lot of business owners dislike social media. "Any Joe Schmo has the potential reach of 1,000s?!?! That's obsurd!" It's actual great for your company if you can turn their opinions into constructive criticism and then solve the problem. The key here is not to take it personally. There is no way for a CEO, manager, or anyone to know what's going on in their company 24/7. Social media outlets allow you to hear Joe Schmo's complaints and face them head on. Here are 5 steps to turning an unhappy customer into a fan:

1. TAKE A DEEP BREATH:
    You put your blood, sweat and tears into your company. Somewhere along the line it becomes a part of your identity. You also have to remember the good ole "customer is always right" maxim. Realize that what you read, good or bad, is not a personal attack.
2. "OWN" YOUR PAGE:
    You should have ownership and control over your business page on every platform you can. This will help with the next number. Whether it's Yelp, Google Reviews, Urban Spoon, Facebook Places or any other platform there is always a button saying something like, "Is this your business?" You want to make sure that you can control all the information so it's correct. If you aren't open on Sunday and Google told a potential customer you are, they will likely blame you anyways.
3. SHUT UP AND LISTEN:
     If you own your page it will allow you to receive alerts when you get activity on the page. When there is a review be sure to look at as soon as you can. You need to make sure you are monitoring your Facebook and Twitter as well. If you've got great reviews and everyone loves you then feel free to stop reading (and thank them for their kind words). Now, chances are you don't have a page of 5 star reviews because let's face it, even if you're a rock star people tend to be curmudgeons. Reach out to the bad reviewers (#4). Every platform is different so contact me if you have questions.
4. BEG FOR FORGIVENESS:
   So, something fell short of fantastic for a customer. It happens. What defines you as a company is how you react to it. If you contact an unhappy customer be sure to address the problem. Don't give a generic. "I'm sorry you had a bad experience. Will you give us another try?" Address the problem directly so they know you read their comments and care about their experience.  A good response would be, "I'm sorry that the service was slow when you visited us. Do you remember the name of the waiter that was short with you? My name is Cari. I'm the manager here. Please let me know the next time you come in and I will personally take care of you. My email is...." It's really important that you give your name so they know who to seek out when they come back in. Depending on the severity of the offense, you might want to offer a free drink or meal.
5. DO BETTER NEXT TIME:
  Most people will give you a shot if you took the time to reach out. Obviously you will want to make sure they get the best service possible when they come in. However, even if they don't come in it's a learning opportunity. The service was slow? Spend some time watching the flow of your restaurant. Is it running as efficiently as possible? The waitstaff was rude? Maybe you need to bring it up in the next staff meeting. Criticism sucks. There's no way around it. It's easy to turn those lemons into a lemoncello martini by using it to take stock of how your well your company is doing.

 So, ask not what social media can do for you. It's simple it can give you a living breathing pulse on your customer. The question is what are you doing for social media and, in turn, your customer?

'Til Inspiration Strikes,
Cari

*I am growing to dislike this statement. A social online prescence doesn't just happen because you make a Twitter account people!

Twitter Cheat Sheet

I am training a client on how to use social media to help launch her new business. I decided to come up with a Twitter cheat sheet to help her translate Twitter speak. She is familiar with Facebook so that wasn't necessary but had no experience. I know that she found this helpful and I thought someone you may know could use it too.

Cheat Sheet

Tweet- This is the most basic of all Twitter speak. It is when you send a message out into the Twittersphere. Don't make it long. You're limited to 140 characters.

EX: Hey Everyone! New to Twitter. Taking a Look Around.

Follower/Following- You're on Twitter now so get used to not feeling creepy for saying you are following someone or that someone is your follower. All this means is that someone finds you interesting and would like to hear what you have to say or that you feel that way about someone.

RT- This is an abbrevation of retweet. Retweeting is exactly what it sounds like. Somebody likes what somebody else said and they want all their followers to see it too. People often add their own thoughts to what their retweeting.

EX: Welcome! @MadeUpUsername: Hey Everyone! New to

Twitter.Taking a Look Around

DM- This is an abbreviation of Direct Message. You can think of this as a private tweet because the message still needs to be at or under 140 characters.

# (Hashtags)- If you see this symbol (which by the way was GQ's symbol of the year) followed by a word or phrase then you have seen a Hashtag. This means the tweet is referring to whatever is written after the number symbol. It is sort of like the subject line in an email. These hashtags are searchable so you can read what others are writing about on a subject you are interested in. Phrases are not separated with spaces.

EX: #AmericanIdol, #Marketing, #SocialMedia, #Oscars,

#GoTeam, #anyonewithme, #truth

@- The at symbol is used when replying to, mentioning or referencing another Twitter page. It sends a notification to the person or company you are talking about while also creating a link for others to click bringing them to that person's page. There is no space between @ and the username.

EX: @CariEllison @CNN @FoxNews @Subway

URL Shorteners- You will come across some interesting looking urls on Twitter. Users put regular URLs through a link shortner. The result is some funny looking links. We use shortners because full length URLs can be more than 140 characters or they don't allow for you to say anything about them.

EX: bit.ly/n04hEAs, ow.ly/n04hEAs, on.mash.to/n04EAs

#FF- This is a hastag that stands for Follower Friday. This can be one person that someone really enjoyed following that week, a new follower, or a group of followers. Most often you will see a group of followers mentioned in #FF

EX: #FF @schneidermike, @ScottyMonty, @ShannonDonelson

I can send you the Word Document if you ever need to give this to anyone. If you can think of anything else that she might need to know please comment or tweet me!

'Til inspiration strikes,

Cari

An apology...

Dearest Web World,

I promised myself that when I started this blog that I would blog at least once a week. As you can tell, that did not happen. I could make excuses and tell you why I stopped but that is not what's important. What's important is that I start again. I would like to start by catching the world up on what I've been doing. I graduated with a degree in Communication from Auburn University! Yay Me!

I went to visit my friend Stuttgart, Germany. I ate weird food (I had rabbit cheek one night. It was delicious). We went to Prague (It was a road trip so I got to experience the autobahn) and Amsterdam (I got to go to the Van Gogh museum and he is by far my favorite artist). It was great. The picture below is me in front of New Castle in Stuttgart.

After traipsing around Europe I came back to My hometown of Tampa, FL and have been on the hunt for a job. I have become somewhat of a professional interviewer. Then again, my not getting hired may make me more of a amatuer interviewer :). Alas, I have the problem many recent graduates run into. The wall that employers put up that has a large sign stating "MUST HAVE EXPERIENCE" and under it in small italics "but we're not willing to give you any." I'm not complaining though. Facing this job market and all it's adversity has made me push myself to do something with the time I have.

I have been doing a lot of side work. I have planned some small parties for a local construction company. I was the wedding planner and save the date designer for a couple in the Tampa Area. I have just been hired to start a social media community for a restuarant in town. So, I've kept busy! I was also hired to take pictures of a precious new puppy, Tinsley.

One good thing about not having gainful employment is I have been allowed to explore all my passions. I have been reading all about Social Media. I have taken pictures. I have painted. I have planned. I have played. I have networked. I have cooked. I have created. I can't lie and say that it has been great. I am a worker. I love having projects, deadlines and plans. They give me a structure which is comforting. I am excited to see where I go next and what I do next. I hope you are too.

And so, my dearest web world, I leave you with a promise. I promise that I will write on this blog about whatever passion is striking my fancy that day. I have a lot of different loves and I'm always... carrying on.

Blippr: Microblogging brought to reviews

Next time you are standing at Blockbuster (or in my case, Redbox) wondering what movie you should rent, just get on Blippr!

All you need to do is get online to find reviews, but they can be long-winded when all you want to know is, "Is this movie worth my time?" Blippr is an quick and easy way to figure out what the majority of people are thinking about whatever you want to know. They have everything from books to movies to music to apps.

You can quickly rank different things by clicking Loved it! :D , Liked it :), Disliked it :|, Hated it! :(. Mashable recently acquired Blippr and has started to incorporate it in their posts. An example is here. They have already added a plug-in for Wordpress blogs and other blogs are supposed to follow soon.

Another thing I like about Blippr is you can sign in using a pre existing account with Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc. In a world where you have enough login ids and password to make your head spin, it's nice to not have to add another to the mix!

I went ahead and tested it. I reviewed Hootsuite, which I love, it was simple and took about the same time as a tweet. When I finished with my review, links to review other websites popped up:

As a PR girl, I immediately see the usefulness of Blippr if it takes off. This could give you a quick glimse into what the general opinion about your company is in real time! I can only hope that it will expand to include companies as well!

Overall, I think this is going to be a great addition to the social media world. It is simple and feels a lot like Twitter which is great because it's a platform we all know.

'Til inspiration strikes,

Cari

...but it's just a robe backwards?

If you can't tell from the title this blog post is about the Snuggie. I was cleaning today and I found the box for my dog's Snuggie (Yes, I bought my dog a snuggie. In my defense, he's pushing 4 pounds and gets cold easily so I thought it would help). This got me thinking.

Why did the Snuggie blow up like it did? According to the NY Times they sold 5 million in the first year! There were predecessors such as the Slanket or the Freedom Blanket. These glorified robes didn't have nearly the sales of the Snuggie. The Snuggie is a huge success. There are now Designer Snuggies, Couples Snuggies, Collegiate Prints, Snuggies for Kids, Snuggies for Dogs and more. There are even Snuggie Pub Crawls! But Why?!

I can't tell you the exact reason but I can tell you what I think was the most important factor: Humor.

I can't stand to watch that commercial again but if you have been living under a rock you can watch it here.

We all know about branding.

Most companies want to be taken seriously and take measures to ensure that the public understands the perfectly crafted image of their company. Snuggie knew they were ridiculous (They did put a video of an old lady knitting in the commercial). One of the lines in the commercial is "Blankets are okay but they can slip and slide, and when you need to reach for something you are trapped inside!"

They spent minimal money on a commercial and what did they get? 100s of parodies that act as free advertising! When I searched to find the original commercial I searched for "Snuggie" in YouTube; I got 7,140 "snuggie" results. The most famous is the CollegeHumor parody "The WTF Blanket". CollegeHumor calls it "the blanket that will ruin your sex life!"

Other sites mention that they also bought a lot of ad space in a bad economy when ad sales were down. This, of course, is true and important to the success story. If they would have just put this in SkyMall (see Slanket), it would have never taken off the way it did.

There is also the issue of price. The Snuggie comes in at $15 when the Slanket is $30. Most people are only half serious when they buy one so it makes sense they are only willing to pay half the price of "the original blanket with sleeves." Plus the Snuggie comes with a FREE BOOK LIGHT!!

I respect the Snuggie and what it brings to branding. The Snuggie reminds us that we shouldn't try to be something that we aren't. Sometimes companies, or people, try to package themselves in ways that don't reflect their true nature. I believe this is something that we should all keep in mind!

OH! And I would be remiss if I didn't embarass my brother when I have the opportunity. So folks, here is my brother Cory in his Snuggie!

Doesn't he look warm?

NOTE: Sorry about the resolution but I had to be sneaky and use my camera phone

'Til Inspiration Strikes,

Cari