First, we’re glad Pinterest backtracked. Pinterest’s pinmeister and co-founder, Ben Silberman, is no longer asking followers to ” avoid self promotion.”

The CEO and his fellow pinners are saying that the Pinterest etiquette that frowned on pinning one’s own content, is dead.

Originally, the fast-growing site wanted its members, as Hotelmarketing.com put it, “to share all the beautiful things they find on the web,” and eschew pinning their own content, thus the advice against “self promotion.”

But what followed was predictable: big questions about the copyright violations by enthusiastic Pinterest users who were pinning other people’s content and images, with no license to do so.
So, in a recently unveiled set of new Terms of Services, the site reversed itself, and asked its followers to go ahead, forget the previous rules of etiquette, and pin their own stuff.

The Wall Street Journal noted that the shift in policy from posting curated content to members’ own content reflects a maturing company which, in February, became the third, fastest-growing major U.S web site when its unique users jumped 52% to 17.8 million.

But here’s problem one.

Social Technographic Profiles across the board (Alpha Moms, men and women, Asian and European users, etc.), show that social media Creators – those who actually publish a blog, upload a photo or video, Tweet regularly- are a significantly smaller population than Joiners, Spectators or Inactives.

Will the shift to pinning one’s own work, rather than those of others, be too challenging to Pinterest members?
Was it less stressful, easier “to share the things you love,” which meant other people’s (better?) stuff, and not one’s own?
And could this shift to posting original content reduce member growth?

From the perspective of travel, there’s another problem.

In a recent post, Why Hotel Content is So Boring , we argued that hotels play it safe by posting images of empty hotel rooms, empty pools, impossibly gorgeous but fake families on the beach, and smiling photos of reception desk staff, who are very likely paid models.

Hotels want to play it safe. Why, as one observer noted, show a happy family in the dining room when a potential childless couple could be turned off by the image and not chose that hotel.

Pinterest encourages beautiful photographs, lovely images. Hotels and destinations will populate their Pinterest boards with such glossy, but empty images.

Furthermore, Eric Leist, an emerging technologies specialist with Boston-based ad agency allen and gerristen, says that travel industry professionals should be paying attention to what Pinterest users in their target market are pinning. Doing so will give them a better sense of what that members in that target market want, what styles and colors appeal to them.

Basically, he says, “Pinterest is a free focus group for the travel industry, and professionals should tap into it.”

Pinterest has the potential to surpass Faceboook and even Amazon in terms of helping people discover what they want and what they may want to buy…instead of just talking to each other.

While the site may give travel brands a great opportunity to show off their beauty and promote their brands, they must also bring the user/traveler closer to sharing the real-life, emotional travel experience of being at a destination or property.

First published on Technorati by Kaleel Sakakeeny.

We all new that the wildly popular camera sharing app for iOS was going to be hitting Android devices soon enough, but there wasn’t much notice about it being available on a specific date. Tuesday April 3rd 2012 shows that Instagram for Android is now ready for download in Google Play marketplace.

The app is free, as it is for iOS devices, and has many of the same features and filters. It allows you to share your photos to your friends and followers through facebook, twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare. Unlike the iPS version however, there is no integrated Flickr sharing (yet) and no way to blur part of the photos and no way to tilt. Possibly, we’ll see those additions in later updates to the app.

If you have an Android device and have been waiting for this day, go grab it by clicking the Source link below and start sharing those awesome photos!

Source – Google Play

First published on Technorati by Reed Sanders.

I love Starbucks. It represents a company that is doing everything right from using green cleaning products to embracing upscale food that has no preservatives or hydrogenated fats. Their CEO Howard Schultz and the company were voted #1 last year and they remain committed to fair trade, the environment and creating jobs. How many corporations do you know THAT STILL OFFER BENEFITS AND OPTION SHARING?

Starbucks is constantly working to improve product. Even their coffee which friends have told me they do not necessarily like has been tweaked upward toward a milder blend. So for me, it’s a no brainer when I read that Starbucks is the nation’s most socially engaged company, according to research firm PhaseOne.

Between July 2011 and January 2012, PhaseOne studied the social engagements of 75 top U.S. brands to determine the rankings. Audi, McDonald’s, Red Bull and American Express were in the top five. Researchers discovered that certain brands that convey a social benefit attract social media users because they identify with the brand and want to send the message to those in their social network about how they should be perceived. The user associates the brand with his or her idealized persona. Starbucks #1 slot was dependent upon a number of other factors, but underscored was the importance of social media to a company’s marketing efforts. PhaseOne used a number of variables to compile its rankings.

To highlight the impact of social media on a company’s marketing efforts, the Business Courier is holding a Social Madness corporate challenge to measure the growth of a company’s social media presence through a bracket-style tournament. Winners on a local level will advance to a national tournament. The social madness concept is only a reflection of how significant social media marketing is becoming to brick and mortar companies who dare not go into business without it!

First published on Technorati by Carole Ditosti.

The answer to that question is yes, according to a report and one app developer. Enter EnemyGraph, a free Facebook app that lets users to list their enemies instead of making friends. The app works by connecting Facebook users on things they dislike and point out a difference you have with a friend and offer it up for conversation, as opposed to a similarity.

This new Facebook app takes a different approach and is completely opposite on the social school of thought where everything has to be based on mutual interests and shared experiences.

The dislike button feature has been sought and supported by many Facebook users for years which hasn’t been implemented by Facebook and the EnemyGraph is surely a welcome treat for other Facebook users who believe that not all entities – a group, a company, a person or anything else are friends but there are enemies, too.

Currently, the top trending enemies in EnemyGraph are Internet Explorer, McDonalds, Justin Bieber and fake tans.

Now whether this new app will take off and have the support of the majority of Facebookers and social media critics remains to be seen.

First published on Technorati by Dan Reyes.

Pinterest, the newest social network sensation, is experiencing so much public interest and soaring media publicity that it has caught the attention of, get this, President Barack Obama!

According to a report, President Obama has joined the newest social media darling Pinterest, apparently embracing the ever-growing popularity of the site to step up his political campaign.

The president’s Pinterest page is run by his “Obama for America” campaign staff and currently has 8 boards, 40 pins and 1,629 followers. The boards include Obama-inspired recipes, pet lovers for Obama, the First Family, Obama Art and Obama 2012 campaign in action.

In a recent Obama Twitter account tweet it says “Organizers, infographics, murals, and cake–now pinning all of the above for #Obama2012 on Pinterest”.

The use of social media has been taken as a revolution of political campaigns during the last U.S. presidential election as candidates, like Obama, gathered followers through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

For his re-election campaign, Obama has been joining the latest popular social websites like Google+ and social photo-sharing site Instagram.

First published on Technorati by Dan Reyes.

How do you get to be called the largest woman’s blogger network in the country?

You believe in what BlogFrog CEO and co-founder, Rustin Banks, says: “Elevated authentic editorial brought to you by a brand is the future.”

What’s he talking about?

He’s talking about sponsored conversations with a very large blogger group that pose questions near and dear to a brand’s heart, and solicits viewer responses ( chatter, votes, stories, advice, suggestions, etc.) near and dear to a brand’s bottom line.
The same brand that paid to have the sponsored conversation to begin with.

Nothing especially unique about this ever since the line between editorial and advertising got blurry, and more blurred back a little while ago.
But in far-ranging article in Entrepreneur Magazine by Jennifer Wang, we learn that Banks has successfully tapped into the mother lode of online influencers: Mothers.

Statistically, as the article points out, “moms” lead the pack in innovation in digital commerce and media, with this generation of moms being “tech-savvy, highly educated and (controlling) 85 percent of household income.”
They’re also the most “social demographic,” meaning if they like or dislike something, they say it. On line. Socially and virally.

So, BlogFrog, borrowing a sentiment from Pinterest, perhaps, set out to become a social network organized around what people are interested in, not who they know. Which led to their having 125,000 active members and 65,000 bloggers, with a reach of 10 million parents making it, arguably, “the largest mom-blogger network in the country.” As we said.

Lots of social networks offer bloggers the opportunity to generate revenue through advertising on their blogs.

But the three-year old BlogFrog actually offers tools for them (mostly “moms”) to create their own communities, discussions and video content, and connects these to brands willing to pay to be part of the conversation.

The company vets its bloggers. Based on a range of “influence factors,” it chooses its chiefs (“community leaders”) and sets them loose to create a larger blogger group around topics of interest to brands, who pay a fee determined by the number of bloggers and their reach.

Already ABC News, Lego, Procter and Gamble are reportedly among the big brands that have signed on probably because BlogFrog fills the need for customers and brands to be connected, but without advertising, which has no real capacity to drill down and customize the brand’s messages.

Bloggers are happy because the company has allegedly paid out more than half a million dollars in one year to them.

What’s cool about the site (besides being able to earn some big bucks) is that unlike a typical blog, there is a conversation among community, questions and answers, back and forth. In a blog, there is no cross conversation; no sideways chatter.

However, it’s not that simple to sign up and get going. While the actual signing up is relatively easy, I was left feeling unsupported in my next steps and had trouble with the embedding code.

Still, as Laurie Turk of TipJunkie,  the popular DIY/craft site says, BlogFrog “is giving bloggers the opportunity to wield power and influence…to make a ‘mom blogger’ a profession.”

And that, as they say, can be taken to the bank.

Throughout the history of time people have been applying their old ways to new media. That was the message from Facebook’s global brand manager, Paul Adams, at last week’s Signal Conference in San Francisco.

So what exactly does that mean? It would appear that historically for us, each time a new media was introduced, we tried using it in a way for which it wasn’t optimally designed. The telephone, Adams explains, was originally thought to be a fantastic solution to broadcasting. You’d dial-in, leave the receiver dangling, and listen along with all the others to the day’s broadcast. Things evolved and we found more practical ways to use the phone.

In the case of Facebook, marketers are trying to apply the ways they work with existing media, to how they use the social network. So what’s Facebook’s advice? Facebook shouldn’t be expected to expand its offering to include things like larger banner and pre-roll ads, and marketers shouldn’t expect it to. Facebook isn’t about instantly grabbing someone’s attention and immediately converting it into a sale. It’s gentler than that, and more about how we build relationships with one another in the physical world, through “many lightweight interactions over time.”

The power of Facebook isn’t in each individual share, but the aggregation of them over time. That’s what builds relatedness and that’s how it should be used in business. Adams said that blasting a large ad on Facebook defeats the nature of the medium. Use Facebook to build the relationship first, over time, and only then, market to them. The “hot spot” in the relationship is more towards the middle of it and later on, not at the beginning.

The ten-year-old social site StumbleUpon can certainly be labeled as the social-media-comeback darling of Silicon Valley. Founded as a dorm room project in 2001, StumbleUpon picked up steam in 2005 when they moved the company from Canada to San Francisco, California. The company was acquired by Ebay in 2007 and spun back out of eBay as a "restart-up" in 2009. In March 2011, the company received 17 million in fresh venture funding and now boasts over 100 employees with offices located in San Francisco, New York and Paris.

StumbleUpon helps you easily discover new and interesting stuff on the Web. Tell them what you like, and they’ll introduce you to amazing web pages, videos, photos and more that you wouldn’t have found on your own. Users are flocking to the site to "discover" new articles and average 300 pieces of content discoveries each month. 

The growth rate over the past year is impressive. StumbleUpon has approximately 20 million registered users, averages 1.2 billion referrals each month (85% are located in the United States) and has indexed over 100 million pages.  StumbleUpon has become one the most powerful sources of traffic on the internet

Why is this so important for bloggers and the blogosphere? By adding a StumbleUpon badge to your articles, there's an average lift in traffic of 20-25%.  Translation – increase number of unique visitors, page views, brand awareness and social engagement on your site.  

In part-one of our exclusive Igniting Social Media interview, Shani Higgins speaks to Jack Krawczyk, Senior Product Marketing Manager of StumbleUpon about:

• The growth rate of StumbleUpon
• Filtering on what is submitted to the site
• Referrals from the site and importance of adding the StumbleUpon badge
• Competitors
• Average stumbling session & discovery in each session
• Biggest difference from other social media platforms
• Importance of pagination
• Measurement tools offered to bloggers

As an extension of Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2011 Study, Technorati Media is releasing a new web series: Igniting Social Media. These interviews will showcase industry experts discussing social media trends and features from major blogging platforms, tools, start-ups, brands and agencies while providing insight on how social media impacts our ecosystem today and how it will continue to evolve.

The idea of the Internet getting us into trouble at work is not a new one.  Recently some employers got themselves into trouble after demanding that job candidates give up their Facebook login details so they could snoop on their account.

Meanwhile, earlier this year it was reported that a man was fired from his job because his LinkedIn profile was setup to alert him of job opportunities.

News however that Google Suggest has landed a Japanese man the sack however takes things to a new level.  Google Suggest offers the searcher suggestions once they begin typing.  So for instance if a user types ‘car’ it might offer car hire, car insurance, car games and so on.

The problem is that when employers typed this mans name they were offered lots of searches relating to a man of this name and criminal activity.  If these suggested searches are selected more than 10,000 web pages are returned that defame or disparage him.

The man asked Google to clean up its records so neither results or suggestions appear, but Google refused on the grounds that the results are determined by algorithm and thus weren’t intentional.

“It could lead to irretrievable damage, such as job loss or bankruptcy, just by displaying search results that constitute defamation or violation of the privacy of an individual person or small and medium-size companies,” the mans lawyer said.

“It is necessary to establish a measure to enable swift redress for damage in the event of a clear breach,” he continued, adding that the man will take further legal action to prompt Google to comply if the Internet giant continues to neglect to act.

For many, Google Suggest has been a source of much hilarity, with funny suggestions a popular staple of blogs the world over.  For this individual however, the suggestions were far from amusing.