Surprise hit Pinterest a top 10 most-trafficked social network

Move over Google+ and Tumblr, there’s a new star in social media town. Pinterest, a Palo Alto-based startup, is quietly becoming one of the most-trafficked social networking sites on the web.

The still-invite-only, one year-old digital pin-board site attracted nearly 11 million visitors in the week ending December 17, according to data intelligence company Hitwise. Hitwise counts Pinterest as one of the top 10 websites in the social networking and forums category.

For those without an invite (you can get one from a friend), Pinterest lets users virtually “pin” products and items they find across the web to their own themed pin boards. It’s a way to collect recipes, home decorating ideas or share your personal style with friends. It’s inherently social in nature, so you can browse friends’ pins and boards, and re-pin your favorite items to your own pin boards.

The site is most popular with females and arts and crafts enthusiasts between the ages of 25 and 44, and its user base is anything but typical — at least for a social network. “Pinterest over-indexes on visits from the states in the Northwest and Southeast,” said Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise. “This data indicates that Pinterest visitors have a different profile versus their counterparts visiting other social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube.”

Pinterest is experiencing the type of hockey-stick growth startup dreams are made of — and that’s without really trying. Pinterest, reports Hitwise, now sees 40 times the number of total visitors it did just six months ago. In fact, Pinterest saw 31,788,893 visitors in November, according to Hitwsie data shared with VentureBeat. Better still, that figure puts the site ahead of Google+ (31,748,905) and Tumblr (25,716,031) in terms of monthly web visitors.

Pinterest may be the sleeper hit of the year, but investors are certainly awake to its potential. The startup has raised more than $37 million in funding from a who’s who list of venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Ron Conway, Max Levchin and Michael Birch.

 

Source--- http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/22/pinterest/

The New Role of Social Media in Public Relations & Online SEO Services

Public relations professionals may be skilled at crafting press releases, but when it comes to social media, many are navigating uncharted waters. Social media is no longer just a way for friends and family to interact and share photos.  Today social media is at the heart of companies' public relations and marketing initiatives.

So what does an integrated public relations and social media campaign look like? For many businesses it starts with simply developing profiles and pages on relevant networking sites. The relevancy of sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn will be determined by examining a companies best customers, then selecting only social networking sites where these customers reside. For example, if a company does not deal with music or entertainment then MySpace should not be utilized as a business building tool.

Once relevant networks are determined and profiles filled out completely with links back to the company website, photos and logos, contact information and more, then public relations and social media can begin their journey together. A smart move in making social networks known is to put links from the homepage of your website and in all employees email signatures to the newly created networks. Public relations agencies will want to ensure that not only online marketing mentions the social networks, but that print collateral like fliers, business cards and advertising also points people to the companies social media profiles.

What drives social media is two fold – original content and interaction with connections. Original content can come in the form of blog entries, press releases, photos or surveys. When public relations agencies craft blogs and press releases for use on social media channels, writing the headline may be the most important piece. Headlines should be less than 140 characters so they can be shared as a status update and contain the topic of the article along with keywords. It is this original content that will draw in connections and foster interaction within the social communities.

In addition to its use for connecting with potential customers, social media can also be used in public relations for connecting with media outlets. Many trade publications, magazines and bloggers run Twitter accounts or Facebook pages for their news source. As a company utilizing social media in public relations, these news sources should be connected with. Once connections are established, do not immediately pitch a source on a story about your company. Instead take time to build a relationship and allow the new source to view you as a resource for future stories. Most magazines and trade publications know in advance what stories they plan to write so feel free to ask if they plan on covering any topics your business falls in to, then offer to contribute.

Public relations and social media will continue to become more intertwined as marketing categories as time progresses. Public relations agencies must adapt to social media trends and learn how to harness the power of social networking to stay competitive.

SOURCE--- /PRNewswire-iReach/