Utilising Pinterest for Brands and Business

As a business you may want to encourage engagement, either through visitors stumbling across your own Pinterest board, or allowing visitors to pin your content to their boards. Both of these are easily done through the lines of buttons under the images on Pinterest, similar to Facebook’s approach with their Like/Share buttons.

In order to facilitate this, the Pinterest site offers both a “Follow Button” and a “Pin it” button that can easily be incorporated into sites. You can even install a "Pin it" button into your browser bar or download the Pinterest App for iOS.

All this has lead to some very popular Pinterest boards and users, attracting thousands of views and followers. Back in February, Mashable & Zoomsphere looked into the top followed Pinterest brands. At the time the most popular board on Pinterest is The Perfect Palette, a blog focusing as a resource for weddings, and has amassed an impressive 240,000 followers. Many of the top 10 brands lend themselves well to the primarily female audience that Pinterest seems to attract, such as Real Simple magazine, Better Homes & Gardens and Whole Foods to name but a few.

Whilst there are plenty of home crafting and design ideas floating around, e-commerce has also been making leaps and bounds via Pinterest. Fashion retailers such as ASOS have been quick to get on side with Pinterest. The very fact that Pinterest's two main strengths are that it's primarily visual AND social lend it extremely well to products such as beauty and fashion.



Of course, on the other side of the coin, you may not want people to be able to share content from your site on their boards. Why? Because there’s no authentication process on pinning content, essentially the company allows its members to add copyrighted content without the original creator’s permission. Obviously, for many companies and individuals this could prove to be a serious issue.

As stated by Ben Silbermann, CEO of Pinterest, “We care about respecting the rights of copyright holders. We understand and respect that sometimes site owners do not want any of their material pinned.”

To avoid such problems, Pinterest now provides site owners with a snippet of code, which can be found at the bottom of their Help page, which deters visitors from pinning their content.

Also in the works, Pinterest is currently testing a character limit for pin options in the hopes of preventing users from stealing content such as blog posts or articles, but this has not been rolled out to the public yet.

If you're interested in learning more about Pinterest, there's no shortage of information around, including our own Introduction to Pinterest on the Rocktime Blog.

There are quite a few lovely infographs available on the topic, which provide a great overview of how Pinterest has shot to fame and the kind of user base it attracts.

Whether it's technical, marketing or social, if you're after more information and want to talk to our sales team, then why not get in contact with us here at Rocktime.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Geek Video of the Month

Touch screens are pretty cool right? We certainly seemed to have embraced them, with the popular trend of smartphones and tablets in fairly common use. How about a touch screen that can project onto any surface?

This month's Geek Video from Andy, our Technical Manager, demonstrates some "work in progress" tech from Microsoft; a Wearable Multitouch Projector. It may not be the most elegant of pieces to wear about, but it's definitely a start! The projector uses motion and depth cameras, as well as projector, to turn any flat surface into a gesture sensitive display.

It doesn't seem too far-fetched to think that in time they'll be able to shrink it down to something more manageable. Alternatively, maybe we'll see smaller wall mounted units for pop up displays or touch screens. It's an interesting idea, just imagine the potential!


Author: Alice Cheetham

Facebook updates Insights; real time analytics

The wind of change is certainly blowing strong in the Facebook camp. Along with their new Timeline format, of which the compulsory switch over for is fast approaching, Facebook Insights (their built in analytics engine) has also had an update.

Earlier this year Facebook updated their own analytics engine, Insights, to now allow statistics to be viewed in real-time, removing the two day delay previously in place. This is a great update for any brand that runs campaigns through their Facebook pages, especially those on a short time scale, as it allows brands to see how fast information is spreading immediately.

This change to real time statistics will also help brands and businesses to see what’s working and what’s not, and allow them to adjust their content or approach appropriately.


The update to Insights also includes a new measurement “People talking about this”, it’s a little ambiguous, and in fact covers quite a range of factors. Ultimately it allows you to view the numbers of Facebook users who have:

• Liked your page
• Liked, commented on or shared a post on your page
• Answered a question you’ve asked
• Responded to any events you’ve announced
• Mentioned your page
• Tagged your page in a photo
• Checked in, or recommended your place

This certainly is great news for marketing and social media strategy, but developers will also need to be aware that certain metrics that once were read by Insights are being removed, check out their Developer page on Insights for more information.

If you’re interested in learning how Rocktime can help you with Social Media and adjusting to changes in the internet environment, then why not get in contact with our Sales Team and arrange a meeting.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Why use Google Plus?

Maintaining a multi-platform social media strategy can be a demanding and time consuming task, but the benefits can more then pay off!

Using Social Media, such as Facebook, Twitter & Google+, has shaped up to be a powerful drawing-in tool, attracting potential customers. Case in point; Samsung had a fantastic mobile ad campaign, which saw three times above average click through rate by linking directly to their social media accounts. This example goes to show that linking to social media can certainly achieve very tangible results.

Of course, using social media is all well and good, but nothing beats some good statistics and real figures for seeing how much of an impact you're having with it. Wordtracker has a great summary of methods of measuring your Google+ traffic on one of their latest articles. The article is well worth a read, not only are they looking at referral traffic from Google+, and how to measure it in Google Analytics, but Google's +1 button as well. By using tools such as Topsy, Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools you can get a great idea of how your social media pages and tools are affecting your search marketing.

On the topic of Google+, whilst they may be aiming for a slightly cleaner and simpler look then Facebook’s new Timeline styled profiles, that doesn’t mean you can’t make it look nice, as shown in Mashable’s article Google Plus Profile Hacks and Econsultancy’s Top 20 Google+ Photo strips. Of course, these aren’t anywhere near as complex as ‘hacks’ but instead just a smart use of images and file naming, and relatively easy to do. On a similar premise, you can also use animations to further hook your visitors at first glance.

Finally, coordinating a social media strategy alone can seem like a daunting task, let alone across comparatively new platforms such as Google+, there are many tools available to help ease the workload. Why not take a look at our own Useful Tools section on the Rocktime site, where you can make use of our Campaign Objectives Worksheet, ROI Sales Funnel and Percentage Change Calculator. Don’t hesitate to get in contact with our sales team at Rocktime to discuss your integrated marketing strategy.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Facebook Timeline for brands

As the final roll-out of Facebook Timelines for personal profiles rolls ever nearer, this week sees the introduction of Timeline for brands as well. The option to switch to Timeline is already available for Facebook Pages, and it’s looking like the 30th of March will be the date for compulsory uptake of Timeline for pages. Some well-known brands have already got in there with some great displays of what a business can do with Timeline, but what do these changes really mean?


There's a lot of new changes to take in, perhaps the most immediate change off the bat is the removal of the landing page. In our previous thoughts on organising a Facebook Page, we were all for using iframes to create your own custom, free from Facebook formatting, landing page. In place of a landing page we now have the Timeline page, with its large header banner and Timeline arrangement down the side. Extra tabs that were once the mainstay of Facebook brand pages are now for the most part removed, and instead we have a section for photos, apps and company info.

The large cover photo is a new addition right at the top of your page, which offers a large space to personalise and open the look and feel of your page. Taking into account it’s prominent positioning, updating this regularly offers a great opportunity to make your visitors aware of new opportunities.

The profile image has also changed, from the sizeable rectangle we were allowed before, now we’re reduced to a much smaller square profile image, on the plus side, it will at least thumbnail neatly when making posts on your own wall!

Bear in mind what an app comprises of is largely up the administrator, whether it’s what was once a custom page in an iframe, or a list of free issue apps for things like events and other social network integrations, it’s likely that all previous custom tabs will be converted into ‘apps’ that the visitor can click into.

Furthermore these now load on a separate page. You can also rearrange the order of this section to highlight particular content to users.


When it comes to the actual wall, as you can see on the side, we can now add in significant events from the past and date them appropriately. As a whole the wall becomes a more dynamic and visual experience. Images and videos are larger and take a more prominent position in the wall content over text, and can either cover half or the entire width of the wall.

Timeline also adds the ability to send private messages, meaning that fans and visitors can converse with you privately, adding another dimension to potential customer services.


The backend has also been thoroughly updated and streamlined, as well as the ability to receive and send private messages. Through the admin panel overview you can check out notifications, new ‘likes’ as well as basic analytics for your page. As an administrator you now have more control over the content posted onto your wall by fans, allowing the option for all content to be reviewed before going public on your Timeline.


What are the benefits to brands?

The new cover image is a whopping 850 odd pixels wide, which presents you with a lot of graphical real estate right smack bang at the top of your Facebook page, excellent for grabbing a potential visitor and drawing them in. Its prominent position makes it great for product promotion and pushing, since it’s the first thing your visitor will see.

By pushing the info section right to the top of the page, rather than leaving it lingering in the sidelines, it now becomes a lot easier for users to get the gist of your brand immediately. Furthermore offering the ability to send private messages to and from pages opens up new channels of communication and prevents walls from becoming cluttered with conversation between admin and client, which whilst handy for engagement, may be entirely irrelevant to every other visitor to the page.

The Timeline format itself lends itself to giving out information and content much more so then the previous wall designs. Of course, the conversation between brand and client is as important as ever, and in a sense Timeline lends itself to encouraging such discussion. The constant stream of information is easily accessible on the first page, and limited only by as much information as you, the brand, put in. Offering up more information for the user to consume leads to further engagement, and prolongs the interactions you have with your visitor. Timeline appears to be less a case by case display of content and more of a streamed story, dependant of course on the information you put in in the first place.

As Mashable puts it in their explanation of why Timeline is great for brands post;

“With the focus shifting from building conversation to sharing content, the purpose of a Facebook brand page will be less about selling and more about telling an authentic story. Brands can express what makes them unique and build an emotional connection with fans through behind-the-scenes photos, blooper videos, real-time mobile pictures, sound clips and exclusive news. In addition to expressing the brand in the present, a brand can utilize the Timeline to speak to its past to reignite nostalgia and sentiment that may be associated with it.”

If you're interested in making the most of your online presence, or wanting to find out how you can include Facebook and social media into your online strategy, then why not get in contact with our Sales Team here at Rocktime.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Introduction to Pinterest

What’s the interest in Pinterest?

We’ve all heard of the likes of Facebook and Twitter, but there’s a new young upstart making waves in the Social Media world. But what exactly IS Pinterest?

Based on the premise of a virtual pinboard, Pinterest allows users to build their own image boards, adding in all kinds of media from images to videos, or discussions, and comment on both theirs and other users’ pinboards. Registration is by either invitation from an existing user, or applying for an invite through the website.


It may sound like a bit of a fad, but there’s some impressive statistics to back it up.

Pinterest has actually been around for almost 2 years, but most of that’s been spent in an invitation only beta state. It wasn’t until December 2011 that the site catapulted itself into the top 10 social networks (according to Hitwise) and the tail end of 2011 also led to TechCrunch naming Pinterest the best new start up of 2011.
January 2012 has seen that success continue, and it’s now reported that Pinterest drives more referral traffic to sites then LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ combined! Last month comScore reported the site had 11.7 million unique visitors, making it the fastest site in history to break the 10 million unique visitor mark. Not only does it boast some impressive numbers, but Pinterest has become a top traffic driver for Retailers.

Not only is it high in the visit numbers, but there are now over 10.4 million registered users. Furthermore, a surprisingly high percentage of them are women. AppData and Facebook’s advertising tools show that just shy of 98% of Pinterests Facebook fans are female. Women between the ages of 25 and 44 make up 59% of Pinterest users. Its a great way to share and build a community of enthusiasts. The pinboards and pinner profiles are found easily and high in the search results.

Pinterest doesn’t shy away from its appeal to women either, on the Pinterest About Us page they describe their pinboards as a method to plan weddings, decorate homes and organise their favourite recipes. Of course, there are a fair few blokes as well, Fiona, here at Rocktime, has an exclusively male following of 'pinners' (each with their own beautiful looking pinboards!) for her own Music pinboard.

Naturally, Pinterest has it's own YouTube Channel, full of useful How To tips and a Twitter feed.
The biggest brand on Pinterest is 'Perfect Palette', with 244,163 Followers, 113 Boards and 6,925 Pins. The success is due to this wedding blog helping visitors to explore and choose the colour theme for an upcoming wedding.


Popular content on Pinterest covers a whole range of areas, from cooking to crafts and skincare to pets. So far it seems to have great appeal through its simple interface and ease of use. These attributes make it a great method of sharing content, your Pinterest content not only shows up on your pinboard, but can integrate straight through to your Facebook feed too; Facebook-connected Pinterest.

When reviewing web analytics, it is likely brands will start to notice new trends in keywords, traffic sources, what is driving traffic and where content is getting shared the most. So, it is well worth factoring Pinterest into an Integrated Digital Strategy.

If you’re interested in finding out how to get your foot in the door and how Social Media can further your business online, why not drop a line to our sales team here at Rocktime.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Improving your 404 Error Message page

Image credit goes to NetDirekt and their 404 page design.

When a user lands on your 404 pages, it means that something went wrong. Either the user clicked on a broken link, or they may have mistyped your URL. For more information on what exactly a 404 page means, why not take a look at our "What's in a 404 page?".

Whatever the reason, landing on a 404 page is by no means convenient for user, or website owner. While a little humour – “WOOPS try again, click here” could be added to the 404 page, it's important to stress that the main message should be to let the user know that they haven’t reached the end of their journey and to provide useful options/navigation posts to help them find the page they seek.

Rather than just saying, this page can’t be found return to home page, we advise our clients to:

• Include a simple / apologetic statement.
• Add a site search box to the 404 page.
• Add a link to most popular category pages along with a list to the website onsite sitemap.
• Provide a link to a contact form, so that users can reach out to you directly.

Our favourite usability expert Jakob Nielsen, termed by U.S News and World Report as “the worlds’s leading expert on web usability” states that all error messages must be;

• Written in plain language that is easy to understand for non-technical users and that does not imply that the mistake is the user's fault
• precise in specifying exactly what was done wrong (that is, not be generic or vague)
• constructive in suggesting steps the user can take to correct the problem.

We advise our clients to regularly check their analytics to monitor the amount of times people have seen the 404 pages. If the error page is in your top 20 content pages, then there is a clear problem with your site's design or navigation.

The Flashlight team regularly send each other good looking 404 pages, please check out one of our favourite lists for creative error pages, although these 404 pages ooze creativity, some do lack some of the usability / useful features that Jakob talks about above.

One we particularly like from HootSuite includes the below:

• Starts with a simple / apologetic statement
• Explains: why the user has landing on the page
• Highlights where they could go next

If you think your website could do with some improvements, and not just in terms of 404 pages, why not get in contact with our sales and web development team here at Rocktime.


Author: Aysegul Yigitbasi