Keeping Up and Keeping Track of What's New
Part of the challenge of digital media is how things, ideas and programs revolving arond social media changes from minute to minute.
Just when you think you've got your Facebook and Twitter pages and posts down to a rhythm, there are dozens of "new" ideas to learn about. It's daunting, to put it mildly.
But, at CLICK, we forge on. So we take a look at some fresh new ideas for the New Year. One is a simple-to-use and fascinating use of favorites, images and sharing, called Pinterest. Check it out. How can you create ways for it to work for your business? It easily lends itself to style and fashion "stories" for your boutique or dispensary; it's also a fun enhancement, perhaps, to your own blog or Twitter page.
Don't forgot to reference the easy-to-access CLICK Archive located under the CLICK button at VisionMonday.com, which features dozens of Cool Tools, Sites to See and other resources for building your web image and your office's connection to patients.
What's your latest digital media "win"...? Have you tried something new on your website or launched a successful social media campaign? Tell us about it and we'll consider it for an upcoming feature in CLICK.
—The Editors
Getting Interested in Pinterest
NEW YORK—One of the newer social media-driven sites which has been generating a lot of consumer interest in the past year is Pinterest. Consumers can "pin" images that they like, want to remember, suggest to friends, organize and comments are shared with Pinterest's growing number of users. In fact, the site's traffic has exploded—since August, it's grown from one million to four million users today.
Pinterest lets users organize and share "all the beautiful things" they find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.
Best of all, users can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share interests.Among images of collectibles, food, favorite apparel items, restaurants and home design inspirations are a growing number of eyewear images—posted by Pinterest users who like the designs and want to recommend them.
Pins are encouraged to be linked back to their original source; so in addition to reflecting the user's tastes or recommendations, Pins can generate traffic, particularly when posts are linked, which they are, to Twitter, Facebook and other social-sharing sites. Pins and boards can be added from a website or images uploaded from a computer. Registered users can create "boards" to categorize their pins.
Pinterest users can embed graphic red "pins" onto their own website to faciliate pinning by others. This can be done by embedding code and a number of options are provided for this.
Mashable has said, "Expressing passion for a hobby is just as easy as browsing for your next purchase. But what's even more addictive about the site–a collection of collections–is that it's just as much about the users as it is what they've posted." The internet/social media site has provided its own "101" guide to Pinterest which is a good starting point.
The site's rising popularity has led social media strategists and business marketers to see growing opportunities for businesses to take advantage of Pinterest, too.
Brands can use Pinterest to boost customer engagement and some retailers are already using Pinterest to enhance their connections with customers. Bloggers are using Pinterest to add to their visibility. Social media expert Miriam Shabab has created her own Pinterest board with an amalgam of brands from various sectors who are using Pinterest.
Mobile Giving Impacting Charitable Donations
WASHINGTON, DC—Charitable donations from mobile phones have grown more common in recent years. Two thirds (64 percent) of American adults now use text messaging, and 9 percent have texted a charitable donation from their mobile phone.
And these text donors are emerging as a new cohort of charitable givers. The first-ever, in-depth study on mobile donors—which analyzed the "Text to Haiti" campaign after the 2010 earthquake—finds that these contributions were often spur-of-the-moment decisions that spread virally through friend networks. Three quarters of these donors contributed using their phones on the same day they heard about the campaign, and a similar number (76 percent) say that they typically make text message donations without conducting much in-depth research beforehand.
Yet while their initial contribution often involved little deliberation, 43 percent of these donors encouraged their friends or family members to give to the campaign as well. In addition, a majority of those surveyed (56 percent) have continued to give to more recent disaster relief efforts—such as the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan—using their mobile phones.
These are among the findings of a new a new study produced by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and Harvard's Berkman Center for the Internet & Society, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the mGive Foundation.
"In contrast to other types of charitable contributions, which often involve some background research, or are directed towards organizations with which the donor has an existing relationship, mobile giving is often an 'impulse purchase' in response to a major event or call to action," said Aaron Smith, senior research specialist at the Pew Internet Project and author of the report. "These donations come from people who are ready to give if they are moved by what they see and hear."
"These findings have vast implications for non-profits, other cause-related charities, and even philanthropists," noted Rob Faris, Research Director for the Berkman Center. "The age of mobile connectivity is creating a new class of networked donors who learn quickly about tragedies that occur anywhere on the planet and respond immediately."
"The Red Cross campaign showed that innovation can have a transformational effect in crises," said Amy Starlight Lawrence, Journalism and Media Innovation Program associate for Knight Foundation. "This survey, which details the story behind millions in donations, should help other non-profits develop powerful new tools to fund and execute their missions."
The study also finds that these mobile givers are younger and more diverse compared with other charitable donors, and differ significantly from the overall population when it comes to their use of technology. They are especially likely to:
- Own an e-reader (24 pecent do so, compared with 9 percet of all U..S adults), laptop computer (82 percent vs. 57 percent) or tablet computer (23 percent vs. 10 percet).
- Use Twitter (23 percet of the Haiti donors we surveyed who go online are Twitter users, compared with 12 percent of all online adults) or social networking sites (83 percent vs. 64 percent).
While they differ demographically and in their technology habits, these donors differ little from the national average in terms of their overall civic engagement and group participation, as well as their tendency to keep up with national or international news events.
The results in this report are based on telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates among a sample of 863 individuals who contributed money to the Haiti earthquake efforts using the text messaging feature on their cell phones, and who consented to further communications at the telephone number they used to make their donation.
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