Depending on what research is trusted, we believe the audience size of Pinterest consists of  over 10 million unique visitors per month and climbing fast. The quantity of visitors is appealing but so is the qualitative delivery of women looking for recipes, room decor and do-it-yourself crafts.

The primary objective of any medium is to aggregate an audience and then describe that audience to potential marketers.  Our contention will always be that every medium serves a purpose and the more unique the qualitative attributes of the audience, the better

Pinterest fills a void in the social media industry.  The site is focused more on pictures than words and we think that small but powerful difference opens doors of opportunities for business and relationship marketing.

The following are three strategic considerations for early adoption of Pinterest as a medium of choice.

1-  Human Asset Allocation — If your company is planning a run-up on Pinterest, expect a significant draw on human resources.  Pinterest is Uber-simple but very time consuming.  We would recommend a full-time staffer be assigned this project or simply outsource the design and strategy for Pinterest.

2- Picture Perfect –If you expect to create a following of your beauty pages, forget about pinning one picture after another of your great products.  Don’t even think about Vanna White-type-photos with a pointing hand to a product.  Check out the heavy users of Pinterest and notice their pinnings.  Followers follow because something is worth following.  What is the pinning value to a viewer?

3- Build Relationships — Pin the right type of pictures and expect to build a following that can be cross-promoted to the company website and other portals.  The key seems to be to pin toward common interests and make it easier for a conversation to begin.

One pin does not fit all.

Profits will come through mining relationships and finding creative ways to pin and tell.

Running has been good for my creativity, problem solving and overall improved outlook on business and life.  I can’t say that I began running for this purpose but I’m certain I’ve received benefits beyond cardiovascular health.

I’ve read that it’s all about the release of endorphins.  Smart people in lab coats have been studying endorphins for years and most agree that this “runners high” occurs a few miles down the road.

For me, this natural opiate seems to be released sometime after my screams from shin splints, gasps for oxygen and the realization that I’ve only ran a block.  Just exactly what is the ROI on shin splints?

There’s an analogy here somewhere for social media.

We are an instant gratification society and this pseudo-need drifts into our business evaluation of social media strategy.  As an industry, we haven’t run very far.  We have miles to go before we tweet.

Strategy must win over tactics.  By definition, strategy is a marathon not a sprint.  As we begin our jog toward revenue growth through new media, we must work through the urge to give up and try something else.  Shin splints develop before true growth.

At MCP we believe that social media can be a powerful endorphin.  There shouldn’t be questions about the efficacy of any medium.  The question arises in determining what needs to be said and done through strategy.

Social media will not reward dabblers.  For most businesses just entering the fray, social media is not much different than a new pair of running shoes.  We encourage business owners to wear out a few pairs of shoes before making any judgment about impact.

Business endorphins will be earned in a long, strategic run.

New York, NY, April 26, 2012 – Today, Media Connect Partners, LLC (MCP) announced that John Mattos, formerly a Technology Architect at Adobe Systems in Las Vegas, Nevada, has joined the company as its Director of Social Technology.

Mattos is a 15-year veteran of technology consulting, software development, and social media. His roles have varied from individual development contributor all the way through technical architect and, most recently, scrum master an a large multi-discipline project.

“I joined MCP for the opportunity to work in an exciting and new area of software consulting,” said Mattos. “The work MCP is doing for its clients is cutting edge and I’m excited to jump right in and get involved with the existing projects and help grow the client base as well.”

“We’re thrilled to have John join the team,” said MCP CEO Brian Boyd. “He has exactly the combinations of skills we need: technical mastery and genuine business savvy. That’s not an easy combination to find and I look forward to adding his talents to the team so we can grow the business and serve our clients.”

Prior to joining MCP, Mattos honed his skills at such companies as Adobe Systems, where he became certified as a Flex ACE, as well as BEA Systems and Systinet (now part of HP). Mattos earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Rochester in 1992. He is active in various philanthropies including Amnesty International and Habitat for Humanity, and practices Tae Kwon Do.

About Media Connect Partners, LLC

MCP was founded in 2010 as a spinoff of its parent company, BoydGroup Solutions, LLC (2001). MCP’s focus is creating social media strategies that bring measurable results for its customers. With offices in Charlotte, New York and Las Vegas, MCP can meet its clients where they are, putting teams on the ground at a moment’s notice. For more information, please visit http://mediaconnect.co.

Media contact: Brian E. Boyd, Sr., brian@mediaconnectpartners.com, 800.MCP-1265.

###

Social media strategy should come before social media doing.  Too often, we see signs of “ready, fire, aim” execution without due diligence given to the purpose of the launch.  We send a flurry of missives without a mission.  There tends to be more focus on quantity rather than quality.

Social media quality is achieved with messaging that is strategically targeted to a specific audience with purposeful content to reach a decision maker to influence a pending decision.

Strategy answers the question, What? 
Tactics provide answers about how to achieve strategy.

When we ask some social media buffs about why they use social media, the most frequent answer seems to be defensive.  “Everyone else is doing it, we thought we should carve out our own space to make sure we at least have a presence.”

This is certainly an honest explanation to the proliferation of social media deployment and explains why social media effectiveness is being challenged in C-suites.  The C’s in the room, need to drive the doers to develop social strategy to SERVE marketing strategy.

Everything we do in social media must contribute to the over arching plan to drive revenue (or any metric) with a core strategy that pervades the organization.  The right hand needs to know, complement and catalyze the left hand.

We hold these truths to be self-evident but under-practiced.   Know the end game before inserting foot in beak.

Bloggers have the option to allow comments from readers on their blog posts. This often forms a conversation as people discuss the topic being blogged. Though you can prevent comments from appearing, generally you want to allow commenting as it provides an opportunity to engage with your readers.

Bloggers can add links in their posts to other pages on the Internet, including internal blog posts. It is a good idea to link often to other bloggers and blog posts. A link from one blog to another provides a pingback, and on many blogs pingbacks will provide a link back to your original post. The more links there are to your posts, the more valuable your blog becomes to search engines and the more traffic you will receive.

A well written blog can turn into an opportunity for a book or other publications. Ann Voskamp, author of the A Holy Experience (http://www.aholyexperience.com/) blog has written 2,000 blog posts over the past six years and recently had a book published, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (http://www.amazon.com/One-Thousand-Gifts-Fully-Right/dp/0310321913/).

Plan Before You Write

We contend that a blog is not for everyone. There are millions of dormant blogs and we want you to be realistic about the chances for success and the commitment it takes for a successful blog. Answer these questions before you start down the path of blogging:

• Are you willing to commit to post something at least once per week?
• Do you have a willingness to listen to and respond to people on your blog posts? What if they are critical of your writing?
• Identify issues which might be obstacles to your blogging.
• Are you afraid of technology? Are you willing to learn new things in this process?

We’ve known many business leaders who have hired us to help them develop a blog presence and then watched them abandon the effort several months later. Blogging takes a commitment and we want you to understand that before you spend time creating one.

Once you’ve decided blogging is the right thing to do, the next step is to plan your blog. We recommend writing down the details of your blog before you begin:

• Who will be the target audience of your blog?
• What is the niche your blog will be about? General blogs often fail because of difficulties in building an audience across many different subjects areas.
• Why are you blogging? What makes you the right person to tell a story? What credentials do you have?
• Write down the mission statement for your blog.
• What is your vision for the blog? How many posts will you have written in a year? How many unique visitors will you have in 2012? How many commenters?

1 – Cover photo is an 851×351 pixel high resolution photo describing your brand

2 – Your brand logo

3 – About your organization

4 – Four apps, Photos is fixed, you can control the other three links

5 – Other apps or customer tabs you’ve enabled for your Page

6 – The Timeline control, visitors can go back in time to view your posts

7 – Page status update

8 – You can still share multimedia to capture the attention of your visitors.

“Knowing how to create truly effective electronic presentations is a skill set that no one can do without in today’s business environment,” explained Boyd. “And, since the Apple Mac is one of the best tools around, and my personal favorite for creating winning presentations, I wanted to share all the tricks and techniques I’ve learned over the years with an audience of Mac users.”

For those who want to improve their skills and learn how to build powerful and persuasive electronic presentations with a Mac, this talk can’t be missed.

The UWS Apple Store is located at 1981 Broadway in New York City. Space is limited, so please RSVP to upperwestsidebusiness@apple.com to reserve a seat.

About Brian Boyd
Brian Boyd is the founder and CEO of Media Connect Partners, LLC (MCP), a social media firm. Boyd combines his 20+ years experience in the business and IT worlds with the latest social media trends to craft social media strategy that keep his clients on the cutting edge.

Boyd was raised in the Pacific Northwest, and after many years in New York City, he has settled in Charlotte, NC. He holds a B.S. in Telecommunications from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, OK, and is a speaker at numerous conferences and workshops. You can follow Boyd @BrianBoyd on Twitter.

About Media Connect Partners, LLC
MCP was founded in 2010 as a spinoff of its parent company, BoydGroup Solutions, LLC (2001). MCP’s focus is creating social media strategies that bring measurable results for its customers. With offices in Charlotte, New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles, MCP can meet its clients where they are, putting teams on the ground at a moment’s notice. For more information, please visit http://www.mediaconnectpartners.com.

Media contact: Brian E. Boyd, Sr., brian@mediaconnectpartners.com, 800.MCP-1265.

###

Brian Boyd, CEO of Media Connect Partners, is no stranger to presentations. This year, he’s been on the road presenting more days than he’s been home – and he understands how to create and deliver impactful presentations. He doesn’t get an audience lost in “PowerPoint hell,” but instead delivers a timely, crisp, and clear message.

Brian is teaching a class at the Upper Westside Apple Store on creating and delivering powerful and effective presentations on Thursday, March 22 at 7:00 pm. Please RSVP to upperwestsidebusiness@apple.com.

Many marketing departments are structured to communicate passively to consumers without much thought (outside of market research and surveys) to how to carry on a two-way dialog. Since two way dialog is an essential part of your success in social media, we see a disconnect in how brands are using social media as compared to how they should be using it. In the industry, we just shake our heads at companies we think should know better, but when we take a step back – we are talking about fundamentally changing the mindset of people who have been in marketing a lot longer than we have been. In other words, when marketing has always been done one way and we are asking large corporations to take a huge shift in a short period of time, it shouldn’t shock us that some brands still don’t “get” social media.

One of the first, and possibly the most important, things you can do in social media is engage with people – to converse with them. If you only did this part of an effective social media execution, you’d be further along than many companies. But how do you find the people talking about you? And more importantly – how do you find the people not talking about you that you want to talk about you!

1. Follow discussions about your brand

Recently, we spoke to a very large and well-known organization that had a social media team that was very good at pushing out content, but didn’t understand the importance of responding to people in social media. One person started a negative discussion in social media about the organization and the internal team wasn’t aware of the hundreds of comments, retweets, and shares occurring without their response or involvement. This negative conversation had spiraled out of control without anyone noticing.

The first step to engaging with people is to understand what they’re saying about your brand. Review your Twitter mentions every day. Go read the comments people are posting to your Facebook wall. Read the reviews on Yelp. Check out tips people leave on FourSquare.

Take opportunities to talk with people – especially the ones upset with your organization. Responding and resolving a problem in social media will have far reaching positive impact.

2. Monitor organic conversations

There will be conversations that occur organically that your organization is not a party to, but can see in social media. Monitor these conversations for customer insights, tone, and things you can learn from.

For example, we work with a university that has several different social media channels. As a university, students, alumni, and faculty frequently have conversations that we do not take part in, but that are important to us as an organization to understand how people perceive us and what actions they take. We regularly monitor these types of public conversations to understand how people see the university.

In the same way, make sure you are monitoring and reviewing organic conversations for your business.

3. Review industry discussions

Outside of your organization, there are also conversations and discussions about your industry and competitors. These discussions can produce valuable insights into what your competitors are doing, what customers are looking for, and how you can gain a competitive advantage.

We work with a book publisher to assist their authors with social media marketing support. Reviewing and tracking industry discussions is vital to our efforts for an author – you can often identify influencers based on the discussions they have about the industry. We then reach out to the influencers to ask for feedback, to receive a copy of the book to read, or just to strike up a conversation. Social media provides a wealth of intelligence on what’s happening around you that trade journals don’t cover.

4. Track your conversations

You also need to track and measure how your conversations are performing. Though this is another marketing channel, it is also very engaging and if you measure the results of your engagement with people, you will find certain conversations and campaigns that resonate well with people.

We helped an organization find leads for a new service. We identified a half dozen different tactics to use and while most of them worked, some just flat didn’t work. That’s the amazing thing about social media – if you are measuring how well each tactic is doing, you’ll discover some work very well, some are just ok, and some just do not work. If we weren’t monitoring this, we might have made assumptions about the overall results of the project without discovering that some tactics didn’t fit.

Tracking your social media efforts will help you monitor and discover the right fit for your social media marketing.

Monitoring your brand and industry in social media is a significant part of executing your social media strategy. Without proper monitoring and measurement, you won’t have a complete picture of how you are performing, and you won’t be able to adequately measure the impact of social media in your organization.

Take Action

1. What tools are you using to monitor social media? If you don’t have any, research and identify a tool you can use to keep track of conversations and engagement.
2. How can you adapt your marketing team to become more focus on two-way communication with your customers?
3. Identify three things your competitors are doing better than you are in social media. What three things are you doing better?

For a number of companies, social media is an afterthought – something tagged onto a marketing campaign or off-loaded to a summer intern or someone from GenY who “gets social media.” This is a huge mistake!

We recently spoke to an organization with an 80 year history and a solid reputation. The firm hired a recent college graduate and assigned her social media with no real strategy or management. She simply posted whatever she felt like and Tweeted out cute quotes. The voice of this well respected 80 year old institution sounded like someone fresh out of college. When we pointed out this disconnect to the Chief Marketing Officer, a light turned on and he realized the mistake.

Social media is an interactive medium that can reflect on your brand in any number of ways, depending on your level of involvement and the image you portray. If you are not in control of your brand online, others will be.

Consider the recent Twitter disasters like an intern ranting on the Marc Jacobs corporate Twitter feed, Red Cross drinking a little too much, Chrysler swearing about Detroit traffic, Kenneth Cole’s ill-advised Egypt Tweet, or SweetLeaf Tea April talking about drinking and partying.

There are ways to avoid these types of disasters. We’ll explore using workflow tools, being smart about account management, and appropriate education.

Use Social Media Workflow Tools

At MCP, our in-house MCP Publisher system allows us to designate permissions to individuals so we can control the workflow of content and make sure only appropriate content is posted. A workflow system for social media allows you to designate people to approve content and schedule it so you reduce surprises.

We recommend every organization implement a social media workflow tool – even if just one person is managing your social media. Workflow tools allow you to schedule posts so your social media analyst can setup evergreen posts and spend time responding to people on a day-to-day basis.

Be Smart About Account Management

Learn from others’ mistakes and control your social media accounts. We limit the number of people who have access to our own corporate social media accounts on mobile devices and do not allow our analysts access to client accounts on their phones. This reduces a lot of potential for mistakes as many are made on the mobile apps.

We protect account passwords and change them frequently, only allowing access through our publishing system. This reduces posts at the account level and doesn’t allow people to make the mistake of not logging out.

If you are directly accessing a social account, make sure you log out after working on the account. It’s very easy to forget you’re logged in and mistakenly posts from the wrong account.

Educate Your Employees and Clients

Creating the right voice for your brand pages and then executing isn’t the simplest thing to do. We have regular opportunities to educate our employees and our client’s employees to make sure the voice is consistent, simple mistakes aren’t made, and appropriate safeguards are in place.

An errant Twitter or Facebook post isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a brand, but it is very embarrassing. Taking these 3 simple steps will help you avoid making the mistakes of other well known companies.