Monthly Archives: February 2013

A month and a half ago the word ‘Pinterest’ was not in my vocabulary. The thought of ‘pinning’ something online had never passed through my head.

Then, all of a sudden, everything changed. First my girlfriend signed up. Then I discovered many of my friends had joined. And soon I was reading class wikis about how libraries can use Pinterest to promote events and resources. All of this in a little over a month. I admit I am usually a little behind on innovations in social media but I feel like Pinterest has exploded on to the scene quite quickly. (So fast that it still shows up on my spell check as a misspelled word.)

As I became more and more aware of what Pinterest was and how it worked, it became more and more apparent that it is a perfect platform for advertisement exploitation. As far as I could tell, however, advertisers weren’t exploiting it. How could this be!? While businesses are able to promote their products and services with Pinterest, there is no dedicated advertisement section on the website. Basically, businesses wishing to promote themselves on Pinterest are restricted to using it in, virtually, the same way as you or I.

Meg’s social media blog helped me understand why Pinterest isn’t a giant advertising board. I find it very refreshing that a website with such potential for commercialization is taking the high ground and not selling out to businesses. Instead, Pinterest is remaining loyal to their users and keeping their website as a place to share interests and connect people with similar tastes.

Reality Check

Well, maybe not… Nick Cicero’s blog on socialfresh explores how a new redesign of the Pinterest website could be paving the way for sponsored pins and advertisements. By increasing the size and content of each pin as well as adding a related pin widget, Pinterest could be opening the door for advertisers. Cicero points out that, in particular, the related pins aspect looks like a perfect place to start adding sponsored pins and boards.

So will Pinterest go the way of Facebook and start adding permanent advertisements? It’s hard to say. It is undeniable, however, that the potential for commercialization and profits on this website is huge.

The ‘Cool’ Cost of Advertising

So, if Pinterest (or any social media site for that matter) can make a bunch more money by allowing advertisers on to their site, why don’t they? While this is a topic that warrants in depth research (and perhaps a future blog post…) it seems like one central reason is the ‘cool’ factor of not becoming a slave to business. Much like how people abhor musical groups for ‘selling out’, user comments on Cicero’s blog indicate that people don’t like advertisements (surprise, surprise) and they don’t like when their favourite websites start catering to advertising companies. While I’m sure there are many angles to this story, maintaining integrity and a clean image is important for user-based social media sites. As quickly as social media sites can rise, they can also fall (ahem, MySpace). As tempting as profits are, the risk of alienating one’s user base cannot be ignored.

Further Reading

http://socialfresh.com/pinterest-users/ – Stats on Pinterest users

http://adage.com/article/digital/pinterest-launches-business-pages-cozy-brands/238295/ – signs that Pinterest is inching closer and closer to brands and businesses

I’ve never blogged before. I’ve read blogs. But I’ve never blogged personally. I’m unsure as to what to say and, more importantly, unsure of how to say it.

That’s what inspired me to read this lovely little post from the ironically named Anti-Social Media blog.

Considering I’ve never blogged before and, thus, nobody has read a blog of mine, I felt I needed to make my blogs more readable, which would inspire more people to read my blogs, which would inspire me to write a blog… if you follow my logic.

Lessons for a good blogger

Lame humor aside, this post was actually very helpful in getting my bearings as I take my first steps into the new world of blogs. Its main point is a well organized blog is a readable blog. The author of the above mentioned post, says that there are three strategies to constructing a well organized blog.

• use subheadings to grab attention
• use bullets to break down points quickly (that’s what I’m doing here!)
• use bold to draw the reader to the main point of a paragraph

These seem like useful tips. People aren’t stupid, they are perfectly capable of reading long paragraphs and complex sentences, but they do have limited amounts of time during a day. It’s unfair to expect them to read a long-winded, drawn out post without knowing whether or not it will be worth their time.

That’s where these tips come in. Structural tools like these let people easily skim a post and determine whether or not it’s worth their time.

How this relates to social media in a broad sense

To take this idea further, there are those who believe that social media sites and mobile technology have ruined people’s ability and desire to search deeper into topics and ideas. Twitter and facebook have created the false expectation that a complete, well-rounded opinion of a subject can be obtained or expressed in 140 characters. I admit I used to think this way as well. Not any more.

This manner of thinking underestimates the general intelligence of humanity. Call me an optimist but I think people are aware that, while social media is one way of obtaining information, it is not the most complete nor the only way. It is simply a quick way. Blogs, tweets and facebook posts may be brief and tailored for a quick read but they allow us to experience a ton of information in manageable portions. Social media allows us to skim a huge amount of information on a virtually limitless variety of topics and then make our own decisions as to what to investigate further. This seems like an incredibly useful affordance.

But, I digress. I started off talking about how to organize a blog and ended up talking about how social media allows us to experience information. I guess I still need improvement in the whole organization thing… oh well. Like I said, it’s my first time.

Further Reading

http://www.inc.com/ss/10-must-have-blog-techniques#9 – General tips on how to get your blog noticed

http://www.wpwebhost.com/30-techniques-to-create-an-effective-blog/ – Kind of a long list but the content is good

http://www.pcgdigitalmarketing.com/20120430-10-creative-blogging-techniques-to-smash-through-writers-block/ – A good site to help those of us searching for blogging ideas