More marketing features just got announced on Pinterest
It’s almost the holiday season, which means companies are posting guides and announcing features with the same fervent energy as a kid running downstairs on Christmas morning. Pinterest is one of those companies, and yesterday it announced new global shopping features and advertising options for marketers ahead of the holidays.
Let’s unwrap the announcement:
- We’re getting more real estate. Pinterest stated that it will be integrating ads into more shopping experiences in the U.S. and the UK. The new options will allow marketers to explore more options for placing relevant content in front of users.
- Conversion insights are getting a boost. You’ll be able to analyze video performance, view your top-performing Pins, and turn those top-performing pins into killer ads.
- Shopping features are coming to the UK. If you’re a marketer in the UK, this is big news – Pinterest is adding their shopping tab to the UK version of the app, providing another channel for users to discover and purchase items.
The Crew’s take: It’s clear that Pinterest is continuing to take steps towards becoming a legitimate platform for e-commerce – and the company says as much in the announcement.
Are you planning on taking advantage of the new features?
Facebook takes another step towards total domination (sorry, we mean integration)
Just a couple of weeks after Facebook announced the launch of Business Suite, the company made another update that aims to integrate its products.
The new feature, called Account Center, was primarily created to help manage data and payments across both Facebook and Instagram – but that’s not all it can do. These are the three main categories visible in the screenshots that Facebook provided:
- Logging in across accounts. This makes it easier for you to view posts and connect across both Facebook and Instagram, which should eliminate the need to log in repeatedly.
- Facebook Pay information. Coming later this year, the Facebook Pay feature in accounts center will let you make payments and donations, seamlessly, across both social media platforms.
- Story and post sharing. This feature will let users share stories and posts to Facebook and Instagram at the same time, without having to repeat the process one platform at a time.
What does this mean for marketers? This update could make the day-to-day easier with the business accounts that you manage, as the new features make it easier to manage accounts across platforms.
And, from a user-focused perspective, more integration with Pay means it’ll be easier for customers to purchase your products without entering their details time and time again – which is most definitely a win.
SPONSORED BY SUPREMEDIA
Media500 are now Supremedia
Media500 has rebranded and from this moment is called Supremedia! Don’t fret, it’s still the same bunch with the go-getter attitude and high-converting affiliate offers! All that’s changed is new and improved technology, faster conversions… and a few nice surprises.
Here’s what Supremedia has to say:
“As a part of our commitment to you we have tested a more technologically advanced tracking system, called EverFlow, allowing us to all stay ahead of the game.
Having spent many weeks testing, QC and comparing this technology against HasOffers, it’s proven EverFlow is consistently the better tool for higher conversion rates”
Now about those surprises… To celebrate rebranding, they’ve prepared 5 incredible gifts for you:
Gift #1: A free 1-on-1 session with the one and only FBQueen, Christina Szekeres (a $3000 value!)
Gift #2: Access to all of Media500’s cross-promo discount deals – for traffic sources, spy tools, and forums!
Gift #3: Send 10 FTDs from any and all tier 1 geos, and get 1 free!
Gift #4: Access to a free case study from iAmAttila, on how to use the brand-new, state-of-the-art Facebook spy tool, Visto!
Gift #5: Mega-discounts on Banners & Landers’ top 3 services:
- Hand-Built WordPress Safe Sites with Unique Content: 50 Safe Sites – $50 each; 100 Safe Sites – $40 each; 250+ Safe Sites – $30 each.
- Turnkey Ecom Product Advertorial, Offer Page on WordPress, and Checkout Page Design: Regular price: $1899, now only $1399 ($500 off!)
- Custom Angle Writing & Advertorial Speed Optimized Design: Now only $399 each ($101 off!)
To order, add them on Telegram – @bannerslanders or skype:bannerslanders and mention Media500.
To claim any gift, sign up to Supremedia here.
CONTENT MARKETING
The easiest way to adapt a piece of content for multiple platforms
We’ll get straight to the point: Start with a video.
Why?
Did you know that the average person types at 41 words per minute (WPM), but the average person speaks at about 150 WPM? That makes speaking about 3.5 times faster than typing.
And yes, we can already see the typing wizards out there ready to let us know that they can, in fact, type at 150 WPM. Unfortunately, that’s not the norm (if it was, this newsletter would be written a whole lot faster).
Moreover, you need to do research for every article you write – and that’s not as simple as it sounds.
Instead, you can record a video of yourself, and then send the video to a transcription service. There would be still editing needed, but the final process would still be much faster.
If you’ll try this strategy, here’s a step by step process created by Liam Barnes.
Using videos to create content at scale
#1 – Grab attention with your topic: It always starts with content ideation, which is often the hardest part. But, you have to start from the goal you want to achieve.
Do you want to drive top of the funnel clicks? Or maybe instead break down the use of your product?
It’s easier to start once you’ve got your goals lined up.
#2 – Create an outline for the blog: Record the video similar to how you would write a blog article. In other words, create the structure of your future blog post, and record a video according to this structure.
#3 – Decide where your content will be distributed: This will influence how you record your video. A video for a consultancy business will be different from a video for a surfboard brand, for example.
#4 – Time to record: There are numerous free software options, like Zoom or Loom.
#5 – Transcribe your video using a tool.
#6 – Edit the transcription for blog format: If you outlined the blog post properly before recording the video, this will be easy. Copy and paste each section into the desired area for your blog and add your photos, keywords, and links as desired.
#7 – Chop your video into digestible parts: Crop the video and the blog post into small parts that can be shared across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, etc.
And boom! A 10-minute long video will turn into a 2500 word post, which can be optimized for the SERPs.
And that same video will get you covered with content for social platforms for months. Meme, gifs, tweets, IG Stories, a YouTube video, Facebook posts. There are many things you can extrapolate from a video – let’s get recording!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
TWITTER: If you’ve been following along with this newsletter, you’ll know that voice chats are soon coming to Twitter. Yesterday, the company announced that voice Tweets will be rolling out to increasing numbers of users on iOS.
FACEBOOK: The move from Facebook to phase out 28-day CTA is a damaging one for consultants and marketers like Savannah Sanchez – check out her brief Twitter thread to find out why.
ANALYTICS: A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one; Cloudflare has announced a free analytics service that’s available to everyone, even people who aren’t Cloudflare customers.
GOOGLE: A mini-site of holiday resources for small businesses was just dropped by Google. Looking for some ideas for the holidays? This might be helpful.
ADVERTISING: Are your CPMs spiking? This tweet from Ads Alchemist is a great list of what to consider changing.
BRAIN TEASER
If boiling water is poured into a thick drinking glass as well as a very thin wine glass, of the two, which is more likely to crack?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Wait, what?
Ah, the work-from-home era.
It’s brought plenty of things along with it: Zoom calls so long you could take a nap and wake up and people would still be introducing themselves, a lot more working from coffee shops and park benches, and, most importantly – no more commute.
Yeah, your possibly hours-long commute in standstill traffic is a thing of the past. Or, at least you thought it was.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft thinks you’ve been missing your commute. And, because of this, they’re creating an update for Microsoft Teams that will prompt users to schedule a ‘virtual commute’ at the beginning and end of the work day.
You won’t be forced to sit through Google Earth screenshots of traffic, though – the feature will have users set goals and reflect on the work day.
It’s not a bad idea, actually – but with the phrasing ‘virtual commute’, we imagine it’ll be difficult to get everyone on board.