Jonny - Head of Social Media Here’s a great infographic we came across highlighting the key moments in social media’s short history. What does the future hold I wonder?
Jonny - Head of Social Media 
You would have to be a bit of a hermit to not have seen an article in the last few weeks talking about how Pinterest is the next big social media phenomenon.
At DBD Media we are impressed with the uptake of Pinterest, especially as it is still in closed beta. The site is also being seen as a decent referrer of traffic to websites – reportedly better than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube.
However a word of caution – most of the uptake of the platform is happening in the US – 66 million of a total 73 according to Google Doubleclick Adplanner. The UK traffic is estimated at 860k – so yet to be significant when compared to other more established social media channels.
Pinterest’s usage is being driven by creatives and other early adopters – sharing things that interest or inspire them – e.g. things they want to buy, food, great photography, fashion, quotes, wedding ideas, designs, books, videos etc. This certainly makes the platform interesting from a content curation perspective.
Companies need to be aware that details about them (such as individual products, venue photos etc.) are being shared. It is worth finding out what is specifically of interest to people and which people are “pinning” them. These people might hold some degree of influence on the platform itself or even wider afield (e.g. on Twitter, bloggers etc.).
The site also presents an opportunity for brands to curate their own content (i.e. pinning things themselves) and I’m sure this will evolve as the platform looks to monetise itself. Right now, the lines are a little blurred – the platform asks for people to “avoid self promotion” and unsolicited advertising is not allowed. That said, some companies are already experimenting with Pinterest with some good success. Please read this article on MyCustomer.com which highlights a couple of brand examples and has some of my thoughts on why they work.
UPDATE 14/02: here’s a nice infographic comparing US and UK Pinterest usage. Food for thought…
UPDATE 15/02: Here’s an article on Pinterest on New Media Knowledge with me quoted.
Jonny - Head of Social Media With high street retailers closing down at an alarming rate, we felt the time was right to examine how renowned UK retailers are performing in terms of social media. Are they fully taking advantage of the channel?
Here’s the first of our regular snapshots for Brand Republic’s social media blog The Wall. First up the casual outdoor fashion space and White Stuff, Superdry, Joules, Fat Face and Crew Clothing.
Jonny - Head of Social Media 
TripAdvisor, the popular travel website, has been ordered by the ASA to rewrite its marketing claims. The ruling stated that claims such as “reviews that you can trust” and that it had “more than 50 million honest travel reviews” were misleading and could not be substantiated.
People often associate Wikipedia with the wisdom of crowds i.e. that many are smarter than a few. The site is built on the foundation that if there is enough interest in a subject, the truth and facts will come out. The same could be applied other social media platforms including TripAdvisor itself. A hotel that has overwhelmingly positive reviews but has no wider recognition online or beyond might be exploiting the system. Similarly as a holidaymaker you should not be taking one or two single reviews as gospel when holiday planning.
TripAdvisor at its most basic offers guidance of where to potentially stay when on holiday, as well as a vehicle to book. Reviews, and therefore hotels, should be seen as relative to one another i.e. a hotel that on average receives better reviews (and lots of them) is generally better than another. Recently the site has also added Facebook functionality so there’s now an important layer of social context.
Although it is open to abuse, TripAdvisor like many other social media platforms is generally a force for the good and has had a massive positive impact on the travel industry. It has made hotels much more accountable and directly influences the quality of service by the hotels willing to listen and engage. Ultimately there is a great opportunity for hotels to drive genuine, honest and positive reviews, therefore influencing reputation and the bottom line.
Here’s hoping this ruling doesn’t impact the site’s influence.
Jonny - Head of Social Media It’s only the 11th of January and already the various social media power houses are looking to outmanoeuvre one another. Google has just introduced functionality that connects its search engine with Google+, which Twitter has come out rather strongly against. Facebook, in the meantime, is rolling out Sponsored Stories into user news feeds. Let the war rage on…
Regarding the Google developments we’ve hardly had time to draw our breath, let alone decide what the implications are for social media and SEO strategy. That said there are a couple of things we can conclude:
1. Google is highly aggressive in its approach to become a big player in social media and is gaining some impressive ground
2. Social media’s influence on search is highly likely to become huge
With these points in mind, we believe that Google+ should be included as part of an integrated social media strategy and, more importantly, that an integrated approach to social media and search marketing is required to reap all the benefits that are on offer.
The signals really do point to integration.