With social media, you not only have to be part of knowing what the major platforms are, but how to effectively coordinate them across other platforms that help define your overall online reputation. Personally, I consider myself to be connected with social media both professionally and personally. So much so I feel like my fashion definitely is inspired by it. This particular pin showcases how you can let social media be an inspiration for your fashion, and I realized that my sister (the social media fashionista herself) had blue as one of her colors for her wedding. However, we agreed that it was Facebook blue, which of course made me super happy! Fabulous!
Looking for inspiration for all aspects and interests you have personally is one of the great features Pinterest has for businesses, professionals, and agencies within public relations. I have been on the site now for a few months, and I have truly enjoyed all of the various possibilities this particular platform has to offer not only personally in terms of interests (have really enjoyed collecting recipes I want to try out in the future – I’m a foodie of course!) to using it as a way to bookmark favorite info graphics related to my research, teaching, and consulting interests.
So, how do you use Pinterest effectively in managing your online reputation and building a community? Here are a few tips I have regarding this:
- Create boards for both personal and professional interests: This is one way to show people who you are not only as a professional, but as a person as well. I have some professional boards, and then I have others of my own personal interests in cooking, photography, athletics, and even event planning (in preparation for my sister’s wedding this summer).
- Curating information relevant and timely to your professional interests: I have boards set up for social media, PR, reputation management, crisis communications, and mobile technologies – all related to my professional and research interests. This is a great way to distinguish yourself from others in these areas as well as being generous with the information and knowledge you found that may be useful for others. Also, have an about you board where you can upload an info graphic resume, video interviews, presentations you have done (via video), and other visual documents to give others a picture of who you are and how you are different from other professionals in the field.
- Proper use of #hashtags and sharing capabilities across other social media platforms: Proper use of hashtags related to the content you are sharing and uploading for Pinterest is key – people search for specific items not only on Pinterest, but also on Twitter, so this is something to keep in mind. For example, for social media info graphics, I usually have something attached like #socialmedia or #SoMe and for crisis communications I have #crisis or #crisiscomm, since these are popular hashtags to follow. Also, if you have a strong following on Twitter, you may want to also share these pins with your followers as well so they have this useful information as well.
- Fine tune your key word search skills: Understanding what key terms will be used to get the best results on Pinterest is a skill. Some images that come up as social media are good, while others are not. You have to look at what people are tagging for these images and determine whether or not these items are good to include on your boards.
- Follow influencers on Pinterest: See what other professionals you respect in your field are sharing and uploading on Pinterest to see what they are interested in and sharing with their own followers. A few examples of people to follow on Pinterest in PR and Social Media would be of course Brian Solis, Deirdre Breakenridge, Andrew Worob, Neal Schaffer, Robert French, and Karen Russell to name a few. For agencies, I would recommend MDG Advertising, PR Newswire, Edelman Digital, and of course Mashable.
In summary, Pinterest is a wonderful platform not only to share and curate information, but also a platform for you as a professional to establish your presence and extend your online reputation. For public relations professionals, we have to do this on a regular basis not only for our own work, but making sure we teach our students and fellow young professionals how to do this as well.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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