By Vic Conner
Droning on about Google and Facebook gets boring after a while. We all know that they are doing big things – we won’t stop telling you what they are, of course, but this week we have interest on Pinterest, eCommerce on Twitter, and Politics on Snapchat. Really? Politics on Snapchat you say? Yep.
Start Tweeting Products with Twitter’s eCommerce Pages
We have covered Twitters “Buy” button which they added last fall – but now the 140 character guys have announced a bigger move into e-commerce, specifically eCommerce Pages.
Single, or even multiple, tweets may not be enough to sell products and Twitter sees this. So they have announced the “Pages” and “Collections” feature. These will be built around products, product lines and such to provide more info about the stuff being sold. The pages include tweets – and the ability to buy the product.
Twitter is also allowing a number of “curators” to create “collections” about themes of interest. Like a collection of “wearables.” This collection would be particular gadgets that are chosen by the curator – each with its own page…and purchase options.
The collections and pages will be linked to tweets which look normal but include an embedded link that goes to the collection.
Twitter says it’s “just the beginning.” Check out one of the new “collections” on Twitter at Game of Thrones products.
Point is: If you are selling products or services and using Twitter as part of your plan (and you should be), you might consider checking out the “pages” option – and wouldn’t it be great if your product made it into a “collection.” This might not be possible if you don’t know a celeb – but you still need to keep your eye on Twitter as they are all abuzz.
Pinterest May Finally Catch Your Attention with ‘Pinterest Ads’
We have all been wondering how Pinterest was going to make some money. There is buzz about going public which they haven’t done yet but may do so this year, but the big question should be “where is the revenue stream?” They may have a solution… here it comes – actual Pinterest Ads.
Pinterest is fun… Pinterest is interesting, that’s why it is called P”interest.” It is often described as a “social scrapbook” but it is reportedly the third biggest social network. Hooked up to users’ Facebook friends with lots of ways to “follow” others.
They have rolled out “Buy” pins…we haven’t actually seen any yet but they announced it. Now Pinterest has announced the names of 8 ad-tech partners that are building services that make it easier to plan Pinterest posts.
Theoretically, all this comes with management and insight tools as the systems are reportedly similar to other tools on Facebook and Twitter.
Pinterest says the prospective income is “unreal” – theirs or yours? But still “unreal.” Keep your eyes pinned on Pinterest at AdWeek.
Point is: While Pinterest has been “Pinteresting”…it is now worth paying attention to as a marketing tool. If the big ad buyers are seriously looking at it – it may be interesting to you, too. You may not think it fits your target demographic, but you may be surprised and depending on how accessible the analytics tools are and the cost….well, check it out.
Can Snapchat Boost Voter Turnout? Really?
Wow! Snapchat is getting into the politics game, well – sort of. The company is hiring a “Content Analyst” for Politics and News to cover the upcoming presidential race.
Their hope is that by covering political news, they will get more political ads. They look pretty committed as they have hired a Google Ad guy to run the Ad show and they already had a CNN political reporter running the news team. The service works like this… users submit snaps and the Snapchat team uses them (plus others) to tell a story. One story leads to another… and hopefully the young, savvy political campaign manager will buy ads.
Snapchat acknowledges that they don’t have a lot of ad targeting – yet… but they do at least have age gating and geographic targeting and if this works out, they hope to boost voter turnout in certain areas. Voting on Snapchat starts at TechCrunch.
Point is: Like a lot of the “other” social media networks Snapchat doesn’t get a lot of attention. But this means a couple of things: 1. No matter what you know, there are things that you don’t and any demographic has certain characteristics that may be met with an oddball (at least to you) angle…and, 2. If snapchat can actually boost voter turnout – they might be taken seriously.
