• Faces are more popular
• Top and center pins (even though they are chronological) are more likely to be repinned
• The profile information is easily ignored over the content

Here’s a screen shot of one of the examples, but feel free to poke around the article for more break downs of eye patterns.

I think that it’s interesting to think of Pinterest like the aisles of a grocery store. Having worked with a major grocery chain for my Campaigns class, we learned about the need for placement within stores and how brands give benefits to store owners in attempt to win that prime real estate. Since shoppers are proven to purchase products about eye-to-chest-level while in the store, that leads to more sales. Pinterest seems to be much the same. Even when a browser window is not full screen, pins range across five columns, limiting how many can be seen and increasing missed pins unless the user scrolls sideways. It will be interesting if Pinterest decides to dabble in advertising on their pages (a move that would be highly unappealing to users who already feel bombarded by brands across social media platforms) and where they chose to place those promotions. This is also key for brands utilizing Pinterest in placing their boards and pins within their own accounts.

Phones (regardless of how “smart” they are)

For many people it’s second nature to check your phone every few minutes for texts and email updates. You might even want more points on your current (verb)ing with friends, but your phone should really be left alone while at work on silent. Some professors you can get away with sneaking a peek at the touch screen of glory, but you never know if your boss, or their boss, will be walking up to your desk right then.

Social Media Platforms

I’ve struggled with this part in my past internships, not because I can’t resist logging onto Facebook or Twitter, but because my intern assignments require me to be on the platforms for research or content growth. It makes it difficult when a notification from a friend pops up in the middle of that, but I try my best to resist checking on it.It’s best to not be logged into these if you can.

If there are lulls in your work day, that’s perfect time to ask your supervisor for another task, help someone else out, or question another person in the office about their job and tasks. Use the extra time to grow, since you were lucky enough to be offered the position to learn from that company.

As silly as it sounds, saving up your notifications, messages, and alerts until the end of the work day give you something to do on your commute home or nights with no homework. Think of it as playing hard to get with your thousands of followers!

Email Proofing

My generation has become more and more casual with our methods of communicating, through email to text to HeyTell to having Siri write your texts for you. It is important to remember at the office that email ettiquite applies to even inter office exchanges. Some quick tips:

• BCC and CC supervisors when appropriate
• Double check and triple check who you are sending and what you are sending them. No one wants to create lag in the correspondence and reply with “there was no attachment!”
• Be brief and to the point, everyone is busy busy busy
• Remember that your work can most likely monitor all your email and web activity. Keep personal emails separate and at home
• Understand how your company is represented in each email you send out

Sources:

Bad Tech Etiquette to Avoid at Work (Mashable)

101 Email Etiquiette Tips

Here’s a bit of what I did on Saturday with my family and friend:

My favorite part is the list of news stories that broke on social media including the Hudson River plane crash, annoucement of the royal wedding (almost one year Will and Kate!!), Whitney Houston’s death, and Osama bin Laden raid and death. Crazy! Or should I say, #crazy!

The last-month-kick of school has been aggressively “kicking” me so I apologize for the lack of updates recently!

“The survey provides practitioners with practical information they can use to better manage the communication functions in their organizations; identifies Best Practices against which they can benchmark their own organizations; and pinpoints trends to be aware of as they plan for tomorrow.”

I’ve copied their key findings in order to keep their language and message exact, but I thought it was worth sharing! Overall, the PR industry is growing at a health rate (with a spot being assigned for someone in the c-suite), social media participation and measurement is accepted as necessary, and traditional marketing/PR is declining as emphasis is being put on social, customer relations, and internal communications. Enjoy!

Source: http://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/120326GAP.aspx

Key Findings

• Budgets are mostly up: Public corporations on average reported higher public relations/communications (PR/Comm) budgets than respondents did two years ago. When asked about budget expectations for next year, more than 50% expect no change, while more than 25% actually anticipate budget growth.
• Measurement and evaluation are on the rise: Corporations report an increase from 4% to 9% in the portions of their total budgets allocated to measurement and evaluation of PR/Comm programs. This pronounced rise speaks to widespread adoption of social media monitoring tools and increasing use of primary research in program planning and evaluation.
• How you measure is linked to success: While companies have distinctly different approaches to PR/Comm measurement those measures tend to group into two categories:  “Outcomes” and “Outputs.” Companies utilizing “Outcomes” measures such as influence on stakeholder attitudes and opinions, the bottom line, etc. are much more likely to say they have a good external reputation and are successful than are companies that rely on traditional “PR output” measures — such as clips, impressions, and advertising equivalency.
• PR/COM has its seat at the table: In nearly 60% of responding companies PR/COM reports directly to the “C-Suite” (chairman, CEO, COO, etc.), reflecting today’s increasingly transparent, communication-intensive environment.
• Social media has become mainstream: Seventy percent of PR/Comm departments report budgetary responsibility for social media monitoring and 66% for social media participation. This reflects a 17% and 13% growth, respectively, over two years ago. Further reflecting a shift to Web 2.0 communication is a rise in responsibility for search engine optimization (SEO). However, PR/Comm departments appear to be mostly taking on increased social media responsibilities without additional budget.
• Some social media tools are hotter than others: The most widely used social media tools by corporations are social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, which is used by 53% of public companies), micro blogging (i.e. Twitter, also used by 53% of public companies),  Search Engine Optimization (52%), and sharing and producing online videos. Meanwhile, the use of wikis and virtual worlds has become nearly extinct.
• The field is expanding to include new functions: In addition to growth in social media the PR/COM field is experiencing growth in the areas of Internal Communication (up from 47% to 58% of respondents having such responsibility over the last two years) and Customer Relations (up from 6% to 15%).
• Marketing/product PR is in a state of decline: While still a “Core” function with 51% of corporate respondents having budgetary responsibility for it (versus 61% in 2009), there has been a substantial decrease in the emphasis on traditional Marketing/Product PR. This could be attributable to an increasing reliance on social media to promote products.
• Agency-of-record relationships are vanishing: Over the last ten years, the use by client organizations of a single outside PR agency of record has consistently decreased. In 2002, more than 50% of public corporations reported an AOR relationship. This number decreased continuously and has now shrunk to just over 15%. At the same time, the number of agencies used by corporations on an ongoing or project basis continues to increase. This is likely the result of a need for specialized and/or regionally focused agency services.

The event was a great success as a grass-roots effort from students to help each other. Career services was there giving out free business cards and representatives from Brooks Brothers even gave advice on office appropriate attire. Talking with professionals and sharing my opinion and thoughts on the industry boosted my confidence AND excitement for my future career. It was perfect timing because I have a 10+ page “career plan” due in my campaigns class today about my goals and exactly how I will get there. As much as I am excited, writing all of those steps and plans out is very daunting; I never want to leave the Elon bubble! Except for when I find my perfect job in a year as a social media analyst and am ready to then be a big girl!

There are 100 million users on Twitter and 50% log in daily contributing to 240 MILLION tweets per day!

While obviously this is not as bad as an addiction, I have seen it first hand. Everything funny that happened at spring break was posted, muploaded, or tweeted within seconds to Twitter. The Twitter app on my friends’ phones still rivals Words with Friends and Draw Something. Professionals, adults, teens, kids, and businesses all head to Twitter for a quick, fleeting synopsis of recent news, headlines, stories, jokes. I even recently retweeted an article that people find psychological comfort in hitting up social media platforms like Twitter in times of a natural disaster. Even celebrities are addicted!

Here’s an infographic showing the numbers.

What do you think? Do you think you could go a day, or week without mentioning the little blue bird? Or would that just be a “whale of a fail”?

My favorite part of these is that the first one listed out what users are actually using Pinterest for (aside from the joke of “every girl pins clothes they can’t afford, in a house they’ll never own, to make food they  don’t have access to, with a wedding to a groom they haven’t met”). But here’s what the experts say:

• Expressing themselves through pictures and images relevant to their lives (I’ve actually heard from numerous HR/PR professionals that employees are checking out potential hires’ pinterest accounts to get to know them and their interests)
• Reminding themselves of things they want to do, buy, or revisit (I have a board for each of these!)
• Sharing and recommending things that they think others should know about (Pinterest needs to make their tagging feature among friends more usable and popular and this is complete)
• Learning about and exploring specific or random topics (I love looking through the “everything” feed of pins to see a wide selection of what others are into)
• Searching for and discovering new or specific things to do, buy, look at, or read (Pinterest covers all niches like teacher craft ideas, DIY projects for new moms, all-in-a-day home renovations, sorority crafts for littles, and the list goes on)

While she shared much information about the company, innovative social media campaigns, and insight for students wanting to get into the industry, one of the most interesting things she talked about was the workflow of information and brainstorms within the company. Ignite is set up with five departments: Account, Strategy, Engagement, Development, and Metrics/Monitoring. She went into detail about the responsibilities of each and I found it so noteworthy how each department stays involved. In my campaigns class we have been conducting brainstorms for creative concepts. Nicole shared that at Ignite, these brainstorms include one person from every department. At first, this seems odd that a person working for the creative side or measurement side would need to be involved before an idea was even established. She said it works because each person can give feedback to how a certain idea or tactic will fit in their segment of the workflow cycle (for example, if something could not be feasible or didn’t make sense in the bigger strategic picture). Involving everyone will prevent hiccups or bigger barriers down the road in a campaign. At Ignite, a company with 60+ employees in Cary, NC and Detroit, MI, it is important to have strong teamwork values and keep everyone in the loop.

Nicole’s insight also made me rethink, or think further, into which department of social media within communications I would want to work. Account people manage day-to-day oversight with specific clients and campaigns. Strategist she self-described as the “dream killers” as they make sure everything remains on track with the over arching goals. Engagers work on interaction and relations within the community and audience of the client. Development is the creative side, including mock-ups and technical tangible items. Metrics/Monitoring monitors channels and reports on and reaches goals. My internships and research have prepared me for what I call “social media analytics” but within the agency setting,I may have many more opportunities to fine-tune that!

I hope that experience over the next year will give me better insight as to what I specifically would like within social media! I wanted to give Nicole one more thank-you shout out and I urge everyone to check out her and Ignite online. It goes without saying that they have a “handle” on the twitter, facebook, blogging, and rest of the Web 2.0 world!