Tag | Twitter

Social Media Image Sizes And Layouts

Thanks to the fantastic people at Lunametrics (and a hat tip to Mark at Status Social for bringing this to our attention), here is everything you need to know about image sizes across all the main social media platforms – this is a handy guide so that you can plan prior to putting your profiles together.

Please feel free to share the love of this infographic!

Still Not Convinced About Pinterest?

I have looking into Pinterest more and more this month and have been extremely surprised at the level of engagement I am finding from this new(ish) Social Media Platform.

Let me share a few (basic) statistics I have found so far (especially when I am comparing this to Twitter) – first up is my Google Analytics Data for visits to my website:

I was surprised to see as much traffic to my website from Pinterest (yes I know it is low traffic numbers, thanks for pointing it out!). As you can see it is the 3rd highest source of traffic to my website – way ahead of Twitter & LinkedIn.

What is even more surprising (and what caused me to write a brief blog post about it) is that when you line my profile stats up on Pinterest vs. Twitter – there is NO comparison:

Imagine if I had the same number of followers on Pinterest as I had on Twitter? I have read many blog posts about how Pinterest is driving much more traffic to people’s websites than Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+ and the data I am seeing in the “early days” certainly backs up this theory.

But as we know, traffic could be seen as vanity and conversions should be seen as sanity – and when I finally look at my own “conversions” over the same period then we see an old favourite making an appearance:

So there you have it (and I am slightly tongue in cheek with this as the data wouldn’t warrant proof) but Pinterest HAS driven more traffic to my website than the other Social Media Platforms, AND LinkedIN HAS provided me with more “referral” traffic (something that many blogs have also been written about).

I will be certain to keep an eye on this traffic, especially if I can grow my Pinterest network.

What experiences and results have you found? Please leave you comments below.

Twitter Adds New “Open” Functionality

It looks like Twitter have added extra functionality to their twitter stream. At the moment it isn’t showing up for everyone (apparently) however as you can see from the screenshot below, it now allows you to see a conversation as a whole in the stream (rather than opening to the right hand side of the stream).

New Twitter Open Function

It also appears that they are using the same visual display to show who retweeted your posts – which again was even more of a pain to monitor (you had to look to the right and scroll down to see the avatars of the people who had retweeted your story).

New layout for retweeted tweets

In my opinion, this is a really good addition to the twitter website that now allows you to grab conversations and see them in a less “clunky” manner. I particularly like the retweeted tweets layout as this makes it much easier to thank people for sharing your message.

What do you think? Good? Bad? Indifferent? What else does Twitter need to do on the website itself to improve functionality?

Please leave your comments below.

Google Joins Social Networking With Google+

Google have announced today (finally!) their latest (first?) attempt at getting a foothold in the Social Networking arena, and it would appear they have Facebook firmly in their sights.

Google+ – Facebook Worrier?

For more information read the Original Detailed Blog From HubSpot

But in summary it would appear to offer very different functionality:

• Firstly it contains “Circles” – (something I blogged about a while back when I was speculating on their entrance into the Social Networking Marketing) – this is the foundation of Google+, whereby it allows you to categorise your friends into different “groups” of friends. When you think about how you have your friends at the moment (e.g. on Facebook) – everyone just sits there…as a friend. No shared interests, no shared locations. At the most of facebook you might join a group, but this doesn’t really “categorise” your friends. Even on Twitter, the most you can do with people you follow is to put them into “lists” and listen. That’s it! Circles+ allows you place friends into groups – for example football mad, family, geeks etc.
• Secondly, Google+ Sparks - create a “spark” (i.e. a subject) and Google will collect information for you on this relevant topic and pull this through to your “spark”.
• Thirdly, A Separate Video & Photo section - allowing users to edit images, create photo effects and share this info with their friends (not sure about this to be honest, but I suppose we will wait and see!). There will also be “hangouts” which will allow people to video chat (in groups) which sounds like a good idea.

Unfortunately for us mere mortals this is still in beta – and invites would appear to be hard to come by (heck you can’t even join the waiting list the last time I clicked!!).

So what do people think – does this sound exciting or just another platform to get your head around?

Top 10 Twitter Tools According to @ZaddleMarketing

Tonight I gave a presentation at the #lincstweetmeet event on the top 10 twitter tools, covering both old twitter applications and new applications. In all honesty there were probably another 20 I could have added to the list (however I only had 18 minutes!)

Other worthwhile mentions include SocialOomph, Tweetdeck, SocialMention & Sprout Social

Do you agree?

Are there other applications you use or could recommend – feel free to share you tips below.