So, who’s using it? You guessed it. WOMEN. Eighty percent of Pinterest users are female and they are spending more time on there than Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ combined.

The rapid growth can certainly be attributed somewhat to a higher acceptance of social networks now. But keep in mind, there are thousands of new startups in the social arena. What makes Pinterest different? As noted in an article on Mashable, CEO and co-founder of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann said, “the growth has been organic: People would join, become proud of their collections and show it to their friends.” (what women want)

And according to CNN Tech, Silberman said the site will soon roll out new profile pages that have been redesigned to look “more beautiful” and to display users’ influencers more prominently.

Women are flocking to Pinterest and the infographic below reveals just how powerful it is, but more importantly, the opportunities it offers brands. 

Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising,Birmingham, AL. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

As social networks continue to grow on a daily basis, one thing remains constant:

Expectations for transparency and honesty are on the rise.

Marketers, please keep in mind:
Apologies and/or explanations are more forgiving than cover-ups.

Auburn University and Gus Malzahn, Auburn’s Offensive Coordinator are likely going to find this out – the hard way.  Kristi Malzahn, wife of Gus Malzahn, is the subject of a video that went viral a few days ago. Kristi Malzahn spoke at the Summit, a Christian conference, on Oct. 6. and was promoted to speak about “her passion for Christ, through authentic and intentional living in the wonderful world of coaching football.”

The interview, we can only assume, did NOT go as planned.

The Summit originally posted the video on their site, however, it was removed a few days ago with no explanation. This has led to speculation and even more intense ridicule. And since the Summit had no qualms about posting the video in the first place, it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that there has been pressure from either the Malzahn family or the Auburn family to have it removed, as it represents both poorly.

So, what was so bad?
In her 30-minute interview, Kristi Malzahn covers the gamut from raising serious concerns with Auburn’s recruiting practices to saying that 18-22 year old kids are not the most intelligent people out there. She calls Auburn fans, “freaking nuts,” states that Gene Chizik, Auburn’s head football coach, did not want Cam Newton, refers to the National Championship as the State Championship and even begrudges Lou Holtz for his lisp.

CLEARLY, something is desperately wrong here. So, simply address it. Explain that she had a bad day, or she took the wrong medication or maybe she forgot to take her medication. Anything. The public is forgiving of mistakes – but not cover-ups or trying to sweep it under the rug. Which is exactly what someone is doing. There seems to have been an all-out effort to remove everything short of Kristi Malzahn’s vocal chords.

Within the past few days:

The Summit deleted the video from their site (above) and removed it from Vimeo:

Kristi’s Twitter account (which she touts in the video)  was deleted:

Kristi’s Facebook account was deleted:

The video on YouTube which generated more than 130,000 views in about 48 hours was deleted (which, for the record, simply looks as though they are trying to hide something):

But unfortunately, as we all know… once on the Internet, “ALWAYS” on the Internet.

That one video has now been replaced with (as of today) “seven” more which have generated an additional 80,000+ views:

Further, the top two results, when you do a Google search for “Gus Malzahn” (who has coached since 1992 and helped lead Auburn to a National Championship just last year) is about, you guessed it, Kristi Malzahn’s video. The top one being an article in Sports Illustrated on SI.com.

Marketers, please take heed.

The public relations world has changed forever. To simply “ignore” or “spin” a situation is not a viable option. 

And to attempt to keep things quiet, simply guarantees they will get louder and louder.

I will be presenting on the power of the female consumer in a session titled: Why and How to Effectively Market to Women in Today’s Economic Climate. Are there any topics or questions you feel should be addressed? Also, I would love to know who’s planning to be there!

Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

• Ashton Kutcher beats CNN to reach 1,000,000 followers first
• Oprah has over 367,000 followers after just 3 days of Tweeting
• Domino’s learns the power of social media with a PR crisis
• Doctors begin tweeting during surgery
• Twitter users up 131% in March

As Social Media and Twitter, specifically, become mainstream, one thing is certain— people are on the Internet, and Social Networking tools like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or the next big thing are how they connect. Twitter started three years ago, and it has taken @aplsuk (AshtonKutcher) about a year to accumulate 1,000,000 followers. Oprah started tweeting last Friday and had over 130,000 the first day.

But it is not only the volume of people who are now participating at exponential rates that makes Social Media relevant; it is also the diversity in how it is used. We are seeing interactive sites used as:

• a platform for people to have their say and give their opinions
• a place to create like-minded communities
• a vehicle for real-time updates on virtually any event
• a place to learn details from baking cookies to performing surgery
• a voice for philanthropies
• a place to share recipes
• a place to build relationships

“Women have the tools at their disposal now to build an inherent connectivity with brands and to launch new businesses. We must partner with women and invite their co-brand management for brands to continue to succeed in the future — let’s start by listening.”  Kelley Skoloda, AdWeek

The question is, are you ready? Are you preparing your company to reach women on the Internet? Are you preparing to speak to them effectively? Are you prepared to give more timely reactions to potentially unsolicited PR nightmares such as the Domino’s YouTube scandal? Are you thinking about how to optimize the Internet, for instance, allowing students to tweet questions during surgeries? These are no longer optional questions.

Social Media is not going away. It will most certainly change faces over time. That is to say, people might not be using YouTube and Facebook or they might not be tweeting. Newer tools will likely develop and become more popular, but the two-way conversation has begun and will only continue to grow.

We will not be going back to one-way dialog where you tell your customers what they are supposed to think about your product or service. They are telling you what they think, and you need to be listening and reacting – fast.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

Yesterday, PRSA’s Birmingham chapter hosted Peter Shankman, social media marketing guru, founder of HARO and Twitter’s @skydiver. I was up front with pen to paper and I’m posting today to share a few nuggets I took away. Enjoy!

LESSONS LEARNED:

• If you’re using social media correctly, other people should be doing your p.r. for you.
• Reach out to people when you don’t need anything. That way you’ll always be top-of-mind—the person who gets called when your contacts need something.
• Four things make online marketing successful:

Transparency: Be straightforward. If you avoid smoke-and-mirrors or self-serving messages, you’ll gain the respect of your online community.
Relevance: Give your community news in the way they want to get it. Be timely.
Brevity: We’re becoming a sound bite society. Say what you need to say quickly.
Top-of-Mind Awareness: When, information or advice is needed, you want to be the go–to person.

• To ensure you keep followers on Twitter, tweet out two kinds of information: things that are funny and things that are interesting.
• You can tweet “I’m eating yogurt,” and no one cares. But if you tweet “I’m eating X brand yogurt. It’s delicious and you can download a coupon for it @link,” it becomes interesting, beneficial and helpful information.
• We are becoming one world, one network.

QUOTABLES:

“Preacher, parent, boss. If any of those three wouldn’t approve, don’t post it online.”

“MySpace Arsenioed a year ago.”

“The average attention span on 18-35 year-olds is 140 characters or 2.7 seconds.”

“If you can’t change the people around you, change the people around you.”

“Every 12 days, Facebook grows by the number of people currently on Twitter.”

GREAT SITES TO VISIT:

Search.Twitter.com
Peoplebrowsr.com
Doyoupoken.com

RECOMMENDED READING:

Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service
by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

Can We Do That?
by Peter Shankman

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

But the reality is, these marketers simply don’t get it. This is not using Social Media as a precursor to unveil a traditional marketing campaign. This IS the campaign. And while time will tell exactly how effective Skittles’ site will prove to be, one thing is for certain. They not only understand the power of Social Media Networking, they know that it is the way of the future.

Skittles is using Social Media to give complete control to consumers to tell the story of their brand. This possibly gives a whole new meaning to consumer-oriented advertising. The only thing the company is saying (or implying) is, “We are so confident with our product, we want everyone to tell how they really feel and if there is a problem, we want to know about it.” Skittles is not only embracing Social Media Networking, they are optimizing it to its fullest extent.

Stan Schroeder, IT journalist and Features Editor for Mashable, noted, “We won’t see all corporations do a complete social media makeover as Skittles did anytime soon, but we will see them give more and more importance to the various social channels out there.”

The longer you choose to rest in the comfortable world of traditional marketing, the further and further behind you will fall and the more difficult it will be to catch up with your competition.

If you are still unclear to the different outlets and tools available, Skittles’ site is a great learning ground. It provides insight to Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. According to Mars, the Skittles.com landing page will regularly change “depending upon what is currently in market.” Check it out.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

I began following Shaquil O’Neal a couple of months ago. I’m a huge NBA fan, love Phil Jackson and hence watched Shaq for years. Anyway, when I first started following The_Real_Shaq he had about 12,000 followers. This morning when I last checked he had 121,988 followers.

Facebook began about five years ago, accumulated a few hundred thousand users within its first year and now has over 175 million users. Suffice it to say that as Twitter has nearly 6 million users, it is impossible to guess where it will be five years from now.

If you haven’t started a Twitter account (what are you waiting for?), or if you have, you can follow She-conomy at http://twitter.com/sheconomy.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

NBC’s explanation:

NBC Universal vice president of advertising standards Victoria Morgan wrote that the “PETA spot submitted to Advertising Standards depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards,” describing one actor as “screwing herself with broccoli.”

PETA’s response:

“PETA’s veggie ads are locked out while ads for fried chicken and burgers are allowed, even though these foods make Americans fat, sick, and boring in bed,” responded PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “Whether you’re a 250-pound linebacker, a fan, or a ‘football widow,’ the smartest thing you can do to make sure that you’re around for next year’s Super Bowl is to go vegetarian.”

Hey… I find NBC’s explanation offensive, much less the ad. I also believe PETA  could have crossed the line purposely to ultimately attain far more exposure than had they run it during the Super Bowl and to save the $3 million placement cost. Their site shows they were TOO prepared for the rejection. If that was their goal, they have been successful. Because even I am participating – in the name of research. But just because it has created a popular viral interest does not mean it has successfully connected with their target audience. Possibly just the opposite.

Though the animal-rights movement was founded by a man, Peter Singer, and though many of top positions within the U.S. animal-rights movement are filled by men, women make up between 75 percent and 80 percent of the movement. Of the estimated 2.5 – 3 percent of the US population who are true vegetarians, 68 percent are female and the majority are motivated for health reasons, not animal rights.

I do believe that PeTA has been successful in doing one thing. They have offended both feminists and conservative women alike. You don’t get these two on the same page very often, but PeTA seems to have done it. Again, it is never wise to alienate the majority of your target audience. But you decide. Do you think that special woman in your life would be offended? Or has this ad made you seriously consider being a vegetarian?

VIDEO: Watch the banned PETA commerical. WARNING: May be considered explicit.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

I received this  J. C. Penny online video via email and Twitter several times before the holidays and sent it out several times as well. This video is a great example of “successful” viral and video online marketing as well as marketing to women. And much like the Motrin video was trying to accomplish, this video was being passed around because everyone thought it was funny and entertaining. The difference? J. C. Penny remembered the target audience.

The Satchi and Satchi ad agency has delicately balanced humor and stereotypical behavior in this video selling jewelry for J. C. Penny. It shows that you can appeal to men without offending women. And not only do women not find it offensive, they think it is enjoyable. Well done.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

Tamar Weinberg

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008

The list categories include:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Social Media Strategy
• Twitter
• Sphinn
• LinkedIn
• Digg
• Wikipedia
• StumbleUpon
• Fark
• Facebook
• delicious
• Flickr
• FriendFeed
• Blogging
• Viral Marketing
• Link Building
• Reputation Management
• Analytics
• Branding
• Local Search
• Content Development
• Web Development
• Affiliate Marketing
• Domains and Domaining
• AdWords/PPC
• Internet Marketing
• General Marketing

Two of Tamar’s most popular posts for 2008:

• The Ultimate Social Media Etiquette (or Netiquette) Handbook: My most popular post of December 2008 was about social media etiquette and goes through a variety of social sites to suggest what should and shouldn’t be done.  The comment discussion is great as well.
• What Traits Define a Social Media Marketer?: Experts on social media marketing weigh in on the essential characteristics of the ideal social media marketing guru.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

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