Here, in the very last chapter of this book, we’ll spend some time exploring the two most prominent photo content sites in the social media world: Pinterest and Instagram. Relative newcomers to social networking, these two sites represent an incredible repository of visual content. Tap into their potential, and you can help spread your brand, your products, and yourself all over the web. If you’re selling goods online, then you know how important great photos are to your business. You are most likely spending a lot of time, money, and effort to provide your King Consumers with good quality photos of your products. That’s been drummed into your head from the very first listing you posted and with good reason.

We humans are visual creatures. Although we surely don’t have eyes as sharp as a hawk’s or an eagle’s—and in low light, even our house cats fare better than we do—we still gather an enormous amount of information with our eyes. As a matter of fact, 90 percent of the information we take in comes to our brains through our eyes, reported Amanda Sibley on HubSpot in the summer of 2012. Couple this with the fact that King Consumers are now far more interested in finding their products online rather than searching for them, and we can’t overlook the importance of these two sites specifically designed to collect your images. Luckily, you can add both of them to your social commerce mix simply and efficiently. Before we get started, let’s first look at some of the reasons online merchants consider using Pinterest and Instagram.

1.  Because everyone else says it’s a good idea, and they are doing it.

2.  They heard about it at an event and everyone was talking about how these sites are beating even Facebook.

3.  Because they know their competition has a presence there.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. C’mon people, the only reason to use these sites is because they fall in line with our social commerce strategies, and because they can help us work better, stronger, and faster. That’s the focus we’ll take as we explore visual content marketing. The good news is that Pinterest and Instagram are so simple to use, that if you’re not already on the site—and judging from the number of new users, you probably are—you’ll find yourself up and running in no time. I’m going to focus on some very specific ways you can use them both to reach your goals.

Before we start, you should first decide what you want your pictures to represent about you, your brands, and your business. We’ll look at some specific things you can do to gain exposure through these platforms in just a bit, but as with all things in social commerce, spend some time thinking about what you want to achieve before you just start posting your photos. I’ve said it before, but it still bears repeating: Setting your objectives and then planning how to achieve them will be your keys to success.

PINTEREST

Simply put, Pinterest is an online bulletin board. Pinterest users sign up using their Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail accounts. Once signed into the service, you can create boards to house all the cool visuals you come across as you surf the web. Sign up and you’ll get a Pinterest button that resides on your browser’s toolbar. Find a picture you like, and with the click of that button, you’ve posted it to one of any number of Pinterest boards you’re free to create. You can then gather followers and follow others, too.

Pinterest is clearly here to stay. In 2012 the site had the most growth, year over year, of any social media site. In December 2012, Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media report pegged the jump at 1,047 percent in unique PC visits and mobile usage grew by 1,698 percent. For the most part, more women use Pinterest. The Pew Research Center reports they are five times as likely to be on the site as men. The Center also reports that Pinterest users trend toward the younger demographic, with the majority falling between the ages of eighteen to forty-nine. As you can see, a lot of your Kings are likely to fall into these categories. So, how can you make the best use of Pinterest? Well, let’s start with the fact that you’re not going to go there to actually sell anything. You’re going to use Pinterest instead to share with your Kings and get them to share with you and each other, too.

INSTAGRAM

Instagram is the picture-sharing site of the mobile world. We all know how important mobile is, not just for today, but from now on, too. So, Instagram is a must, if you plan to share pictures. It’s become nearly impossible to find a mobile device today that doesn’t include a camera, and a pretty good camera at that. People can go through their days snapping images of every little thing that suits their fancies. With Instagram, you can immediately share those images with your friends, family, and really the entire world of other people who are also snapping pictures and sharing them.

The good news is that sharing images through Instagram is as easy as pushing a button. Instagram is available for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. The Instagram app itself is free and available through both the Apple App store and the Google Play store. As of this writing, Instagram had just enabled web viewing via your PC or notebook, but the web presence for these devices is limited only to viewing your Instagram account. You still have to do all your navigation through your mobile device, which is fine, since that’s also the way your consumers will navigate it, too.

For the most part, those consumers are more likely to be women than men, and they’re also likely to be younger than fifty years old, according to the Pew Research Center. African-American and Latino users overindex in the category of Insta-gram use. The Pew study shows 23 percent of African-American and 18 percent of Latino-American internet users are on Insta-gram, while only 11 percent of Whites use the platform, and users overall are more likely to live in urban areas rather than rural, according to the Center. If this is your target demographic, you will find they’re using Instagram as their own version of Twitter. That’s all the more reason you should be on Instagram where they hang out.

CAPTIVATING IMAGES YOU CAN BEGIN USING—AND I MEAN NOW

Now that you’re up and running on Pinterest and Instagram, I’m going to offer you a couple of quick and easy ways to add great content to your photo collections and get them moving. This whole system works best if your followers pick up what you post and spread it through their networks, just like the bees and the flowers in my overgrown yard. If you want them to do that, you have to inform, entertain, and delight them a bit. Using infographics and meme-jacking are two ways I like to make that happen.

Infographics

Infographics is simply information presented in a visual and graphic way. This first became the rage when the people at USA Today introduced it in the 1980s. They wanted a new, easily digestible, and visual way to present information. Infographics are attractive, often colorful and, although they are fun to look at, they actually convey very usable information. Now, if you’re clever with graphic design, you can create your own infographics. But, for the rest of us, there’s no need to do that. You’ll find scores of them on the web already, created by people who are very happy to have you repin them or share them with your network on Instagram.

Let’s use the example of an e-commerce merchant selling pet supplies. Simply go to your search engine and enter a search for “pet infographics.” When I did this search, I had more than a million responses in subjects that ranged from “How much does it cost to own a pet?” to “How to care for your dog in the summer heat,” and “Which pet is right for me?” Now you have a choice of what you’re going to pin on your Pinterest board and share on Instagram. Every time someone searches for these terms, you’re boards will be part of the search results. You’re not advertising your products, but you are sharing information with your consumers, and that’s the way into your King Consumers’ hearts.

Photo Meme-Jacking

Think of that picture of Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka saying something smart-assed. Photo memes are all over the place. Although they originate on the Internet, they sometimes also cross over from online to the offline world of print and TV ads. They become part of the cultural mix we share with everyone else on the web. So, the good news is, if you meme-jack one of them, your brand and your products will go with that meme, and your dandelion seeds will find fertile ground where they can plant your brand. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to do this.

The first thing you want to do is identify a meme that will work for you. If you don’t recognize one just through the time you spend online, you can find them easily enough. I like two super easy meme generators: Meme Generator and Quickmeme. Either one will provide you with enough visuals to begin with. So let’s look at our pet-supply dealer and see how he’s meme-jacking. Figure 13-1 shows the image he created to go along with the caption “50 Shades of Grey.” Notice Leo’s Pet Care and his logo up in the left corner. You’re likely to get a chuckle when you come across this, and if you have pets, you might just decide to click through to the site and see what’s for sale. Either way, Leo’s meme will be part of the search results every time someone searches for this popular and racy title.

Figure 13.1.

SUMO LESSON

Not too long ago I was in a radio station for an appearance on a talk show, hosted by Brent Leary. I happened to have taken my fifteen-year-old sister with me that day. She wanted to see how it all worked. The show’s topic was about new social-media sharing platforms. Earlier that week, Amazon had experienced an outage on its service that brought down both Instagram and Netflix. Brent asked my little sister, live on the radio, which social networking site she uses to keep up with her friends. “I use Insta-gram,” she said. I had no idea until that moment how important the site was to her. In her world, Instagram is Twitter. I was surprised, and on live radio!

As we part ways, I think that’s an important lesson: The world of social media, and so the world of social commerce, is constantly changing. You are starting out on an adventure that will require you to keep working in the present but looking toward the future. There are always more King Consumers coming of age, and the younger ones will use social networking sites in ways we may not yet be able to imagine. So, go out, pay attention, have some fun, and kick some ass!