Pinterest is now driving more traffic to sites than Reddit, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube combined.

With stats like this, Pinterest is quickly securing itself as a valid place for businesses to increase their visibility online. The latest analytics updates and site verification tools give businesses even more reasons to join the thriving community of pinners.

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The dust hasn’t settled yet for Vine, an app released by Twitter in January. It’s still young enough that marketers (advertisers and brand ambassadors in particular) are figuring out how to use it, as its popularity soars. It's currently the top app on the iTunes store.

The app allows you to film six second videos. You read that right: six seconds. Reactions I’ve seen have gone from “This is a fresh revival of an art form!” to “This is really stupid.”

What are social media policies? Why are they important? Why would a company want—or need—a social media policy?

Check out the answers to these questions and more in my guest post for ERC’s Insights Blog.

The post explores:

• How social media policies establish guidelines for employees’ use of social media.
• How policies can help protect employees and companies.
• The first steps in starting a social media policy.

***

ERC offers HR consulting services, employee and job training, networking events, and more. ERC members receive a 10% discount on certain Aztek services.

"Social Media 01," ©2009 Rosaura Ochoa, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Once something is posted on the internet, it can never really be erased.

It’s a truth that frequently manifests itself through social media. This permanence can snowball when combined with the other perpetual truth about the internet: everything has, at all times, the potential to move really, really fast.

On January 25, a pastor by the name of Alois Bell brought a church group with her to an Applebee’s in the St. Louis area. Upon finishing their meal, Bell did not pay the 18% mandatory gratuity that Applebee’s automatically adds to parties of eight or more, and added a note that read "I give God 10% why do you get 18?"

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Never mind the Ravens — the big winner at the Super Bowl last Sunday was the Oreo® cookie.

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If your customers speak French, would you write the content for your website in Russian?

Successful websites speak the language that their customers understand. These sites make it as easy as possible for their customers to find the information they seek and to process the information in whatever way is most helpful to the user. More...

With all the hype and excitement around Twitter, Facebook and Social Media Marketing lately, it is easy to see how other forms of online marketing may have fallen out of fashion. Marketing coordinators and managers can become so excited about the next big thing that they sometimes forget that older, established marketing tactics are still a great way to gain customers, reach out to your target market and generate leads. More...

“Any publicity is good publicity.”

This used to be a universally accepted truth. As long as people were talking about you, you could reap benefits from the attention. That was when opinion was spread mainly by traditional media: television, radio, print, and good old fashioned word of mouth. Things are different now. The exponential growth of the social media sphere, the potential for hundreds of thousands of consumers to connect and comment on your company, content or service, and the struggle for eyeballs, impressions and search engine rankings, have all combined to make negative public opinion a death knell for companies on the Internet. One dissatisfied user with a Twitter account could bring your company to its knees. Right?

Maybe not. More...

By now, you're probably familiar with the explosive popularity of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These sites allow you to keep up with what your friends and family are doing, network with your colleagues, and share your favorite pictures, videos and websites. Companies have "fan pages" on Facebook where they can distribute exclusive information and offers to customers, or "fans". Social media is now a ubiquitous part of the Internet community, with millions of users on each site. But did you know that you can now bring the sharing and communication functions of these sites right to your own website? More...

What is Twitter and Why is it Important?

If you aren't familiar with Twitter, then you are in the minority.

For the last 12 months, Twitter, as well as other social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, has become more and more popular, not only for individuals, but for corporations and non-profits. More...