Monday’s Social Mashup: February 6, 2012

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We hope everyone had a great weekend! Monday’s #SoMash is back with the following stories for you: what Pinterest is doing that Facebook isn’t, how to increase your Klout score, three startups born from the NFL, Patriot’s player shares Super Bowl pregame music playlist, and Twitter’s ad revenue expected to double.

 

What Pinterest is Doing that Facebook Isn’t

 

The hot new social network that everyone is talking about now is Pinterest. The virtual pinboard site was recently announced as one of the top referrals in website traffic and has been the topic of numerous blog posts in the past couple weeks. So how does it stack up against the king of social networks, Facebook?

 

…Pinterest is showing increasingly strong signs that it is a more effective as a social commerce platform [than Facebook]. New data from Monetate show that referral traffic from Pinterest to the websites of five specialty apparel retailers jumped 389% from July-December 2011.”

 
The author continues to say that Facebook is organized around the social graph first, where Pinterest is focused on the interest graph. Pinterest users organize around interests (food, home decor, fashion,etc), which makes the site natural for shopping. It’s also more visual than Facebook, which helps with window shopping.
 

The Right Way to Increase Your Klout Score

 
If you don’t know already, Klout is a tool that tries to quantify your online influence and determine your social reach. Users are assigned a score between 1 and 100 based on the size of your network and how many people interact with the content you create. Klout is a controversial topic in the social media industry, with many questioning whether it’s an accurate indicator of social media influence. Nevertheless, many use their Klout score as a way to measure the success of their social media marketing effort.
 
Here are some ways to increase your Klout score:

     

  • Make your tweets easy to retweet by keeping your tweet under 75 to 80 characters, which leaves others room to add their own comment and for multiple retweets.
  • Klout measures the number of times you’re mentioned, so use other people’s @names when you tweet or retweet.
  • Contribute to Twitter chats and engage with influential people around a specific interest or industry.
  • Connect your Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, YouTube, and other social networking accounts to Klout.
  • Connect individually with other users by asking and answering questions or passing on praise.
  • Use tools like SocialBro or Tweriod to analyze the habits of your followers and post your best tweets when they’ll make the biggest impact.
  • Create content worth sharing, like tweets, articles, videos, photos, etc.

 

The Kickoff: Three Startups Born from the NFL

 
What do football players do when they’re not playing? While some travel or relax, others are starting businesses. Started in 2005, the NFL Business Management and Entrepreneurial Program offers players the skills to succeed in business.More than 700 current and former players have participated in the program and several have gone on to launch startups.
 

Those who have met success include Philadelphia Eagles Wide Receiver Jeremy Bloom, Tampa Bay Buccaneers Jeb Terry and Detroit Lions Ryan Nece, and Matt Chatham, formerly of the New England Patrios and New York Jets. Their startups range from an online ad marketplace to a mobile platform for football fans to a crepe restaurant.
These former athletes (and now businessmen) have encountered the same problems as other startups. For example, Chatham says his biggest challenge has been developing a business in an uncertain
 

Whether you’re online or have a store at an airport or a large regional mall like ours, you have to be versatile because you don’t know how consumer spending will come or go. You can’t always know what’s coming around the corner, but it’s important to take educated risks, instead of throwing something against a wall and hoping it will stick.”

 

Listening to music is one of the most common pregame rituals to get athletes hyped before a game.  Have you ever wondered what they might be listening to?  Well Stevan Ridley of the Patriots tried to answer that question by giving fans a look at his “Super Bowl Pre-Game Mix” last week.

 

 

Ridley shared a 12-track Spotify playlist to his Facebook Timeline.  This is the first time that we’ve seen an athlete share a playlist like this to their fans.  It’s a great way for personalities and athletes to give a glimpse into their world and share with their fans.  With Facebook’s new integration of 60+ apps, look for more athletes and celebrities sharing their music, workouts, recipes and more.

Twitter Revenue to Double in 2012

In 2011 Twitter made $139.5 million and is expected to double that to $259.5 million this year.  By 2014, the company is projected to pull in $540 in revenue.  From 2011 to 2012, revenue growth is estimated to be 83%.
 
Even with the drastic growth in revenue, Twitter won’t come close to Facebook’s multibillion dollar revenue model.  It won’t be until 2016 when Twitter will pass the $1 billion revenue threshold.
 
Take a look at the chart from eMarketer below to see Twitter’s ad revenues and percentage change from 2011-2014.
 

 
All of Twitter’s money comes from ad products.  The company has always been slow to roll out advertising and has thus seen  slow revenue growth.  Expect Twitter to increase its revenue as a result of the new brand pages.
 
Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, has said that promotional tweets have been very successful and stated,
“We continue to see great engagement rates.  The health of the business is great.”
 
Other social media articles from last week that you may enjoy:

 

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