business | Hannah Hager

For awhile, I couldn’t quite sell myself on the value of Pinterest for businesses. It’s not that I didn’t love PInterest, my friends, in fact I was an early adopter and have hundreds of pins relating to my imaginary wedding. Who doesn’t?

Given my experience with the social media site — gowns, jewelry, paper products — I was remiss to believe Pinterest would add any real return on investment for businesses. However, after a bit more research I have changed my mind and now believe that any time a marketer can create a touch point for its target market then it is for the better.

I will now go forward and create a Pinterest account for my clients. Since four of them are newspaper companies, it will be easy to find regular content.

My plan is to start pinning photos attached to the most-read news articles, which of course will then redirect viewers to the respective website. Once the newsroom — and the C-suite — become accustomed to this I will proceed to pinning advertisements.

There remains a Chinese wall between the editorial and advertising departments in the media business. Where one department goes left, the other goes right. No longer can this be the case. The art department creates fantastically visual imagery in its advertisements — and their work needs to be showcased as much as the editorial work. The advantage of pinning advertisements will be increased pageviews, which can then lead to up-sells.

As I enter into the unchartered (for me) territory of pinning on behalf of businesses, and not just myself, would you offer me any advice?

I broke some rules when I chose my company’s name. First of all, I knowingly used a name that already existed. On top of that, I’m using my initials. I don’t care for two reasons; hrh media is named after its founder, Hannah Rebekah Hager, and that founder also happens to have the initials of Her Royal Highness. I’ve been playing that card my entire life and I wasn’t about to stop it because some other business also has my initials.

Don’t follow my suit. When it comes to your customer, and the likelihood of them finding you in the virtual world, you need to remove as many roadblocks as possible on their route to your website.

Your business name = Your domain name

When you meet someone you’d like to do business with, the first thing either one of you do when you return to your computer is Google one another. You might not have had a business card at the time, they might not remember your name, but hopefully they will remember your company’s name, “I Write Good.” Chances are they’ll look you up on a search engine or type the URL directly into their browser. When http://www.IWriteGood.com doesn’t automatically show up — or worse, your competitor’s website does instead — its over for you. Your business name should equal your domain name. One more thing; be a .com. No one really trusts a .biz or a .net.