Online Marketing News: New LinkedIn & Instagram Features, Brands Missing the Boat on Pinterest

LinkedIn Adds Rich Media Capability to Profiles

LinkedIn users can now add rich media content objects to their profiles, allowing designers, analysts, authors and others to share their best works in a visually interesting format. Users can now use videos, images and presentations to demonstrate their experience. Danielle Restivo, Head of Global Programs, Corporate Communications at LinkedIn, reminds us that brands have had rich media access on their pages for some time. “The ability to share rich media through company pages is already available for admins of the Company Page. So an employee of a company who has admin rights to update the Company Page can do this, but employees without admin rights could not,” she told TopRank.

There are 15 accepted file formats for rich media on Company Pages including images, video and presentation on company pages. Restivo recommends that brands use rich media within status updates and post images and video on their Products or Careers page. Administrators can add rich media content from the “Share an update” box on their brand page by clicking the paper clip icon and adding their file. See LinkedIn’s rich media for company pages resource for a complete list of accepted file types.

Instagram Adds Tagging with Privacy Controls

Brands have a new Instagram feature to get excited about: users can now tag accounts in their image uploads, including business accounts.

In an announcement this week, Instagram explained the new privacy controls that come with this feature: “Only you can add people to your photos, so you have control over the images you share…�When someone adds you to a photo, you�ll receive a notification and the photo will appear in your Photos of You. Want to make sure you like the photo first? No problem: you can easily adjust your settings so nothing appears on your profile until you approve it.” Users have until May 16th to experiment with photo tagging before their Photos of You section will be visible to other users.

Automotive, Fashion Retail and Other Brands Missing Out on the Pinterest Opportunity

Fashion retail and automotive are falling down when it comes to Pinterest; according to a recent Digitas/Curalate study, 70% of engagement on brand content is generated by users rather than the brands themselves. �This is especially prevalent in the fashion retail industry, where brands pin just 18% of content. The remaining 82% comes from their community repinning content.

In the automotive industry,�75% of the conversation and engagement is driven by the community, with just 25% of content originating from brands. “It’s unfortunate to see the auto industry stuck in first gear. The industry needs to leverage the heritage of their brands to tell compelling visual stories that create emotional connections with consumers,” says Apu Gupta, CEO of Curalate. He added, “While automotive websites may not discard Flash anytime soon, some straightforward changes make these sites shareable, now.�

�Brands need to go forth and pin,� says Jordan Bitterman, Senior Vice President, Social, Mobile and Content Lead, Digitas. �This study reveals the opportunity for brands to drive the conversation on visual platforms like Pinterest. By leveraging rich consumer insight, brands can take the guess-work out of their visual content strategy, and share the types of images their audience wants to see.�

Google Adds Real-Time Conversion Reporting

With the latest Google Analytics update, marketers can now see how many of their site visitors are converting and against which goals. Clicking on a specific goal will automatically segment that report, allowing marketers to track the performance of new campaigns in email, PPC, or TV, for example. An important caveat from Google: “…with this first launch we�re introducing URL based goals only. So�computed goals�such as Time on Site or Pages/Visit are not included yet.”

Oxygen and Tumblr Move to Further Integrate Television and Social Media

Beginning May 8th, TV network Oxygen will begin airing the best animated GIFs from Tumblr, in an effort to further integrate the television and social experience for audiences. �”When it comes to reality TV, it’s really astounding to see just how much people like making animated GIFs for our programming,” senior vice president of digital at Oxygen Media Harleen Kahlon told ClickZ.

Twitter Opens the Door to All US Advertisers

Over a year after launching their self-serve ad platform, Twitter announced this week they’ve ended the invite-only period and opened the door to all advertisers in the United States. “Over the past year we�ve listened carefully to feedback from the thousands of businesses and individuals who�ve had access to the self-serve tool, and made�enhancements�based on their suggestions, including more�targeting and reporting�in the UI,” wrote Ravi Narasimhan, Product Manager in Revenue at Twitter. Marketers interested in using Twitter for social advertising can get started immediately at business.twitter.com.

This Week in the @TopRank Community

This week, Online Marketing Blog welcomed the 25,000th member of our Facebook community into the fray!

Community members across all of our networks got access to the full video from Lee Odden’s Future of Content presentation at MIMA this past week. Odden explored the true meaning of content and how content teams are structured (and should be structured) in organizations, then shared upcoming trends marketers need to watch for. See the full presentation:

Next week, join us on the @TopRank Twitter channel May 7th, as Lee Odden presents Optimize 360: An Integrated Approach to Digital Marketing and PR in a PRSA webinar. On May 8th, tune in for live tweets at 12:15pm from Communicator’s Conference, where Odden will share his keynote address,�Digital Convergence � The Integration of Marketing & PR.