Social media is the darling of the Internet. For the past few years,
online user activity has been shifting more and more toward social media of all
types, but recently it has truly become an almost entirely visual format.
Gone
are the days where text-based communications dominated the social scene. These days, it’s all about visual stimulation and contact through engaging pictures and videos.
No website has made this more evident than Pinterest.
Pinterest allows users to share photos and other media by “pinning” them to
virtual pin boards. Remember the former popularity of corkboards? Pinterest has
brought that concept online in a big way!
The site gets a tremendous amount of traffic, and those users are known
to visit the site regularly and to
purchase products and visit websites they see there.
In fact, MediaBistro.com compiled a report about social networking tools
and discovered that almost as many people use Pinterest as use Twitter!
In this guide, you’re going to learn how to make the most of this social
media powerhouse, and how to use it effectively
as a marketing tool.
So let’s get started.
Quick & Easy Setup
New websites are confusing and time-consuming for anyone. Even the most
tech savvy user always has a learning curve when using a site for the first time.
Unless you’ve been using Pinterest for a while, you’ll need a little help
getting started. Even if you have been using Pinterest for a while, there are
probably features you haven’t used or don’t know about that could really boost
your efforts considerably!
Before you get started, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the
Pinterest interface so you will know where you need to go in order to perform
the basic functions associated with managing your Pinterest account.
First, take a look at the menu that drops down when you hover over your
name at the top right of the Pinterest website.
This
menu contains several options:
·
Your
Pins – This takes you to a page that shows you everything you have already
pinned. It will also allow you to add a new pin.
·
Your
Boards – This takes you to a page that shows you all of the boards you have
created. It will also allow you to create a new board.
·
Add
Pin – This will pop up a window that allows you to upload a new pin from your
computer.
·
Settings
– Be sure to familiarize yourself with this page, because this is where you
will set up your profile!
·
Help Center – If you
have questions or need help, see this page.
·
Find Friends – This will
help you find other Pinterest users to connect with.
·
Log Out – Log out of
your Pinterest account.
Creating an
Optimized Profile
The first thing you need to do to get started on Pinterest is create
your profile page. This page is a place for you to really grab users and get
them interested. This page should contain the very best of your pins, as well
as important information about yourself and your business.
If you have a Facebook account, you can connect your Pinterest account
to it for an additional boost. The catch? You can’t connect your Pinterest
account to a business page, only a personal Facebook profile.
You can also connect your Pinterest account to your Twitter account.
When you do this, your pins will automatically be shared on your Twitter
account. This is useful even if you don’t have many followers on Twitter.
This automatic sharing on Twitter and Facebook is a huge part of what
made Pinterest such an overnight success. About 75% of Pinterest users choose
to integrate at least one other social platform, which greatly increases the
number of people who see their pins.
The About Section
The “About” section is another important part of your profile. It should
contain a paragraph or two about you and your company, making sure to include
vital information such as your website or blog URLs and some keywords for
search engines.
Adding Value to
your Profile
One of the most important things you can do to
increase the power of your Pinterest profile is to use a headshot image of
yourself instead of a logo or other image. If you don’t like the way you look,
or you’re using a pseudonym, you can find a very realistic looking stock photo
or use a picture of one very close-up feature of yourself such as an eye or
your lips. Just make it very personal.
Do not forget to include your important URLs on your
profile, such as your blog or website, Facebook profile URL, Twitter profile
URL and other relevant URLs.
Social Connect
It cannot be expressed enough the importance of
connecting your Pinterest account to a Facebook account and to a Twitter
account and allowing Pinterest to automatically post to those sites.
It will significantly improve your efforts if you take
the time to do this, because you are likely to have a larger number of
followers on Facebook or Twitter than you do on the Pinterest site itself, and
this will get your content more views.
In order to connect your Pinterest account to your
Facebook and/or Twitter account, simply visit your Settings page and use the
sliders to turn on logging into Facebook and Twitter and publishing activity to
your Facebook Timeline. Then click the “Save Profile” button.
Pinning Content
There are
three main ways to pin content to your boards:
1.
You can
upload an image from your computer.
2.
You can
use the “Pin it” button.
3.
You can
re-pin content other people have pinned.
Each of
these methods has its uses, and we’ll talk about those now.
Uploading an Image
or Pinning from a URL
In order to upload an image from your
computer, you can click the “Add Pin” link from the dropdown box at the top
right. This will bring up a menu that looks like this:
To upload from your hard drive, click “Choose File”
and select the image. To find an image on a web page, enter the page’s URL and
click “Find images”.
Each of these images can be pinned by simply hovering
over the image and clicking the “Pin it” button.
Pinning with a
Browser Add-On
You can also pin content directly using a browser
add-on. For example, Chrome has an extension that will let you pin content by
putting a “Pin It” button in your bookmarks bar at the top of the page under
the URL window.
If you install the add-on, all you have to do is visit
any web page, click the “Pin It” button in your bookmarks bar, and it will give
you a choice of images you can then pin.
Whenever you find something you would like to share that someone else
has posted on Pinterest, just click the “Pin it” button to re-pin it to your
own board. Just look for the button that appears when you hover over an image
or when you click the image the button appears at the top left.
Pinning Tips
Here are
some important things to keep in mind as you pin items:
1. Activity on Pinterest peaks around
5-7 AM and again from 5-7 PM Eastern time. Plan most of your pinning for those
time periods in order to maximize how many people view your content.
2. Try to pin unique content that is
relevant to your business. You can also pin funny or interesting items that
will grab attention, but keep most of your pins focused on your area of
marketing.
3. Be sure to include keywords in all
of your pin and board descriptions to attract search engine traffic.
4. Choose the most attractive images
possible. If there are several different shots of the same item, choose the one
that is most visually appealing, as people are naturally drawn to aesthetically
pleasing images.
5. Focus on lifestyle, not products.
Don’t just show a package of potato chips. Show a family eating potato chips at
a family picnic.
Engage For Maximum Traffic
There are many ways to fully engage your audience in
order to make your efforts more effective. By engaging your Pinterest followers
with direct contact from you, they will see you more as an individual rather
than a company, which will increase your trust level considerably.
We’re going to take a look at some of the ways you can
engage your audience to boost your traffic and sales.
Contests
There are many types of contests you can hold to
increase loyalty and also gain more followers in the process. For example, you
can hold a contest for the most referrals, the most re-pins of your content,
one random person who re-pins one of your pins, give additional entries to
people who also post your pins on Facebook and Twitter, etc.
Get creative with your contests. And remember, the ultimate
goal is to get your pins seen by more people and to gain more followers. So
focus your contest rules on getting people to help you achieve that.
Commenting on your
Own Pins
Interaction is important, especially on highly social sites like Pinterest.
When people comment on your pins, be sure to communicate back. Keep an open
line of dialog with your followers. Once they see you as a real person, they’ll
begin to like you as a person and will re-pin your content more often and
respond better to the things you pin.
Cross Promoting on
Facebook and Twitter
Even if you don’t want to hook your Pinterest account
directly up to your Facebook or Twitter account and have your pins shared
automatically, you can still take advantage of these sites to cross-promote.
Just be sure you share your most important pins to
your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts for maximum exposure.
Follow Relevant
Users
Another great way to get more views of your pins as
well as more followers is to follow other people who post content similar to
yours. Don’t worry about the “competition” factor. There’s plenty of room for
everyone.
Let’s say you are in the golf niche. Follow other
people who are avid golfers and have a significant number of followers. Not
only might they re-pin your content, especially if they see you re-pin theirs
sometimes, but you can comment on their pins and potentially get more followers
that way as well.
Post Pins to
Blogs, Forums, Newsletters, Etc.
Make sure to post links to your most
important pins to places like relevant blogs (in the comments and on your own
blog), relevant forums, email newsletters, as your email signature, and other
locations.
Use Video for More
Exposure
Video sites like YouTube are extremely effective
traffic sources, and they can easily help you get more views to your pins.
Simply post a video relevant to your pin and link to your pin in the
description of your video.
Not only that, but you could post a link to your pin
in the comments of other relevant videos that have a significant number of
views. This way, you can get some traffic from other people as well. Just be
sure your pin is useful and relevant or it will be seen as spam.
Ask for Re-pins on
Important Pins
Sales people have heard the old adage, “To get the sale, you have to ask for the sale.” The same goes for
re-pins. Sure, you’ll get the occasional re-pin without asking, but when you
post something really important, just ask people to re-pin it for you. You’ll
be surprised how many people will oblige, especially if you’ve engaged them
prior to asking and they like you.
Just remember not to abuse the
privilege. If you ask people to re-pin every post, people will eventually get
tired of it and won’t do it anymore. Save this technique for your most
important pins and for those with the most potential to go viral.
Re-pin For Others
Don’t forget to re-pin content for your followers. If
they see you re-pinning their content, they will be much more likely to
reciprocate and pin yours. Additionally, they may even feel obligated to do so,
because they’ve seen you re-pin theirs.
Pinterest Tools
While you can certainly use Pinterest
without any additional tools, there are a few things you might want to consider
that will make using Pinterest easier and more effective.
Graphics Programs
One thing you will almost certainly want to have if
you’re going to use Pinterest regularly is a good image editing program. You
can download a few trial of Adobe Photoshop, but the software is very expensive
to buy beyond the trial. However, if you like it, you can use Adobe Creative
Cloud to access Photoshop and other software for a lower monthly fee instead of
having to pay for it upfront and spending hundreds of dollars at once.
If you’d rather not spend any money at
all, you can try GIMP, which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. This
software isn’t quite as full-featured as Photoshop, nor does it have as many
free add-ons available, but it is free and works very well.
Pinpuff
Pinpuff is a service that will give you some simple
analytics about your Pinterest account, such as an approximate value of each
pin, your potential CPC, your reach score (how many followers you have compared
to others), your virality score (how well people re-pin your content) and other
data.
This can be especially useful for determining the
effectiveness of your Pinterest campaigns, allowing you to make changes, if
needed.
PinReach
PinReach is quite similar to Pinpuff, except it offers
a lot more data. You’ll find pages for general analytics, as well as an
analysis of your boards, a collection of your post popular pins, your most
influential followers (great for finding out who has the most potential to
re-pin your content to great effect), and more!
Pinterest Right-Click for Firefox
If you have the Firefox web browser, you can get an
extension that will add an additional menu item to your right-click menu. That
way, if you run across an interesting image online, you can simply right click
it and immediately select “Pin Image” to pin the image without having to visit
Pinterest first.
Pinterest Pro for Chrome
If you use Chrome, you can download the Pinterest Pro extension that
will give you the right-click feature available in Pinterest Right-Click for
Firefox, plus also gives you image zooming and a “Popular Pin Dropdown”. Once
installed, it works the same way as Pinterest Right-Click. Just right click and
image and click “Pin to Pinterest.”
Pin Search for
Chrome
Another useful Chrome extension is Pin Search. This will let you quickly
find more information about any photo you find on Pinterest. Simply install it
and the whenever you hover over a pinned image using Chrome, you’ll see a new
button that says “Search”. Click this and it will open Google’s search results
page that will show you similar images, other sizes of that image online, and l
inks where you might be able to find more information.
Final Words
If you’re not using Pinterest for marketing, you are
missing out on some of the best quality traffic available anywhere online.
Pinterest users are famous for their clicking and their buying, which makes it
more than just another traffic source. In fact, Shopify.com reports that
visitors referred from Pinterest are at least 10% more likely to buy and
generally spend at least 10% more than people who are referred from other
social sites, and 70% more than people referred from a website! The average
order from someone referred from Pinterest is double those referred from
Facebook, and even more than Google, Amazon and other search engines. So don’t
miss out! Start using Pinterest today!
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