Pinterest now has over 25 million users per month and with approximately
# 1. Business Account on Pinterest
Convert your pinterest account to a business account – it takes seconds! If you haven’t set up a pinterest account as yet, then do set one up as a business account. Pinterest are already providing functionality to business accounts which is not available to personal profiles and this is bound to continue. Social Nicole provides some helpful advice to Set Up Your Business Pinterest Account.
# 2. Quality Images Matter
Good quality images on pinterest are rewarded by being repinned, hence increasing the likelihood of multiplying traffic to your website. Use good photography on your website and in your blog posts. If your blog post is ‘non-visual’ and you are using stock photography, do spend time looking for a suitable image. You can also use a free photography tool such as picmonkey to insert text on the photo so pinners can see at a glance what your blog post is about.
# 3. Optimise Photos For Pinterest
Always, always, always optimise your photographs for your blog post by renaming them with the title of your blog post or a short description of the content. Then, if someone pins your blog post, the description will also be included (unless the pinner deletes it from the descriptor box which is unlikely if it is suitable and saves them typing it out). I find that I often pin a blog post to discover that the photograph contains a number like 9478o4u83.jpg or even worse, has a description that isn’t relevant.
# 4. Advantages of Contributor Boards
Create a ‘shared’ (or contributor) board for an area you specialise in and invite others to contribute. Become a member of other suitable contributor boards in order to reach a much larger audience as they will have many more followers than your individual account. You should find that pins pinned to the contributor boards receive many more repins and click throughs.
It can also be advantageous to pin to your own individual board first, then repin to the shared board. Why? Because when a person repins a pin, the original board flashes up and the repinner has the opportunity to follow that board, hence you are increasing your chances of gaining more followers.
# 5. Re-Arrange Your Pinterest Boards
Remember to re-arrange your pinterest boards occasionally. DO NOT leave any Christmas boards at the top of your board page past 1st January at the latest – move them to the bottom of the page until next October!
Create any seasonal boards in good time (I’d recommend about 4 months in advance s0 you have plenty of time to build up that board with good content) and move seasonal boards to the top of the page at least two months before the event, e.g. Valentine’s Day or Easter.
# 6. Change Your Cover Images
If you have set your board pictures with particular pins, it can be worthwhile spending some time occasionally changing those cover pictures with more recent pins.
Why?
- So that if anyone is checking your boards occasionally, that they see change and new content.
- It reminds you of your board content, perhaps there is a pin you have forgotten about and you could repin to a new contributor board.
- If someone clicks on the board to see the cover image and it is way way down the page, it doesn’t speak well of your pinterest management.
# 7. Track Your Pinning Success
As with all the social media platforms and your non-internet marketing, you need to know if your efforts are sending traffic to your website and generating conversions, therefore, it is a good idea to check your pinning performance at least on a weekly basis.
- Google Analytics
- Pin Using Reachli (formerly Pinerly) – useful for seeing the click throughs for the images/posts you pin
- www.pinterest.com/source/yourdomain.com – this is a useful tool for seeing which images on your website are being pinned by other people. You could then follow those who have pinned your posts to build engagement with potential clients.
# 8. Publicise Your Pinterest Presence
Increase the probability of more people pinning from your website and following you on pinterest by doing the following:
- Add a ‘pin it’ plug in to your blog
- If you have an online store, add a ‘pin it’ button so it shows beside every product – thereby reminding people to pin and acknowledging that you are giving them permission to do so
- Add a ‘Follow me on pinterest’ button to your sidebar. You now have the option with the new business accounts to add a ‘board widget’ (displays 30 of your favourite board’s latest pins) or ‘profile widget’ (displays your 30 latest pins) too.
Ignore Pinterest at your peril. It is a fun tool to use which is why it is becoming so popular, I hope these tips help you to maximise your success using Pinterest for 2013.
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