Pinterest is an easy and lovely way to share your favourite things and interests in a visual way. Using Pinterest is as simple as pinning a message in your personal pinboard. You can also browse for others’ pinboards and repin things that you like.
Clearly, Pinterest is proving to be a valuable marketing tool for companies and brands. In fact, statistics show that Pinterest is currently driving more traffic than Facebook and Google + combined. More people are shifting to Pinterest as a way to be “discovered”, especially with the recent changes Facebook algorithm, which makes it more difficult for you to appear in your fans’ news feeds. Here are some tips and tricks from us to plan the best Pinterest marketing strategy.
Getting Ready for Pinterest
If you want to go viral on Pinterest, first of all you need to have an account with a concise and clear profile of your company. Make sure that your boards are relevant to your community and your own interests. You also need to make pinning easy by having these things:
- Have a “Pin It” button in your browser for pinning interesting things easily when you are browsing
- Have a “Pin It” button on every post you’ve made, so your visitors can pin your images instantly
- Have a Pinterest’s “Follow Me” button on your site
Think about adding the most suitable title for each of your pins and consider including URLs of your post in the description with a call to action, like “Click here to see more…” Also include corresponding keywords in your profile and description.
5 Categories to Have Your Pins Repinned
You must own gorgeous images to be pinned on your pinboard. It also helps to provide images that are:
- Beautiful. People love beautiful and artistic images. Beautiful images will get a lot of repins.
- Inspiration/motivation. Many people like it when somebody combine beautiful images and inspirational/motivational quotes. Inspirational pins may come in the form of recipes as well.
- Useful. Useful pins will be helpful for others. Tips, tricks and “how-to” things are the ones who get a lot of repins from Pinterest users.
- Educative. Infographics are one kinds of this category.
- Humourous. Funny things are easily to be loved and shared. Start pinning funny things and expect a lot of repins from your followers.
Saturday mornings are the best time to pin. It is time when people are free and looking for new inspiration. It is also important top notice that long pins take up more space, which means they’ll get noticed more by viewers.
Be Creative of Pinterest
Pinterest does not have to be all about pinning your own pictures and repinning others. You can find other ways to be creative with it. Here are some good ideas from us:
- Pin it to win it – put this as a place to run contests and giveaways
- Board of the month / Guest contributors – pin your superfan’s profile and photos of those who has the most contribution of your brands. Another option is having their posts pinned.
- Daily work board / Locations – pin yourself and company in a board, the work you do and where you can be found online.
- Instagram board – pin your favourite Instagram photos of the week
- Behind the scenes board – give your audiences a little insights inside your company’s crews or daily activities
- Monetizing your pins – some people with large followings are charging other parties to pin their photos to their boards
- Sell products – if you own an online shop, you can sell your products via Pinterest with a great image. Include the price in the description and a URL back to your website
- Pinning Infographics with helpful information – remember: be educative
Pinterest and Copyright
This is an ambiguous things and nobody will completely understand. Basically, you are responsible for everything you pin. Know your own risks and do what you feel comfortable with. Look for any advice if needed. To protect yourself as best as possible, check the source and credit all pins. Only pin images in the sites which have the Pinterest button in it.
Pinterest Tools
You can monitor what is working and what is not via the following tools:
- Google Analytics: Track visitors to your site. You can see what pins are bringing people over.
- Pinpuff: Calculates your ‘Pinfluence’. This one is handy to see how you are reaching others.
- Reachli: Allows you to track campaigns on Pinterest.
- PicMonkey: Great for image editing.
- Pingraphy: Schedule your pins.
- Pinvolve: Show your Pinterest photos on your Facebook wall.
You can also check who is pinning you content via this link:
http://pinterest.com/source/[insertwebsitehere.com]
To have the best result from Pinterest, ask yourself the following questions:
- What categories/things do your readers love?
- How can you set up your boards in such ways, so they will inspire and inform?
- What has potential to go viral in your niche?
- How can you share and create your own community via this social media network?
Like any other form of social media, building audiences is the most important thing. Comments and likes from them are important. You should always engage in conversation with those who are commenting and always remember to be polite all the time. Being polite shows your professionalism and will put you in the higher position in front of your audiences.