Social Media Marketing Tips: Pinterest
How to market with Pinterest
What is it
Pinterest is an image-based social networking site. It allows users to create online image collages (pinboards), and share these collages with others. As a visual discovery tool, Pinners collate a plethora of visual inspirations and personal mood boards.
Pinterest is valued at nearly $4 billion
and has around five million users, with 1.5 million unique visitors daily who
spend an average of 15 minutes a day on the site. Pinboards directly result in
traffic to your website and blog: for 2012-13, Pinterest drove greater traffic
to websites than LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+ and Reddit – combined.
Due to its visual and aspirational aspect, Pinterest is incredibly effective for reaching women (84% of users are female) and the younger audience. More than 1 in 5 adults in the US use Pinterest and the average user there has a household income of over $100,000.Who uses it
What makes it different
There’s less opportunity for whining and negativity in Pinterest and because of its image basis, the core of Pinterest is overwhelmingly optimistic.
Conversion rates for Pinterest traffic have been reported to be as much as 50% higher than from other traffic sources – Pinterest is the clear winner compared to Facebook and Twitter in introducing customers to retailers.
How should you use it
Understand:
The essential rules of social networking
still apply for Pinterest – follow, pin, repin, like, comment and track your
stats. Also, although Pinterest is obviously well suited to image-friendly
businesses (think weddings, pet grooming, food blogs) this doesn’t exclude
other companies; you just have to think creatively and get content from interesting
sources.
In order to understand the Pinner’s mind set understand this – the prettier the picture is, the more it will get pinned. The images that appeal to Pinterest members are powerful and emotive. Creating a board that tells the story of your company and communicates your core values is a good place to begin.
Connect your account with your Facebook and Twitter – this will help gain followers and integrate your various platforms. Similarly add ‘Pin It!’ and ‘Follow Me on Pinterest’ buttons to your website or blog so readers can quickly share your content on Pinterest and vice versa.
In order to understand the Pinner’s mind set understand this – the prettier the picture is, the more it will get pinned. The images that appeal to Pinterest members are powerful and emotive. Creating a board that tells the story of your company and communicates your core values is a good place to begin.
For starters:
Make sure you feature your business name on your profile. Use your business name as your username and your profile picture to the business logo or something appropriate. Add a brief bio and your website URL.Connect your account with your Facebook and Twitter – this will help gain followers and integrate your various platforms. Similarly add ‘Pin It!’ and ‘Follow Me on Pinterest’ buttons to your website or blog so readers can quickly share your content on Pinterest and vice versa.
Tag other Pinners in your pins by using ‘@username’
in your descriptions. Not many people are networking with other professional in
their field, so start building your following.
Similarly, comment on other people’s pins. Good manners and communication help drive engagement.
Similarly, comment on other people’s pins. Good manners and communication help drive engagement.
‘Like’ pins that you enjoy to recognise
great content – people will like your great content in return.
Don’t be afraid to repin – it creates a mix of content which is always lucrative, and the person whose image you repin is notified by email; do unto others as you wish they do to you, and you’ll see your following and repins creeping up.
Be regular and reliable:
Once again the social media adage holds true – more is more (as long as it’s good quality content). Pin lots of stuff, steadily and at regular time intervals. Use creative names for your boards’ titles; puns, alliteration and something witty is always good. The Martha Stewart brand is already a household name in the US but she still posts regular and in large volumes – her huge profile boasts more than 126 boards with almost 13,000 pins available to her half a million followers.
With this in mind, variety is key – pin from
lots of different sources instead of just from one or two sites. Do use
pictures from your own site but don’t just self-promote as people will see
through this very quickly – instead, pin and promote the lifestyle and ethics
that surround your brand in a more holistic approach.
Track your data:
Yes, avoid self-promotion but you can do
some clever tweaking of pins – obviously posting from your own blog will lead a
user who clicks on your image back to its original source: you. In order to
drive more traffic to your site you can change the URL of a pin after you
upload it so that it brings clicks back to your site, even if the image comes
from elsewhere.
Go to your site’s page to see who’s been pinning your stuff and see which posts are resonating with your customers. Adjust and adapt accordingly. Find out when you’re getting the most repins, likes, comments and referral traffic by regularly analysing both your Pinterest profile and your site's traffic with a little cross-examination.
Go to your site’s page to see who’s been pinning your stuff and see which posts are resonating with your customers. Adjust and adapt accordingly. Find out when you’re getting the most repins, likes, comments and referral traffic by regularly analysing both your Pinterest profile and your site's traffic with a little cross-examination.
Tailor your content:
Create Pinterest specific content by designing Pinterest-only promotions and coupons, tutorial boards, client testimonials, seasonal boards and thank you boards. As ever, tailoring your content to both your clients and the appropriate platform will get results.
Offer specific boards about a single topic – preferably your business’ niche or USP – as this will show your competence and expertise in the area.
Show your personal touch by creating a special board to introduce your company’s team members, using the description under each photo to write a bio about them. Show behind-the-scenes photos of what goes on at your office, factory or events – people love to know how you make things, and putting faces to names will improve the sense of trust and honesty associated with your brand image.
Use these tips to harness results when marketing with Pinterest. Keep checking the SMF blog for further how to marketing tips!
Katie Rowley
Use these tips to harness results when marketing with Pinterest. Keep checking the SMF blog for further how to marketing tips!
Katie Rowley
Recent graduate and now interning as content editor, when she's not
writing articles Katie can quite likely be found festival-ing,
holiday-ing or reading a book (dedicated English student that she is). Follow her @KatieAtSMF.
Contact us on Twitter, on Facebook,
or leave your comments below. To find out about social media training
or management why not take a look at our website for more info http://socialmediacambridge.co.uk/.
Social Media Marketing Tips: Pinterest
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Reviewed by Anonymous
on
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
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Anonymous
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