Pinterest Marketing Guide

Pinterest has captured the interest of most marketers and small business owners that love anything that allows them to share their inspirations and creative spirits. It’s a place for us to ‘pin’ the heck out of anything and everything we love and plan to do or try….whenever we can get to it!

Pinterest has a lot of opportunities for marketers:

Web Traffic – Studies have shown that Pinterest is driving more traffic to websites than Twitter, which is a huge feat for any social network. Think about ways to host unique, interesting and original images on your website, blog or online community and making them pinnable.
Reach – Whilst this may not have a direct line to your bottom-line, the further (and more often) your brand reaches into the socialsphere, the more people are aware of your brand and therefore are more inclined to choose your company when the need arises. Fact.
Sales – For many e-commerce sites, this site has been a huge increase in sales. Take Etsy, an online community of the crafty and DIY inspired who sell their handmade goods online. Pinterest drives an amazing amount of traffic to the site (Etsy provides more pictures for Pinterest than even Google) resulting in more business and sales.
Brand Loyalty – being visible with the coolest, most progressive ideas will help your business establish credibility with followers and inspire them within your genre of business. It keeps you top-of-mind and helps to build a relationship that’s sharable.

Getting Started on Pinterest

When setting up your Pinterest account for marketing, set it up with your business name and include an About paragraph that includes why people should care about your pins and a link to your website.
Link your Pinterest account to your Twitter account, and if you utilize a Facebook Profile for sharing and networking for professional purposes, link your Facebook profile. As usual, use caution when using a Facebook profile for business purposes.
Create boards of information that relate to your business and your relationship with your clients. For example, if you are a sporting goods store, a board that lists cookie recipes may be interesting to you, but your clients aren’t going to necessarily agree, right? Something more appropriate might be a board that lists information on smoking meat, funny quotes about tricking the wife into letting you go fishing, etc.
Name your boards with interesting, creative names that still communicate what it’s about and remember to keep them brief. Categorize your boards as well, which helps people find your boards and profile based on similar interests.

Start Pinning

Start pinning and try to pin every day a little bit. To make this easy, get the applet on your browser window, which allows you to click ‘Pin it’ whenever you’re on a website with interesting images relating to a topic your clients would enjoy.
Make sure to spread the pinning love across many different sites. You want to be recognized for finding original content, which means you want to spend time reviewing several different sites and pinning the most relevant items from a variety of sources. Pick a few favorite sites to visit (like YouTube, Etsy, etc) and try to discover a few more every week.
Utilize the comment area every time you pin, adding information that is relevant to the image. Use keywords, hashtags for pins you share on Twitter and also remember to mention others in your comments by adding ‘@username’ like you do on other networks. This helps to spread your pins further on Pinterest and on other social networks.
Comment and like other pins on complementary boards to start networking with other companies and creating awareness about your own presence. Repinning is another way to start the networking process and share information easily with your own followers. For example, if you have a clothes boutique around the corner that you often collaborate with on events, etc. you may want to also collaborate online by repinning their information and also interacting on their pictures as long as the audiences share similarities.
Collaborate on boards by getting others to start boards and allow you to add to them and vice versa. This is a great way to swap leads and clients and is also a great way to get your employees involved.
Remember that when you pin someone else’s picture to be mindful of copyright and trademark violation liabilities. Post as much content that you create yourself, or simply share the credit in the description to be safe that you are giving credit where credit’s due.

Start Promoting You

First, remember to keep the promotions to a minimum. This is all about sharing relevant, interesting information, therefore think about ways to be the most relevant, most credible source of information and inspiration for whatever you do.
Become a walking source of pins with the smartphone app, which allows you to pin pictures directly from your phone. This is great for people like fitness trainers, purchasers, salon stylists, etc. who can add a steady stream of content to their boards from their day-to-day efforts.
Make sure you have an online outlet that allows you to share content from your own hub. The most obvious option here is your website, as this drives people to your website for more information. Secondly, a blog is a great place to have a steady stream of content to pin. Whatever you decide, make it a place where you can add a steady stream of image-based content that also has a place for them to book and appointment, buy a product or somehow get closer to becoming a client.

Get Smart About Your Goals

Name your images appropriately before you add them to your blog or website. These impact what and how it’s shared.
Focus on getting the right images in the right places. The more emotive they are the better, and remember that humor is in fact an emotion! A powerful one at that!
Add a ‘Pin It’ button to your website to get people to share it easily and also add a ‘Pinterest’ button on your site to get people to follow you on Pinterest.
Add a price in your descriptions for anything that you sell online by adding the appropriate monetary symbol followed by the price and Pinterest automatically.

Author Bio: Valorie Reavis

Social Marketer, foodie, closet geek

A marketing professional who has focused primarily on the hair and beauty business for of the past decade, Valorie now runs linkup marketing, a digital marketing agency for the hair and beauty professional. Valorie works to engage clients in the marketing process and help them successfully engage with their clients and community. Energetic and passionate about the industry, Valorie focuses on blending traditional and digital media in order to bring salons closer to their clients.