As far as social media marketing goes, social media giant Pinterest goes largely unnoticed by new eCommerce entrepreneurs looking to Market themselves on the internet using the money available platforms. While new entrepreneurs will often use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to promote their brand, many overlook using Pinterest because it gets far less public exposure than many other platforms.
This being said, there is still an extensive audience using Pinterest each and every day, and using the platform properly can open your brand up to audiences of millions of people that may have never before seen your product or site.
Using the Pinterest platform may feel daunting at first, however there are a number of tips that can be implemented to find success using the site.
The first big challenge is optimizing your Pinterest profile in order to obtain more followers. There are a number of settings that can be changed on your profile and your post that will open it up to larger audiences, which in turn will result in more views and clicks:
- Be sure not to leave your profile on private, and ensure that each of your posts are public. When your profile and posts are private, fewer people can see them, and therefore you are limiting yourself to a much smaller audience.
- You must also complete your Pinterest profile to the fullest, in order to boost your credibility among viewers. Having very little info, no profile picture, and a poor username can hurt your Pinterest marketing potential in the long run, making it important that you fill out your profile to the fullest, and in the most professional way.
- It’s also important to connect your Pinterest with some of your other social media accounts, such as Facebook, Google+, or Twitter. Having your Pinterest account associated with other social media sites increases your potential audience to those accounts as well. They show up on your Pinterest account, and many times fans of your boards and posts will want to follow your other social media accounts as well.
A big part of being successful on Pinterest is also having professional content on the web. It’s important that whatever you link back looks as appealing as your Pinterest account itself, making it important that all of your social media accounts, as well as your personal website or Blog look professional in order to impress new viewers immediately. In addition, you’ll want to incorporate some techniques in order to encourage more pins, and therefore more shares:
- Instead of directly posting your content on Pinterest, have the option to pin the item on your website itself. Readers will be encouraged to share the content on Pinterest, and therefore it will reach a unique audience.
- It’s also important to embed your boards and pins into your blog post, in order to navigate some traffic to your Pinterest site. In addition, you must have pin it buttons available for any Pinterest post you have embedded in your site, as this is essential to reaching a large audience using the Pinterest platform.
- One of the biggest benefits of using Pinterest is the built-in ability to share content on other social media sites, as well as on Pinterest at the same time. Because of this, you can share your pins on Pinterest on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and other popular social media sites, in order to reach a larger audience. This also directs people back to your Pinterest site, which in turn will increase your followers on the platform.
After you ensure that your blog and social media accounts are setup to best accommodate your Pinterest account, it’s time to begin participating in the Pinterest community in order to grow your follower base, as well as your audience:
- It’s important to consistently re-pin contents as time passes, in order to appeal to new Pinterest users who may have never had the opportunity to see the content before. It’s very easy to re-pin content on Pinterest, making it a vital part of marketing successfully using the platform.
- Another key way to increase your follower base on Pinterest is to start discussion with other pinners in the same niche. Find Pinterest users who like your account in order to establish a connection with your community.
- After you have substantial content on your Pinterest page, it’s time to look at where that activity is coming from. See which users are interacting with your posts, and look at their followers. By following their followers, you may be reaching out to a new audience that is interested in what you have to offer.
- You can also ask your already existing friends on social media to help you on Pinterest by following you, and reposting some of your content in order to give you a small boost.
- While following the followers of your own admirers can be an effective way to reach out to a new audience, the opposite can also be done. It’s just as important to reach out to the followers of your competition, as it is to reach out to the followers of your own account. By following these users, they may find that they enjoy your account more, or just as much, and will as a result repost your content as frequently.
- If you feel that you need to work with more people on Pinterest, there are a number of group boards online where pinners can meet other pinners and promote each other’s posts. You can introduce yourself to these communities, and find individuals in the same niche that are interested in promoting you and engaging with your content.
Following other pinners is one key way to grow on Pinterest, however commenting on other pins is another good way to grow your follower base. In addition, you may want to consider running a Pinterest contest or give away, which will encourage chairs and lights in order to be entered in the contest. This is a sure-fire way to increase exposure, and is one of the most cost-effective ways of reaching a new audience.
After you’ve learned how to reach out to others in the community in order to grow your follower base, it’s time to ensure that your account stands above your competitors in order to stay interesting, and continue to grow with proper engagement:
- It’s important to name your boards in a very unique way that stands out from others. Pinners enjoy accounts with creative and unique board names, so putting some effort into the titles of your boards can pay off in new followers over time.
- You should also use keywords in your posts in order to improve your SEO ranking. Using keywords also makes it easier for pinners to find your content without much hassle.
- Pin during peak hours, on peak days throughout the week. Don’t waste a perfectly scripted post during a time of day that is not popular among Pinterest users. Pin contents during High traffic times of the day, during the best days of the week before exposure.
By following these tips, any blogger or eCommerce entrepreneur can expand their Pinterest audience within just a few short weeks, and will begin to see higher conversion rates as a result.
