Build Traffic with Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual social marketing tool that is soaring with followers. It is an online bulletin board where images and videos are `pinned’ or bookmarked. Pinterest has appealed to a wide segment of online users. The quick sharing of images from all kinds of categories is a fantastic and easy way to communicate.

Pinterest is now ahead of text communication and visual marketing is at the front of the race. It is no surprise. Consumers have embraced the movement. They are able to quickly make sense of information through visualization. This is huge! People want easy-to- consume, straight-forward, self-explanatory and you-hit-the-nail information in seconds. A picture is still worth a thousand words. So step aside Facebook, Twitter and Google+ as another social media tool has come to take over.

1. Start a Pinterest account. You have three choices in signing up – with your Facebook account information, Twitter account information or by the use of your email address and creating a new Pinterest account. In observing these steps you will need a user name. Your Pinterest name must be unique and this can be changed in the future. If you operate a business and prefer to use your business name, Pinterest affords the option for a free business account that offers you functionalities such as buttons and widgets.
2. Consider Your Purpose on Pinterest – Yes everyone is ecstatic about Pinterest, but with what aim? Now that you have opened an account, what do you hope to achieve? If you are an online marketer, you know Pinterest is way too powerful for just browsing the image boards. So before diving in, you must position yourself to earn money and generate traffic. Here are the three (3) phases:
   • Optimize Your Presence – Take the time to write an interesting profile of yourself. You have a restriction of 160 characters in the description box so use it wisely. Use keywords that are great for your business. Choose selectively your boards/pins and increase your followers through recognition and frequent pinning.
   • Sustain High Attraction – Pin images that are unique, mind-blowing and storytelling. Understand the principles of infographics as this is emerging as the next frontier of marketing technology.
   • Promote Your Interests – As Pinterest can be used to promote a business, a website or an event, understand the strategies behind promotion. You may provide a site link under an image, highlight an interesting excerpt from a book or a blog and offer free coupons or downloads on your Pinterest board. All this is to entice your Pinterest visitors which ultimately will lead them to another website or area of interest. This is a huge opportunity to direct traffic.
3. Organize Your Pinterest Boards – There are many different categories that are of interest to followers. Some popular categories are wedding planning, crafts, fashion, home interior, jewelry and cooking/recipes. Whatever is your interest, don’t crowd any one of your Pinterest boards with a variety of items that have no common theme. Organize your boards with titles that fit your pins. Untidy boards and vague titles are not attractive to followers.
4. How to Pin from Post – When pinning from a website, ensure you are pinning from an individual post and not the home page. As such, ensure you click on the individual post. This is important to ensure users are not faced with the frustration of clicking on a post that has been removed from the home page.
5. Keep Abreast of the Seasons – There is a tendency for pins to be focused around certain seasons. Whatever is a hot topic in pinning is a hot topic for blogging! So pay attention to what is building traffic on Pinterest and build content around these topical issues. Share the images of your content pages on Pinterest with links from your website.
6. Streamline Pin Boards – You have the option to follow boards and not persons. As such, you may follow a Pinterest`game board’ and not the person who has created the game board. This done by just a simple click on the Pinterest user for a view of all the boards. Here you may follow the board names that are relevant to you.
7. Show Products in Action – Pinterest has images everywhere, so do something unique when promoting yours. If you are promoting a product, don’t just show an image but demonstrate what it can do. If you a promoting a wedding dress, unless it is it is for Princess Diana, it would be unwise to just display it on a hanger. What makes a world of a difference is to have it worn by someone with the matching figure. Similarly, customers go after products that will explain a solution. This is the case when a clean shirt is shown after using a detergent, and a dirty one shown as a comparison.
8. Create the Right Board Titles – Exercise the same caution in the description of pins in the words you use to describe your board titles. Use relevant keywords as this will offer a better chance of your board being displayed to searchers. Utilize the `Edit’ button underneath the board to facilitate changes of board titles from time to time.
9. Link Your Site to Your Profile –You can make a Pinterest icon that is clickable appear in your profile if you include your web address in your Settings.
10. Pin Stuff from Others – Pin your own stuff but pin others’ stuff even more! Select a ratio, e.g. for every pin of your own, you will pin ten that are not your own. This is a good strategy to build followers as they too will check-out your boards.

I hope you have found the ten tips discussed useful. As Pinterest is a highly useful visual marketing tool, get on board and use the many functions for building traffic and business growth.