When I first learned about Pintrest, I was really slow to jump on the bandwagon. I had just hired a new marketer for one of our locations, and she always had the cutest hairstyles and neatest articles of clothing. Each time I would compliment her on them she would say, “Thanks, I learned how to make this on Pintrest. You should check it out, but beware, it is addictive and can cost you lots of spare time.”
Spare time wasn’t something I had a lot of, and the last thing I really needed was a new social network to waste time on. Fast forward to this past Christmas. I’m proud to say, almost every single Christmas present I gave (all homemade) received rave reviews, and each idea was inspired by Pintrest. Yes, I caved. But what prompted me to cave was trying to figure out how I could utilize the site to market our business. I knew that in order to successfully market it on Pintrest, I had to understand how the site worked from the user level.
More than one million people visit Pintrest each day to pin and repin their favorite photos, images, styles, crafts, and recipes. If you’ve never seen or used Pintrest, it is basically a large virtual bulletin board, that allows people to share pictures with each other. Those pictures link back to websites. The key to being successful as a marketer on Pintrest is to create visuals that people want to repin and click on to learn more.
I wanted to share with you a few of the tips I have learned over the past few months since starting it.
1. Create Infographics
People like lists …both general lists and checklists. Add a fun visual spin to them, and they can quickly go viral on Pintrest. You don’t even have to have a graphics background to create your lists. Infographics can easily be created for free at www.Infogr.com.
2. Link to Your Site
The key to making Pintrest successful from a marketing standpoint is the linking strategy. Everything you pin should be linked back to your website, so when people click on a pin to learn more, they are taken to your website.
3. Create Coupons & Include Price
People like coupons, and Pintrest is all about the visual. Adding a dashed border around a special you may be running often increase the number of clicks and repins your graphic gets. Additionally, if you are selling something off your website, be sure to add the price in your pin’s description. On Pintrest, adding price instantly makes it a “gift” in their gift category.
4. Pin on Saturdays
Saturdays is the most popular day for people to be on Pintrest. If you want the most visual impact for your effort, make sure you take time to pin on Saturdays.
5. Write Descriptions
Each time you pin something, take time to write a description. Descriptions help add keywords to the search when people are looking for things on Pintrest, helping ensure your pins will show up long after their original pin date. Good descriptions are generally 200 to 300 characters long and tells the story behind the image.
Happy Pinning! Use these tips to create images that will be shared repeatedly on Pinterest.
