Maximize Your Efforts on Pinterest

Pinterest is a very useful tool and is sure gain your business more exposure and traffic back to your website.  Provided it’s done the right way!  Here are several tips and tricks on how to maximize your Pinterest efforts.

Pin Quality Content and Don’t Over Pin

Although there might be hundreds of cute puppy photos out there, PLEASE only select a few to pin during one pinning session.  Not everyone wants to see their feed filled up with the same thing over and over again.  And, people will start to unfollow you if your content is too repetitive.

Pin Original Content

Repinning is great and makes you a solid user on Pinterest which everyone loves.  However, pinning original content gives you an advantage.  If you’re the first person to pin a photo, your name will be “stamped” on that pin.  Also, your website URL will remain on the pin which means more traffic back to your website!

Use Keywords to Describe Your Pins

People often leave the pin description blank.  This is no good!  How will someone find your pin if there aren’t any keywords?

Text on an Image Receives More Clicks VS a Plain Image

If you have a photo of a DIY project, try adding text overtop of the image.  People are more likely to click on it, especially if there is a call to action, like a button or “Click here to view the DIY instructions!”.  Even better, try branding your pins so that they all have the same look and feel. Your followers will quickly start to recognize your brand and style and will then be more likely to click on the branded pins since they recognize them.

Follow Other Pinterest Accounts that are Similar to Yours

Like any social media platform, following like minded people/accounts will increase your following.  Slowly, but surely.  People following accounts similar to yours will likely come across your account out of pure interest or you’ll show up as a suggestion for them to follow.

Check Your Analytics

If you have a business account, be sure to check out your Analytics.  There is a ton of useful info in there that you’ll be able to use when planning your Pinterest efforts.  For example, under Audience Insights, you’ll see your account’s stats like the age of followers, their gender, the country they’re from, what type of device they are viewing Pinterest on and so on.  Plus, you’ll be able to see your audience’s top categories and interests which are super useful.

Don’t Forget to Lead People Back to Your Website

When you pin something via webpage URL, it will automatically add your webpage to the pin.  However, if you upload an image, you will need to add your URL manually.  Be sure to do this!  This is how people find your website through Pinterest!  Otherwise, it’s kind of a wasted pin, IMO.  Sure, it looks nice, but if it doesn’t point anywhere, it doesn’t do you much good.

Add a Pinterest Button or Badge to Your Website

Adding a Pinterest button to your website is important, just like it’s important to add your other social media profiles like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  You can build one here.

Have Several Boards

While it’s important to pin often, you want to have several boards.  This will allow different people to follow different areas of interest.  And, please don’t restrict yourself!  For example, if you use Pinterest for your flower shop, you can have the obvious boards like “Roses”, “Tulips”, etc… but you can also add boards like “Around the World”, “Wedding Flowers”, “Special Occasions” and so forth to broaden your Pinterest account so that people who aren’t interested in flowers alone will follow you as well.

Join Group Boards

Although you may not have many followers (or, maybe you do and just want more!), group boards often have hundreds, if not, thousands of followers.  Other pinners may choose to invite you to their boards or you can always leave a comment on one of the board’s pins and ask if they will add you.  Once you’ve been added, you’ll be able to share your pins with those thousands of followers.  Please keep in mind that this won’t instantly increase your followers, but will most likely generate a slow increase as it gives your pins and business more exposure.  IMPORTANT: don’t overdo it on group boards.  Trust me, you’ll get kicked off.  Check the board’s description for rules.  They will often outline how many pins are allowed per day and what types of pins are welcome on that board.

And, if you want to go the extra mile…

Create Multiple Pinterest Accounts

This seems a little excessive, but if you’re trying to advertise your business, you may want to create a business account and then a few personal accounts as well.  Be sure to repin the business account’s pins onto your personal accounts.  This will spread the word faster, and chances are, your different accounts will attract different followers.  So, in addition to having 1000 followers on your business account, for example, you’ll have another 500 on your first personal account and 500 on your second personal account — making it 2000 instead of 1000.

That’s all I got!  What do you do on Pinterest that works for you?  Let me know in the comments!

Also, leave a comment below if you’d like to be added to any of my boards on Pinterest.  If I am able to add you (depends on if it’s a group board or not), I will!