How to use Pinterest effectively for your business

1. Lorna Sixsmith
www.writeontrack.ie

2. Pinterest Today
• What is Pinterest?
• How to pin & repin? How it all works.
• How to maximise chances of your pin going viral
• Pinboard management – optimisation, keywords,
setting covers, moving boards, contributor boards
• Maximising Pinning from your website
• Pinetiquette
• What to pin if your service/product isn’t visual
• Pinerly / Pingraphy / Picmonkey / Polyvore
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3. Why Use Social Media
• Demonstrate Expertise
• Brand Awareness
• Traffic to Website
• Convert to Sales
• Online Word of Mouth
• We do not have a choice on
whether we DO social media,
the question is – HOW WELL
WE DO IT”. – Erik Qualman.
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4. What is Pinterest?
• Online Pinboards
• 25 million unique visit per month
• Pins = online images
• Pins are shared by being repinned
• Follow each other and be followed
• Most popular pins – food/drink related
• Pinterest is delivering significant referral traffic
and Pinterest users are apparently more inclined
to spend than other social media users
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6. Pins receiving interaction
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7. Pinterest Boards
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8. Getting Started
• Sign up at
www.pinterest.com
• Create some boards
• Put the ‘Pin It’ bookmarklet
on your browser
• Use the bookmarklet to pin
any picture you like
• Add it to a designated board
with a description
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9. Going Viral
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10. How to Repin
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11. How To Follow Others
• Search for them by name
• Facebook / twitter friends will be displayed to
you
• Search for people by interest
• Can ‘follow all’ their boards or follow selected
boards
• Repinning / liking will be reciprocated – a way
to build relationships
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12. Maximising Repinnability
• Good quality photographs
• Text showing what the blog post is about
• Instructographics
• Pins showing progression/change
• Long, tall and skinny pins
• Be a recipe with a mouth-watering picture,
beautiful hair, instructions with photos, cute
craft ideas or handy tips
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13. Why is this a good pin?
• It has a sequence of
pictures showing
progression
• It has the text on it to show
it is a ‘how to’ tutorial
• I know if I click on it, I’ll be
brought to the tutorial with
full instructions
• ‘Invisibly’ adds more kudos
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14. Why is this a good pin?
• Long, tall and skinny – so
takes up more room on
pinterest page
• Is a demonstration with text
instructions
• Shows the pinner
(hairdresser) is good at her
job, knowledgeable and
willing to share ideas (a nice
person!)
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15. Good Pin?
• Great for fashion businesses
• Shows your expertise
• Suggestions can lead to
increased sales
• Create moodboards on
polyvore or olioboard
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16. Popular Pins - Repinly
Quotes are popular Create a food-related board
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17. Pinboards – how to name them
• Use keywords – do searches on google
keyword research tool and on pinterest
• Use repeated keywords?? E.g. Bookcases,
bookcases, bookcases
• For your target audience e.g. Tips for
Mumpreneurs, For the Home, Country
Kitchens,
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18. Managing your Pinboards
• Set board covers so picture is displayed well
• Change board covers regularly
• Move boards around esp seasonal ones
• Create contributor or shared boards
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21. Why Set board covers
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22. Setting board covers
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23. Shared/Contributor boards
• Get more followers
• Create a community
• Increase probability of repins
• All members get an email notification
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25. How to create a shared board
• You have to be following at least one board of
a prospective contributor
• Edit it to add contributors
• They receive email notification and on
Pinterest site
• The more the merrier
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27. Ideas for Shared Pinterest Boards
• Conference Speakers can share slides
• Travel Agents – ask clients to share holiday pictures
• Photographers – share ideas for photoshoots
• Interior Designers – share ideas for moodboards
• Before & After Decorating/Makeover/Fashion
• Fashion/Retail – Ask people to pin photos of
themselves wearing your brand
• Hotels – invite customers to share holiday photos
• Craft/wool shops – share photos of finished work
• Pet stores – photos of pets in new collars etc
• Bookstores – shared board for book reviews
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28. Increase pinnability from website/blog
• With blog posts, use plain
pictures with some text to explain
content – so that picture is
pinned
• Good Quality Photos
• Pin it button on website
• Pin it button on blog
• Good SEO on photo
• Descriptive Text on main blog
photo
• Put url in description, not on
photo
• Price?
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30. Using PinWords
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31. Using PicMonkey
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32. Building Your Followers
• Think about your target market’s interests and
needs and create boards accordingly
• They will also find you by searching on
pinterest for a particular product so optimise
well
• Show your Personality – don’t just pin around
your product or service
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33. How to Get More Followers
• Good quality pictures
• Add the ‘Follow Me On Pinterest’ to your site
• Sync with facebook/twitter
• Show personality
• Pin regularly, little and often (schedule with pingraphy),
repin (80/20 rule)
• Comment on other pins
• Follow others
• Pinning buddies / Pinerly suggested pinners / contribute to
shared boards
• Getting repins (as when repinned, repinner has opportunity
to follow that board)
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34. Your pin description on Twitter
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35. How to Monitor Your Pinterest Success
• Email Alerts
• Pinerly / Reachli
• Google Analytics
• http://pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com
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36. B 2 B & Non-Visual
on
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37. Non-visual Brands Using Pinterest Well
Oreck Hubspot
• Sells Cleaning equipment • Board for Hubspot Dublin
esp floor cleaners (new announcement and with
a competition)
• Furry Friends • Board for their webinars, blog
• Stunning Floors (clean) posts etc
• Blue – their signature colour • Fun Facts, Inspiring Quotes
• Shared contributor boards
• Customers’ boards (with
• Fun boards e.g. All things
Oreck products) orange, spotty
• Personality • Behind the Scenes at Hubspot
– show personality
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38. Pinning the non-visual
• Instructographics
• Infographics with a call to action
• Staff members / Behind the Scenes / Charity or
community involvement
• Signature colour
• Different media e.g. Webinars / book covers / videos
• Location of Offices
• Seasonal boards
• Lifestyle that can be attained with your product/service
e.g. A clean house / relaxation
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39. Example of Infographic with a CTA
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40. Pinetiquette & Copyright
• Pin Little & Often
• 80/20 Rule – 20% Your
Content
• Credit the Source – be
mindful of copyright
• Your Reputation
• Your Personality
• Interaction
• Follow Back
• No-pin code available
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41. Before You Start
• Decide on goals and objectives
• Will you try to build a community?
• Will you try to engage fans?
• How often will you pin?
• How will you communicate personality?
• How will you measure success?
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