You’ve probably heard of Pinterest by now. You’ve probably heard that you should be using it for your business.
But there’s a good chance you just haven’t found the time to do it yet. Or maybe you don’t think there’s a pot of gold waiting for you at the end of Pinterest’s rainbow.
Really? Shareaholic says it drives more traffic than Bing, Yahoo, StumbleUpon, or Twitter …
Image from Shareaholic
The holidays are here, though, and most businesses want to get their piece of the pie this time of year. Being innovative and trying new marketing ideas is always good. But it usually takes some planning ahead, right?
Well, there’s good news. If you take action and get started right now, you can still get up and running on Pinterest in time for Christmas. Here are a few ideas to get you going …
Group Community Boards
Pinterest gives you the option of creating community boards. This means that not only can you pin things to your board, but you can invite others to pin on it too.
Why would you do this? Several reasons!
First of all, you can quickly gain new “followers” who are interested in what you have to offer. If you sell kitchen appliances, you can create a cooking board (the gals on Pinterest love food). Once you’ve created your board and started adding pins, it’s time to get some contributors to your board.
Search for influential users or people who have a lot of followers related to cooking, food, or the kitchen. Keep in mind that just because someone has a lot of followers, that doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is influential. How can you find influential users?
Hello Insights
Hello Insights can help you pinpoint the most influential users, as well as keep up with what your followers are pinning and sharing, and this can help you to optimize your use of Pinterest.
It’s free, too. I’ve requested my free membership, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to use it yet. So I can’t go into a lot of detail. (Maybe I can tackle it in a follow-up post!).
iGoDigital
If you are able and willing to put some money into Pinterest marketing, then take a look at iGoDigital. They’ve designed an innovative system that enables you to identify who pins your stuff, what kind of reach they have, and how likely that pin will become popular. It also puts a numerical value on the Pinterest reach of a particular follower or pin; i.e., what kind of revenue you might expect if they pin your stuff. Now that’s crazy.
If you find someone with a high worth through iGoDigital, then you would definitely want to consider adding him or her to your board. When someone is a contributor on your board, your board will then show up on that person’s boards page — and it puts your board in front of their followers.
Thinking outside the box and putting community boards to use is a lesser-known method of quickly gaining valuable and targeted followers.
Secret Savings Gateway
Pinterest has only very recently released a new feature on the site: secret boards! This is awesome news. If you’re creative, there are tons of ways you can take advantage of these. Let’s look at just a couple of them.
One way you could use secret boards is to get new, targeted followers interested in what you’re offering. How? You can offer them exclusive Pinterest deals.
In order to get access to the coupon codes or deals, they have to be invited by you to the board. You could require an email signup, ask them to follow all your boards, or whatever else you decide in order for them to gain access to the board.
If you’re an individual or small business that has something to teach, there’s another amazing opportunity. Offer your expertise in a monthly membership club. Users would pay a set amount per month in order to receive lessons, tips, or guides that you post to the board.
** There are a few things to take note of with secret boards. First of all, someone you invite to the board will be able to repin pins from that board — but the repin will not link to your board or mention it in any way. Get all the details here.
To create a secret board, simply create a new board and turn the secret feature “On.” You can have up to three secret boards. Public boards may NOT be made secret, but if you decide to make your secret board public at a later date, you will be able to do so.
** Pinterest asks that if you’re using the site commercially, you set up a business account (yes, Pinterest for businesses is officially here!).
Conclusion
Pinterest is one of the many under-used sites that could be generating a lot more business for you. What are you waiting for? Contact us if you need help. We would be happy to look at your business and identify profitable marketing ideas.
----------------------------
Interested in getting help growing your website traffic? Contact us.
About the author
Veronica has been writing online since 2007. She enjoys helping clients with copywriting and content needs, as well helping with SEO campaigns. Her experience ranges from helping small websites succeed with SEO and internet marketing campaigns to writing for Planet Green (Discovery Channel).
