Bringing it Home with Pinterest

I've talked about how to create the perfect pin and then how to measure your successful pins, now here are my quick tips to bring it home.  Then you are on your own and I am moving on to LinkedIn next week.  I kid!  Let me know if you need/want help!  Pinterest is one I quickly became addicted to and I would love to spread the addiction.

Create boards for your products and services. (And some that have nothing to do with them!)

A separate board for each.  Include your own original pins and pins that compliment these items to create even more utility for your followers.  Then...put together some boards that may just be interesting to you, or you think might be interesting for a follower.  (Ex.  I pin for an event venue, so I put together some boards that are just for themes someone could potentially do for an event.  They are some of our most pinned.)

Make your pins viral

Share them on all your other social media sights too!  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram....you get the idea!

Make sure your website is optimized for Pinterest

Remember people Pin things they see EVERYWHERE on the internet.  So, make it easy for people to pin stuff directly from your site.  Anything in Flash can not be pinned, and a lot of Jacascript image preview tools block the ability to pin.

Add a "Pin It" button

To your website, products, images, blog posts, etc.

Happy Pinning!

Kristen

5 Ways to Measure Pinterest Success

As with any marketing element you put time and effort into a way to measure your return and time on investment is imperative.  Otherwise.....what's the point?  Here are some quick easy ways to measure your efforts on Pinterest.

1.  Average Re-Pins Per Pin

Set a goal and track how many re-pins you get on average.

2.  Average Likes Per Pin

Same as above but with Likes.

3.  Average Comments Per Pin

You see a pattern here right?

4.  Points System

I like to take all of the above and combine it into one system.  You can set it up a number of ways but I set a goal of 100 points per pin, similar to how I measure Facebook posts.  I get 1 point for every like, 10 points for any comment and 20 points for a re-pin.

5.  Click Throughs

Like any online marketing effort, the goal is to get people back to your site.  Track the number of visits you get each day, week or month coming directly from Pinterest.  I use Google Analytics to do so.  It's free and super easy to use.

Happy Pinning!

Kristen

A Perfect Post on PInterest

Launched in 2010, Pinterest is a pin-board style photo sharing site where users can collect images and links back to sites for more information.  I used to do this via blogging - but Pinterest has streamlined that process and allows me to group images onto boards to be easily accessed later.

I have heard some describe it as the land of dreamers, where people put together boards for what they want their perfect wedding, perfect children, perfect house, perfect body and on and on to be like.  My husband would call it Fantasy Football for women and I would have to agree.  It is a wonderful time sucker, and now more and more businesses are taking to the Pinterest universe to become a utility as well as brand themselves as that "perfect brand".

So what make the perfect pin?  That would be the goal for any business on Pinterest...for that perfect pin to go perfectly viral.  Here are some tips to help you get started!

Little Background

-Use a compelling background, but it shouldn't take up more that 35-40% of the image.  The purpose of a pin is to pin-point what you want Pinners to see.  (Say that 10 times fast!)

No Human Faces

-Images with no human faces with them are shared 23% more than pins with human faces in them.  Focus on the product or service!

Lots of Color - Bold Images

-Think red or bright pink, to catch users eyes as they are scrolling through their timeline of pins.  The image is what catches them - the rest just seals the deal.  PS, images with Red in them get pinned twice as much as any other image.

Portrait Style Images

-They perform better the horizontal images and show better on the page as people are scrolling.  Therefore, they perform better.  Perfect ratios are 2:3 and 4:5.

Happy Pinning!
Kristen