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56 Ways to Use Pinterest for Marketing Purposes

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you should know that Pinterest is an emerging social networking website that lets people easily share image collages and visual content online with a wide audience. Most audience viewing comes via Pinterest group boards which are boards populated by Pinterest users or collaborators.

Because of the ease with which content can be shared with a large number of people, Pinterest has become very popular among casual users and marketers alike. Part of the appeal of this social platform is that it looks very beautiful and aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

It is like a wishlist, which gives marketers insight into what users want or desire. Since it is an image based social website, the majority of content on Pinterest is positive and up-lifting. You can think of Pinterest as Facebook without the accompanying drama.

However, due to the peculiar nature of Pinterest content and its consumption, it is one of the best tools for marketers, and today we’re going to share ways to use Pinterest for marketing.

What exactly is Pinterest?

After you create an account on Pinterest (be sure to create a free business account for marketing purposes), you can design and manage online boards, which are basically image collages, for all the various topics and subjects that you are interested in. You can then add videos and images to these boards by ‘pinning’ them, which is a term that means uploading images or videos to these boards.

With almost 150 million users all over the world and increasing every day, Pinterest is a rapidly growing platform. You might think that pinning material on the website does not lead to referral traffic to websites and blogs, but the reality is that Pinterest drives more traffic to websites and blogs than Google Plus, Youtube, Reddit and LinkedIn combined.

If you are interested in learning how you too can avail the wonderful opportunities to be gained by marketing on Pinterest, read on.

For beginners

1. Ensure that the name of your business is prominently featured on your profile. This will ensure maximum exposure on the website. Your username should be the name of your business for maximum effectiveness.
2. In the ‘about’ section in your Pinterest profile, write a well written paragraph about who you are and what your interests are as well as what your business is about. This paragraph will appear beneath your profile picture and will be one of the primary ways by which other users can learn about you at first glance.
3. Sync your Pinterest account with your Twitter and Facebook accounts. This will help you increase the number of followers and will also add social media icons beneath your profile picture on Pinterest, that will link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.
4. Remember to add your website URL in your profile.
5. Instead of pinning content in sudden bursts followed by periods of inactivity, make sure that you pin high quality content regularly and consistently. This will maximize your exposure and engagement levels.
6. When coming up with names for your boards, try to make them creative and interesting. Whenever you pin something, these boards will get shared, so try to make them enticing and attractive to other people. Keep in mind however, that you will need to keep your board names short. There is not a lot of room for long and descriptive titles.
7. Frequently tag other Pinterest users in your Pins like you would tag people on Facebook. Simply add @username to your pin descriptions to tag other Pinterest users. These people should be other Pinterest users who are working in the same field of business as you are. This is a good way to stand out from other people and to build a loyal following.
8. Make an effort to comment on the pins made by other Pinterest users. Just like tagging other people, commenting on their pins will increase the level of engagement you have with other users.
9. Another simple way to increase your rate of engagement is to ‘like’ the pins made by other people whenever you come across pins that are good and of high quality.
10. Instead of pinning material from one or two online sources, pin content from lots of different sources and websites and come up with original content as well. Variety is very important on Pinterest.
11. Similar to a retweet on Twitter, you can ‘repin’ other people’s pins. So apart from pinning your own content, also make sure to repin other people’s pins. The person whose pin you repin will get a notification that you have repinned their pin and they will also get credit on your repin, increasing their following and increasing your rate of engagement.
12. Be balanced when pinning your own material from your blog or website. Don’t go overboard with pinning your material as that can lead to your pins being seen as less significant than they should be.
13. There is a special section on Pinterest just for videos. So be sure to pin videos from time to time. You can easily pin videos from YouTube or other places in order to distinguish yourself from other Pinterest users.
14. Whenever you pin an image or video, be sure to add a good description under it. Be smart and witty when coming up with descriptions, as this description will stay with the pin whenever it gets repinned. If the image is from your blog or website, be doubly sure to add a good description that mentions the name of your business.
15. Once you have pinned a new image, you can use the inbuilt tools offered by Pinterest to re-share the image on your Facebook and Twitter accounts as well.
16. The feature offered by Pinterest to embed pins on your blog or website is very handy.
17. Get the Pinterest app for the iPhone or Android. This will allow you to pin new material no matter where you are. You can also pin new material using your camera to take a picture and add a location and description to the images you pin while on the go.
18. Optimize the content on your website or blog to be able to be shared on Pinterest. Use images for every single post that you upload on your blog or website. This will make it very easy for you or other people to share your website or blog content on Pinterest. If you feel too lazy to do this, keep in mind that when you neglect adding an image to your posts on your website or blog, it will mean that this content will not be able to be pinned on Pinterest. Also, it will be more likely to get pinned and repinned if you use a beautiful image.
19. Once you get used to adding images to every single post on your website or blog, start using a watermark or text marker in your images. If you are using your own images that you created yourself, then adding a watermark or unique text to it will help to make your images stand out. Make sure that the watermark or text does not obstruct the image in any way.
20. Keep special days and holidays in mind and create seasonal or holiday boards that are related to the topic and brand of your business. Some examples of these are New Year’s Resolutions, Independence Day, Christmas, etc etc.
21. In your blog or website, add a prominent and large ‘Follow Me on Pinterest’ button. This will let people know that you’re a Pinterest user and will increase the number of followers you have.

For intermediate users

22. Come up with new images to pin or trends by using Pinterest’s own search engine. You can find this search bar on the top left corner of every page on Pinterest.
23. When you are writing descriptions for your pins, use keywords to increase the chances of other Pinterest users finding your pins when they search using the same keywords.
24. Ensure that at the bottom of every one of your posts on your website or blog, you add a ‘Pin It!’ button. This will allow your readers to easily and quickly share your content on Pinterest using their own accounts.
25. In case you didn’t know this, your Pinterest page has its own RSS feed. You can find your feed by going to your Pinterest profile page and then clicking on the RSS symbol beneath your profile picture. Once you have found the link for your feed, you can add it anywhere you want to, such as on Facebook or LinkedIn. Be sure to spread around the address of your feed to your readers and ask them to add your feed to their feedreaders.
26. Do you have a WordPress website? You can use the handy Pinterest widget available on WordPress to feature your recent pins on your WordPress sidebar.
27. Pinterest has the feature of letting you add contributors to any of your boards. You can use this feature to allow your staff to contribute to your Pinterest boards and increasing your rate of engagement. This will allow your board to become more lively than it would be if only you were able to contribute to it.
28. You can find out who else has been pinning and repinning your content by visiting http://pinterest.com/source/yoursitehere. Visit this page often to learn which of your posts and images are popular among Pinterest users. Use this information to design your content sharing strategy.
29. To create your own Pinterest shop, simply add prices to your pins. You can do this by simply adding a currency symbol followed by the price of the specific item in the description of the pin. When prices are added to your pins, these pins may be featured in the ‘Gifts’ section of Pinterest.
30. Design a new board that describes the story of your business and tells readers about your core values and mission statement. This board should be accessible by everyone as part of your sales process.
31. Once you have developed a decent amount of clients, you should consider developing a ‘thank you’ board that you can use to thank your current and past clients. You can add appreciative messages to beautiful images and post them on holidays or other special days.
32. Whatever product or service your business is about, you should add videos that provide tutorials on how to use the product or service.
33. Find out the current trends on Pinterest by clicking on the ‘Popular’ tab on your home page. You can use this page to discover what’s popular at the moment among Pinterest users. You can then use this information to increase the engagement rate for your own pins.
34. Since Pinterest is all about expressing yourself, don’t be afraid to be yourself and pin material that truly represents who you are.
35. If you want to give a morale boost to your employees, you can create a special board to highlight the individual accomplishments they have achieved. You can write a short biography of every employee underneath their picture as a description for pins on that board.
36. After you have developed a reputation on Pinterest, you can consider creating a new board to share behind-the-scenes pictures of your company and employees busy at work.
37. Become a curator of information related to your business niche. Get the latest and up to date information to pin on your boards. In this way, you can become a trusted source of information related to your business niche, and this will allow your following to expand and grow at a rapid pace.
38. Integrate your Facebook account with your Pinterest account. This will allow you to post content to both websites at the same time in a single step.
39. On your blog or website, highlight older content so that people can repin your old posts.
40. Regularly go over your old posts and content and polish up old images and videos by adding text or other media to them. The better an image looks, the more repins it will get.

For advanced users

41. Learn at what times of the day you are getting the most number of repins, likes, comments and referral traffic by analyzing your Pinterest and website traffic statistics. Experiment by pinning content at different times and days of the week to learn how to maximize the traffic and engagement levels with your audience.
42. Get in touch with your clients who use Pinterest and introduce them to each other. Give recognition to your best pinners by sending out a weekly newsletter (using email) that details the ‘best of Pinterest’ for that week. This newsletter should include specific boards and pins from your clients’ Pinterest profiles.
43. Create new boards that you moderate yourself where your fans and clients can express their support for you. They can contribute images, videos and other media that gives details about your events, products and services.
44. If you have different online personas for different clients, then create separate boards for each persona. Then, use these boards at various different times during your sales cycle and embed them into your website so that people can get a clear idea about the type of clients you are trying to attract.
45. If you teach any classes or lecture in webinars, create a board for it. You can then use this board to publish supplemental material related to your lectures and teachings.
46. Create separate boards for affiliate partners and referral sources. Allow them to contribute to the board, which will greatly increase your rate of engagement.
47. Allow your best clients to contribute to some of your boards. They can then pin their material related to your business niche, increasing your rate of engagement.
48. After you have been running your business and marketing it on Pinterest for a while, create a separate board where anyone can contribute. Make it clear that this board is only for testimonial purposes. Here, satisfied clients and/or students of yours can express that gratitude and praise your products and services. This board can be a great source for you to get new clients and customers.
49. Use your boards to tell stories to your clients. Take boring and dry case studies and turn them into powerful and visually appealing stories.
50. Visit your client’s boards to get ideas for thank you gifts to give them.
51. Pin guides and manuals for your products and services. This will give your clients ideas about how to most efficiently make use of your products and services.
52. If you are going to any conferences, create a board just for a single conference. Print out cards with instructions on how to join that board, and hand them out to all other attendees of that conference.
53. Create visually powerful coupons and add them to your boards.
54. A great way to impress unique clients is to create a separate board just for that client. You can then use this board to post customized content specifically tailored for that client.
55. From time to time, offer special Pinterest promotions. Come up with new pins that give special promotions to people who follow you on Pinterest.
56. Occasionally run a Pinterest contest and invite your readers and clients to pin content from your website or blog that inspired or motivated them. You can then judge all these entries and select a winner and then give them a suitable prize. This will greatly increase your rate of engagement.

Pinterest is an effective and good looking marketing tool

In recent years, Pinterest has become an invaluable tool for online marketers to increase traffic to their blogs and websites. It has surpassed other marketing platforms like LinkedIn and Youtube.

While many people are talking about the numerous marketing benefits of using Pinterest, a lot of people are quietly implementing marketing strategies using Pinterest and they are reaping the rewards. You can follow the tips given above to similarly market your products and services and start getting practical benefits as soon as possible.

If you don’t have the time to do all that, you can also take advantage of our Done-for-You Pinterest Marketing Services and have us do all the work for you. Additionally, you should Browse our packages and save yourself the time and effort required to join group boards.