In order to make the best of Pinterest and truly take advantage of the tremendous way it can boost your business, it is important to understand the basics. In truth, Pinterest is like most forms of marketing, and as such there are some best practices to consider.
1. Create Interesting Content — We know that content is still king, and it doesn’t matter what type of content you deal with, if your content is not interesting people won’t care. Make your content interesting. As you consider pins think about what your target audience wants to see.
2. Curate Relevant Content — As a business owner that markets on the Internet, you likely already understand that content curation is the key to a lot of traffic but make sure the content you’re curating is relevant to your target audience.
3. Know Your Target Market — That brings us to the target audience. If you don’t know who your audience is, it will be difficult to engage in any sort of marketing efforts at all, including pinning. Get to know your target audience intimately. You should know their demographics by heart, as well as their fears, desires and needs.
4. Engage Your Market — Your customers are there, but it’s your job to be exciting enough to get their interest and engage them in the conversation. Because, even when you’re dealing with images, what is social media if not an ongoing conversation?
5. Influence Your Market — You know that you have the power to persuade your market to act in the way that you want them to, but most people don’t realize just how powerful their influence is on their followers and fail to follow through. To be able to truly influence your market, do what you say you will, and be above reproach. You must elicit trust from those you wish to influence, and you can use Pinterest to do that by being honest, open, and transparent.
6. Interact with Others — Like with any other social media it’s imperative that you interact on Pinterest. If you are using too much automation it can backfire. People will trust you more if they feel like a real person is answering them.
7. Create a Call to Action — You know that you’re not going to make the sale if you don’t ask for it. If your Pinterest boards do not have a call to action, you’re wasting your time. If you want someone to re-pin your pin, you need to ask for it. A call to action is important on your pins, boards, and on your blog. Ask people to pin your stuff!
8. Share Other People’s Content — If you share other people’s boards and pins, you’ll be loved for it. In addition, if you only share your more “in your face” product sales pitches people may become numb to your suggestions to buy, but if you mix it up with sharing other people’s pins, your own pins, with boards that make sense to your audience you’ll get more Pinterest love.
9. Track Your Images — As with any marketing campaign it’s important to always track everything. Now that Pinterest has taken notice and offers web analytics that allows you to track images you’re able to see how each photo you pin is re-pinned or viewed. This is very useful information for businesses that are using Pinterest for marketing.
10. Measure The Results — If you can track it, you can measure it. As with any marketing efforts measuring and analyzing results is paramount for success. You can do more of what works, and less of what is not working so that you don’t waste your time.
By always focusing on these 10 best Pinterest practices you can make the most of your Pinterest marketing efforts for whatever niche you are engaged in.
Joshua Shoemaker
