You’ve probably seen* Pinterest boards floating around online. Whether it’s wedding wishes, recipes, cute kitties, or décor inspiration, it’s a fair bet you’ve seen loads of boards reflecting fun and interesting topics. You may even have your own account – and know just how addictive the platform can be!*
But is Pinterest just a fun way to create galleries of all the things you love and share them with friends, or is there more to it? Can you actually capitalise on Pinterest’s popularity for your business? The short answer is yes.
What is it?
Pinterest is a visual network that gives you the ultimate freedom: you can create “scrapbook” boards and search for others based on your interests. By having a presence on the platform, you increase the chance of your business being top-of-mind for consumers looking for interests, products or services, and give them the opportunity to pin images of your products and services to their boards.
Pinterest can drive web traffic back to your company website too. Placing the Pin It button on any image on your company page will help drive traffic back to your website because every single one of your pins will include a link to the original source.
Convinced yet? Ready to create a Pinterest account? Go here!
What now?
Promote your Pinterest account across other platforms*: *Add the Pinterest button to your website and promote your account through your other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
*Create boards on specific topics: *This allows you to attract users passionate about certain things – and it’s easy! Cottages; pink bedrooms; fish-ponds … the topics associated with real estate are endless! When writing your descriptions, remember to repeat SEO keywords. (We’ll talk about SEO in an upcoming newsletter.)
Engage with others’ pins: Follow users that you want to follow you back. Like and comment on their pins; when they see you interacting with their pins, they’ll be more likely to follow you.
*Avoid human faces in photos: *Easy in our industry! Data shows that photos without human faces are shared 23% more than images with faces in them.
*Be selective with your colour choices: *Data shows that images with dominant colors of red, dark green and pink are shared three times as much as images that don’t have them. Red or orange images are also re-pinned twice as often.
*Highlight happy customers: *ask your customers to send you photos of them moving into their new homes; doing renovation projects; and so on.
*Host a contest: *Asking dedicated users to create their own boards demonstrating what they love about your brand, tells them you value their input in your marketing. They’ll love you even more when you tell them that the best board will win a prize!
*Add the Pin It button to your website: *Make it easy for people to share images from your website.
Add links into your descriptions: Adding links to the descriptions of your images will drive traffic back to your main website, which allows you to measure how useful the platform is compared to your other social media presences.
*Build a video gallery: *YouTube isn’t the only place where you can share videos! Build a library of videos about your products and services to catch fans’ attention.
*Use hashtags: *Hashtags make content more search-friendly and can help you leverage a marketing campaign on multiple channels, including such as Facebook and Twitter.
Happy pinning! (I warned you it’s addictive!)
