Pinterest is a hot Social Networking platform offering those who master it an opportunity to get ahead of the curve and capitalize on the staggering growth of Pinterest. Here are some more advanced approaches to Pinterest marketing.
3 Primary Pinterest Marketing Strategies
To manually promote your Pinterest account you need to connect and interact with others. Here are the primary 3 Pinterest MarketingStrategies:
1. Repin
2. Make Comments
3. Follow others
Any repin on Pinterest will give you opportunities to drive traffic. On Pinterest when you repin another's pinned picture, they get notified via email. Hopefully they will follow the links to your account and see where you pinned their picture, giving you an opportunity to have them look through your boards. The obvious need here is to have boards that interest your new visitor to the point that they consider following your links to the site you are promoting.
Making comments is a great Pinterest marketing strategy that can drive traffic too. When you hold your cursor over a pinned picture you see the "comment" tab, the "repin" tab, and the "like" tab. When you make a comment is stays with the picture, so whatever you say has the potential to catch peoples' attention and drive traffic- so say something thoughtful. You might even consider some kind of "call to action" if it's appropriate. In addition, Pinterest will notify the person who pinned the picture that a comment has been made and give them a link to respond to your comment, again giving you a chance to drive traffic.
When you follow others on Pinterest you definitely will have the potential for driving more traffic. Each person you follow gets an email notifying them that you are following them and either says that they are already following you, or gives them a link to allow them to go to your account and follow you. So each person you follow is an opportunity to connect with someone new and drive traffic to your promoted sites and pages.
Your Pinterest Marketing Brand
If you log onto Pinterest and put "Phil Stone" in the search box and click the category, "People", below the search box you will get to my account by clicking on my picture. You can follow me, and please do. Then you'll see the number of people who follow me and those I am following. If you click on either category you will get the entire list of people. You can scroll down and choose to follow any one of them yourself. You will see the picture of the person, which is why you should consider a clean head shot rather than a pretty flower, and thumbnails of the last 6 things that person pinned. That's your reason for making sure those last 6 things have the potential to interest others. You can create a picture with copy on it and upload that to one of your top boards to keep that message in front of everyone. See what I've done in my Pinterest marketing.
To check how you appear to others in your Pinterest marketing, just go to your account and click on your followers, pick one person, and scroll down until you find yourself in that list. Then you can see what others see. Make sure you are well represented.
"Liking" was not included in my 3 main methods of Pinterest marketing because it has the least value from a marketing standpoint. Yes, the "like" shows interest, but even though the pinner is notified, no one can get to the source of the "like". It helps- but not as much as the top 3. You have helped the "pinner" get noticed, which is a nice thing.
Avoid excessive self promotion. Pinterest marketing is like using any of the Social Networks (except twitter). You never want to lead with your opportunity, product for sale, or paid service you offer. Always offer value first. Build a relationship and trust. Then maybe you will have a clean opportunity to directly solicit your contact. I lead with the PhillipJStone site because I have a ton of free training that I paid dearly for with my time and my money. I don't expect a return. I hope for one, but don't expect one. When using Social Networks online, always lead with value.
Pinterest marketing is sure to change as the program matures. You may be able to direct message people easily. Links may be more difficult to spread everywhere. And I have already seen automation programs popping up. Expect more of those. I will keep you all posted with any new insights. It's hard to say where this will go, but it is obvious that Pinterest marketing is on its way up!
Try Auto Pinterest Marketer to increase your traffic from pinterest