Everyone knows that social media is becoming a force to be reckoned with in eCommerce. Everyone isn’t quite so knowledgeable, though, about some of the newer players in the game. Pinterest, in particular, is making enormous waves in the world of social commerce. In fact, there’s almost no better way to draw a unique and ideally suited audience to your eCommerce site than by pinning your pages on Pinterest.
The Details:
1. Pin the best images from your blog posts, preferably the photos, infographics, or Photoshop images you’ve created yourself. These will draw traffic to your Pinterest account and to your website. But don’t only promote yourself!
2. Build/consolidate your reputation as an expert by pinning content from popular blogs, news sites, and portals in your niche. Your boards should feature more content from other sources in your niche than from your sites. For every two images from your blog or site, post three images from other sources. The top interests for US users include crafts, gifts, hobbies, leisure, interior design, and fashion.
3. Organize contests that encourage your followers to contribute content to your boards. Because of its format and convenience, Pinterest is probably the best social platform for visual-based contests. If you sell toothbrushes, ask your customers to take a photo of themselves using one of your toothbrushes and pin it to a board you created specifically for this purpose. The photo that your followers like the most will win.
4. Use group boards for internal or external collaborations. Pin helpful resources, insider tips, infographics with the latest trends, behind-the-scenes images, and training materials to your board. These boards attract a lot of attention from the customers and experts in your niche and help you get a lot of targeted traffic. And remember this: shoppers referred by Pinterest are 10% more likely to make a purchase than visitors who come from other social sites.
5. Repin content from your blog and invite other bloggers to repin content from their blogs on your boards to get more exposure. Always choose an interesting theme for the board. This enables you to connect with other bloggers and gets your content repinned by others. Over 80% of pins are repins.
6. Use themed boards to cover, at length, a subject area in your niche that you are familiar with in order to build authority. Add content to it regularly and encourage experts from your niche to join in. They will do it for the exposure.
7. Create contributors’ boards and have your employees keep them updated. By creating contributors’ boards and adding employees as contributors, you can get your most web-savvy workers to get involved in your social media marketing efforts.
8. Join other group boards and contribute content to them from your own website/blog. You can establish connections with other people from your niche who use Pinterest for marketing, as well as spread the word about your brand to new audiences. Become an active member of the Pinterest community and you will get plenty of invitations to group boards.
9. Pin quotes with relevant images to your boards. Extract the best quotes about your niche from your blog posts and articles and reuse them to increase your traffic and build a reputation as an expert. Go a step further and add a product image to your quote. But be warned, this strategy works best with visually appealing items such as clothing and decorations.
10. Post behind-the-scenes images of your employees. Establishing connections with customers on social sites is a lot easier when you get personal, and with Pinterest, it’s easy to get personal. Create a board to which your employees can post images of themselves at the workplace.
The Bottom Line:
Like all social sites, Pinterest can be addictive. Because it’s almost entirely a visual site, it might seem to require only a little of your time, but that’s not at all the case. Finding great visuals worth pinning, creating boards, and keeping them organized and updated, takes time, so it’s wise to work up a pinning plan and schedule.
