HGTV. Nordstrom. West Elm. ModCloth. Those are some of the big name retailers who are using Pinterest to drive significant traffic to their retail websites. In fact, Pinterest has become so popular, it is driving more traffic than Google+ to retailers’ sites.
I think it is safe to say that it’s time for us, as marketers, to take this social network site seriously. But what exactly is Pinterest? And how do you use it to promote your business or brand?
Download this quick marketer’s guide to Pinterest for making your marketing efforts more beneficial.
Well, this guide will help you get started.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is becoming a social network site for sharing interesting images you find online. Think of it as an image-based social bookmarking tool like delicious.com…but with a better community.
These images, once uploaded to the site, are known as Pins. Users can place these pins on boards, customized under a theme. You can create any kind of theme you want: architecture, motorcycles or even history.
Fifty-nine percent of its “pinners” are women between 25 and 40 years of age. Women also make up 58% of its unique visitors.
It’s been on a spectacular growth in the last six months with 40 times the number of visitors. In fact, Time magazine called Pinterest one of the top five social networking sites.
The site is so popular, it is controlling growth by making you enter your email address to get on a waiting list to become a pinner. However, this should only take a couple of days.
Of course, if you know a pinner, you can ask him or her for an invite.
How to pin
Pinning is pretty easy. You can link to a website or upload an image. Or you can install the Pin It button from Pinterest.
Pinterest will grab the web address anytime you pin content, so you don’t have to worry about crediting the original source. After you’ve grabbed an image, your next step is to assign it to a board and add a caption, and you’re done.
It’s better to create boards that are narrow in focus. If you have fifty boards on very tight subjects like social media tools, 20s silent movies, Seattle micro breweries, you are more likely to catch the attention of someone who shares your interest.
How to add prices to your pins
If you want to add the price to something you pin, you can include it in the description. A header will then appear over the content with the price:
How to pin on Pinterest with your iPhone
You can also pin images with your iPhone.
Just download the app, and you can:
- Look at the pins and pin boards of the people you follow.
- Comment, like and re-pin.
- Use your camera to pin, which adds a location.
Make sure you tag your images. This will help your images to be found when people search Pinterest.
What to pin on Pinterest
When it comes to what to pin, the possibilities are endless. Right now, the leading pins tend to be fashion, crafts, photography or architecture.
If you do a quick glance of the most popular pins, you’ll notice one thing – they are stunning, unique or useful:
That should tell you something. Those who are really enjoying Pinterest are very visual.
And, sure, you could just pin random, cool stuff you find across the web, but the power behind Pinterest lies in the ability to organize content around a theme or a project.
How to create boards on Pinterest
For the best user experience, anything you pin to a board should relate directly to that board. This will also increase the likelihood of people following your boards.
Create a title for the board, and always add a description:
Why should you create a board? You could create boards for:
- A car you are fixing up and pin ideas for things you want to do to modify the car.
- Each room of the house you want to redecorate.
- Pin images that are ideas for blog posts.
- Birthday wish list.
- Recipes and cooking ideas.
- Items you might need to go on a camping trip.
- Movies you want to see or books you want to read.
A board can have multiple contributors, so you can work with other people on a project, seeing all the ideas that are being shared. You can invite others to contribute, but they must be one of your followers.
How to find pinners
Like Twitter, Pinterest is an open social network site…that means you can follow anybody you like without having to get their permission.
How do you go about finding people you like? There are a couple ways to find pinners who might follow you:
- Comment on a pin you like, “like” it or re-pin to one of your boards.
- Follow a specific board.
- Follow all of a particular user’s boards.
- Search for a particular topic.
- Browse the “Popular” pins section to see what is trending.
- Invite your friends or co-workers to join.
Once you’ve found several pinners you’d like to collaborate with, you can now create a group to work on a project whether to plan a wedding, class reunion or other event.
Creating a group is simple:
- Click the board’s edit page.
- Change the pin setting to “Me + Contributors.”
- Add a friend’s name.
You have to be following one of their boards in order to do this, and keep in mind that anyone you invite can decline the request.
How to find content on Pinterest
Most of the content you will find on Pinterest is photos. But you can also see all the videos that people are sharing.
Just hit the Video navigation link at the top of the page:
This page sits behind a user account, so you need to be a pinner in order to see all the videos, but it’s worth it. The tutorials alone are useful and practical, and trailers are fun.
From a marketing standpoint, the videos are a great way to create and share educational material. Because of the Pinterest audience, however, there is a way you have to create these videos so they appeal to the audience. Remember, right now the audience is predominately women who love fashion and crafts.
So, let’s say you are a financial advisor who targets parents that want to set up a 529 college savings plan. A tutorial on a 529 wouldn’t get a lot of traction. A tutorial on how to decorate or furnish a dorm room, however, would. And the eyeballs that land on your video will then be exposed to you and your business.
10 tools to help you find great content for Pinterest
Most people who are professional web surfers are not short on coming across stunning and useful images. However, even the best of us need a little help to find inspiration when it comes to pinning. Here are ten tools I recommend.
- StumbleUpon – Choose a topic you are interested in and then click “Stumble.” This discovery engine will deliver surprising results to your screen. When you see an image you like, pin it.
- Facebook – Follow people who share extraordinary photos on Facebook. When you find a pic you like, search the web for the original source to pin. Pinterest won’t let you pin from Facebook directly.
- Google+ – Follow some power users on this site who tend to share stuff that is both work-related and fun. Google’s Marissa Mayer shares pics of her extreme hiking trips while explorer Trey Ratcliff posts pics of great stuff when he travels across the globe.
- Twitter – People share content on Twitter all the time, especially Twitter power users. When someone shares a pic, click through and pin it.
- Blekko – You can eliminate the spam stuff from your searches with Blekko, giving you highly-targeted search engine results and inspiring images.
- Paper.li – With Paper.li, you can turn all of your social network feeds -Twitter, Facebook and blogs – into a stream of news content that you can scroll through quickly to get that gem of a pin.
- Delicious – You may have forgotten about delicious.com and not even used it forever, but it’s still a great place, where people save content. You can skim your connections’ list of stuff they are sharing, crawl through a stack or simply search under specific topics to find great images to pin.
- Google Reader – If you want a quick and dirty way to see what all your favorite blogs are sharing, stick them in a reader like Google’s. Sites that are picture heavy that you might want to add are The Big Picture by Boston Globe, This Isn’t Happiness or Hawlin’s MOOD. Follow the pics from those last two sites, and you’ll discover great niche sites that share great images too.
- Bundlr – Surf this curation tool to find inspiring images to pin. Look at their most-popular collection or staff’s pick to find the unique and useful image.
- Pinterest – It should seem obvious, but simply working through Pinterest several times a day will lead to some amazing images to re-pin. Don’t forget to @mention the original poster when you do.
9 reasons why marketers should use Pinterest
If you are a community manager, early adopter or social media enthusiast, then the business value of Pinterest may be obvious to you. However, everyone else in marketing may not share your enthusiasm.
But how do you go about convincing them they should jump on board? Here are nine reasons your business should consider marketing on Pinterest.
- Shift in consumer behavior from search to discovery – Search is great for finding answers. Discovery is great for finding inspiration. Pinterest taps into that phenomenon. As Samil Shah explained on TechCrunch back in November, Pinterest is bringing some of that discovery online, which could lead to a revolution in how we purchase items. Right now, we are trained to go to Amazon or Google to find what we want. Pinterest starts before that search, before we are even thinking we want to buy a particular product. For example, if I wanted a sound system for my laptop, I might hop on to Pinterest, browse a category devoted to sound systems and then land on a product. Within that discovery phase, however, I may never end up at Amazon since Pinterest drives traffic back to a retailer’s site.
- Little interaction needed for brands – A legitimate concern for any brand considering jumping into a new social media platform is the resource question: do you have the budget to staff? The nice thing about Pinterest is there isn’t a lot of overhead. Outside of pinning, categorizing and tagging images, you don’t have to worry about managing comments or playing the follower game. You can push content at your own pace.
- Connect with the visual segment of your audience – Pinterest is visual. So it attracts an entirely different crowd…those who may have an appeal for an image over written words. Why is this important? Consider how content marketers typically engage their audiences…through words, videos or audio podcasts. You can open the doors to a new segment of buyers who may be interested in your product – but not know about it – by building a community around the images you pin. That can draw others in, who are inspired by your account, and that can lead to referrals.
- Inspires the shy content creator – Pinterest is allowing another segment of the online market get into the action. That segment is the lurker. It’s the person who is too shy to create his or her own blog, comment on other social sites or contribute in any way online. Pinterest is best compared to Tumblr, where most Tumblrs do not create original content. They just share, or “re-blog,” other people’s content. Pinterest is a great way for people to express themselves without having to do anything original.
- Amplifies the content of original creators – The average Tumblr post gets reblogged 9 times. That means it’s reaching far more people than if it remained on its own site. While there aren’t numbers on Pinterest, you can assume the same thing. Content is re-pinned and shared across a wider audience. So if you are an original content creator, sharing that content on Pinterest will amplify its reach.
- Repinning is the new “retweet” – It’s quite possible that you can build a community from simply sharing other people’s pins the same way some Twitter power users have built a following from retweeting or Tumblr users who’ve reblogged.
- Tap into niches – As I mentioned above, Pinterest will allow you to pick up a different segment. You can take this idea of niche marketing further by creating boards specific to particular segments. For example, Crutchfield might create boards around “dream man caves,” “cool clubbing” and “ladies’ lounge,” which include reader-generated home-based sound systems in these themes.
- Build your expertise – Even if your brand doesn’t work seamlessly on Pinterest like a lifestyle company’s might, you can still use it to share your experience and build your expertise in a particular location or industry or relationships. A web strategist like Jeremiah Owyang might create boards around “must-have social media equipment for road warriors,” “top people to know in the web analytics business” or “places to eat when you attend Conference X.”
- It’s beating out Facebook referrals – Finally, perhaps one of the best reasons for using Pinterest in your social media marketing plans is that it is outperforming Facebook. The general manager of digital for the print magazine Real Life said that Pinterest was a huge source of traffic in October 2011…more than Facebook. Time to re-tool our marketing strategies, don’t you think?
21 businesses/brands promoting on Pinterest
So, what kind of brand or business promotes on Pinterest? Great question. From non-profit organizations like the Humane Society of New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to small, Midwestern shops to global brands, Pinterest is proving to be a good fit for offline and online organizations. Here is a list of 21 most notable Pinterest accounts.
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art – SFMOMA is the perfect example of an organization being able to weave Pinterest into its marketing plans. A museum on the West Coast devoted to 20th and 21st century art, it’s already got great boards geared toward “caffeinated,” “humans” and, of course, “exhibitions.”
- Modern Ink – This bi-monthly magazine shares photos in boards that reflect critical keywords when it comes to their audience: “polished beauty,” “outdoor lust” and “face time.”
- Etsy – No surprise to find the online vintage and hand-made marketplace on Pinterest. The two seem perfectly suited for each other.
- Ivory Homes – Utah’s number one homebuilder Ivory Homes shares content with followers that involves great home exteriors, things that make a house a home and decor for each room of the house. It’s a good example of blending its own content with the interest of its customers.
- Sevenly – Charity based t-shirt maker Sevenly pins the images they use for inspiration, actual t-shirts they’ve created and plain goofiness in their “epic check photos.” The combination of business and personality makes it a great pinner to follow.
- Honeycomb Salon – This hair salon in Minneapolis pins images of hairstyles broken down into boards like “short cuts,” “long cuts” and “men’s cuts.”
- The Humane Society of New York – This non-profit uses its Pinterest account to update followers on pets adopted, new pets available for adoption and books pet lovers might enjoy reading.
- General Electric – You might wonder what a giant technology multi-national like GE could do on Pinterest. Well, if you like science, you’ll find its account quite fascinating as it pins content to boards like “bad-ass machines,” “the archives” and “#GEInspiredME,” a board devoted to photos taken by people with Instagram and tagged “#GEInspiredMe.”
- Gap – The clothing company pins content based on seasons, holidays and pics of Gap clothing worn by models and customers. The Gap pushed into promotional territory with their “2011 Holiday Gift Guide” board.
- Birchbox – This beauty 2.0 company merges skin care with tech, make up with new media. What’s really cool is their “birch box” board…a place where customers attach images of their birch boxes they bought from the company. A great way to use testimonials!
- AMD – You may be a little surprised at this maker of microprocessor’s Pinterest account…24 boards with topics that range from CES2012 pictures to PC Gaming, Valentine’s Day to New Years. It’s a great strategy that shows you how diverse a company can get when it comes to segmenting.
- Mashable – With nearly 7,000 followers, Mashable staff pin content based on tips and tricks, infographics, Super Bowl ads and gadgets. Check them out and see how a non-lifestyle content publisher is using Pinterest. It will be a good inspiration!
- Drake University – This private university curates content around its mascot, the bulldog, items to inspire students to study, what to explore in Des Moines and images the ultimate DU fan may love.
- Better Homes and Gardens – BHG created over 54 boards with over 932 pins (that’s 17 images per board). Boards are devoted to fun front doors, kitchens we want to cook in and not-so-boring neutral. Their Pinterest account shows how well they adapted their magazine online…knowing who their audience is and what they like. Their nearly 10,000 followers is a testament to that.
- Martha Stewart – This lifestyle guru uses her personal Pinterest account to promote her personal brand, while Martha Stewart Living is designed to cater to the magazine lovers. The combined accounts have over 22,000 followers.
- Bergdorf Goodman – This fashion company with over 5,000 followers has created boards around the seasons. Notable other boards include collections of pictures of coiffed hairstyles, books the staff are reading and Tom Ford.
- Travel Channel – True to its core audience, this TV media company puts a unique spin on its pins by placing them in boards like “places we’d rather be than work” and “behind the scenes: man v. food.”
- Chobani – America’s number one yogurt company cultivates “good conversations” around topics that will naturally be shared by its target audience: fitness, travel, flavor inspiration and holiday treats.
- Domestica – Online retailer that specializes in home goods made by hand, Domestica encourages followers through boards that display their love of Wes Anderson art, “Lez Talk Fall Fashion-Femmes” and “Plaid Is Where It’s At.” And they are not shy about directing traffic back to their retail site.
- Daily Grommet – This is the New Egg of crafts, delivering useful, interesting and exciting products they’ve discovered daily. They have a board dedicated to “talented artisans” and their favorite videos.
- Gusto Pizza – Small pizzeria in Des Moines curates content that endorses what it does—selling pizza—but, more importantly, lets you see who they are with boards dedicated to swagger and David Hasselhoff.
Brands that will struggle to market on Pinterest
Don’t get me wrong…not every business is going to find using or promoting on Pinterest easy. It’s still pretty tightly-focused, so tech brands, for example, are not going to find it very accommodating. In a recent article on TechCrunch, Sivan Cohen and Ben Lang share 7 Reasons Why Pinterest Isn’t Ready for Tech Brands. Here are the four most important reasons:
- Neither people nor brands are important – Pinterest emphasizes the pin…the image. Not the person, not even the board. The pin is what you will see first when you search.
- Tough to convert pinners into followers – A big global brand like Martha Stewart only has 22,000 plus followers. You would think she would have more. But for the most part, people will re-pin or like an image but won’t take the extra step of following. However, no surprise that Pinterest has close to 10 million users. It helps that they re-pin the most popular pins everyday.
- You have to be creative if your brand isn’t visual – Lifestyle brands work well on Pinterest because what they do and how they promote it are identical. If you own a beach resort, all you have to do is show stunning pictures of the beach, your villas and the ocean. A tech brand like DropBox, however, can’t compete. One way to overcome this hurdle is to create boards around the people in the office…and pin images of their antics and adventures in and out of work…much like The Today Show does.
- Men don’t get Pinterest – It’s not hard to see why women dominate as users on Pinterest. Pinterest is a platform that attracts fashion, crafts and lifestyle images…natural favorites for women. I think it might be hard to imagine World of Warcraft or Craftsman feeling comfortable at Pinterest. Until then, tech brands will probably be limited on Pinterest.
14 strategies for marketing on Pinterest
First, warning: While it’s not a rule that will get you kicked off, Pinterest does suggest that you avoid self promotion when using the site:
If you come across as spammy, the bigger danger is you’ll simply get ignored. Your self-promotion must appear native to the community if you want to drive traffic to your website/blog.
For instance, Leo Burnett in his Worldwide’s slide share on Pinterest suggests:
- Whole Foods would pin about food.
- The Travel Channel would pin about travel.
- The Today Show would pin about access.
- Bergdorf Goodman would pin about fashion.
That’s what I mean by native. So, how exactly should you market on Pinterest? Here are 14 common strategies:
- Online catalog – This is the most obvious example for a business with a physical product to sell. Gap has treated some of its boards this way. A jeweler might create boards for earrings, necklaces and bracelets. Don’t forget to add the price so you have the benefit of the price tag showing up on each image. And each image should drive the user back to the product description page of your website.
- Create user-generated boards – Since you can open up boards to other Pinterest pinners, create a board hosted for your followers. Then ask them to pin stuff in those boards based on that theme. For example, Amazon could create a board that allows users to pin books they’ve read and loved. Apple could create a board that allows users to share their favorite iPhone cases.
- Create a board devoted to your customers – Along the same lines as user-generated pins is the idea of a board in which you showcase some of your customers’ best pins. ModCloth gets the reward for this one.
- Create a testimonial board – A great way to leverage your customer and fan enthusiasm is to create a board dedicated to ways that your product or service has helped them. Say you are a financial coach…ask your followers to pin images of ways in which you have made them wealthier. Leveraging testimonials is an excellent way for companies that don’t fit the lifestyle mode to use Pinterest.
- Pin about your event – If your brand or business is hosting an event, create a board around it and pin content leading up to the event. Social Media Examiner would be an ideal candidate with its Small Biz Success Summit. Boards could curate pins on topics related to the conference, profiles of the speakers and examples shared during the conference.
- Pin about a new product launch – Even though tech companies may struggle to use Pinterest, start-ups might find Pinterest a good place to connect until the product is released. Supyo might find that it can keep interest on high alert with a Pinterest account that has boards focused on “things developers love,” “antics in the office” and “videos that they love.”
- Offer exclusive discounts – The most direct way of promoting on Pinterest is to offer exclusive deals on products for your Pinterest followers. You can also pin a QR code with compelling content that will drive visitors straight to more description of a product. Local businesses could benefit by offering QR codes for iPhone users to bring into their stores for special discounts.
- Host a Contest – Suggest to your followers that they create boards on their accounts about your brand…and then pin images that reflect why they like you. Lands’ End created a holiday contest called “Pin It to Win It” that bridged other social media sites to generate interest in the contest…and ultimately in the company.
- Create a video gallery – Pinterest’s video capabilities offers a lot of options for folks who want to create tutorials or record segments of a conference they are holding. Because of the draw of the visual element to Pinterest, I could see a content marketer like Smashing Magazine leveraging video tutorials, giving lessons on CSS and Flash design. Again, this serves as another way to expose your content and brand to a wider audience. And because of the re-blogging option, as the Pinterest user base grows, your chance for spreading content grows too.
- Show the human side of your brand – Pinterest is great for having fun…and showing your customers that you can have fun. Or that you are quirky and not all about the bottom line. The Today Show pins pictures of funny things their anchors do. How could this work for you? Imagine you are a start-up with a small staff. You could create boards for all of your employees, make them contributors and then allow them to share stuff that lets their personality shine. Pinterest is great for relationship management and for leveraging the hopes, dreams and desires…not only of your customers…but your employees as well.
- Add watermarks to your images – It’s easy for images to get pulled and for the original source to be forgotten on the web. Some of your content then could stop having the marketing impact you hoped for to drive traffic back to your site. To keep that from happening, add a watermark to each image you post on Pinterest or on your website. The watermark could be your web address or simply the name of your brand if it is easily recognizable.
- Raising awareness for non-profits – Among its efforts to alert people to endangered animals, The National Wildlife Federation also combines ideas for camping in your backyard and bringing attention and education to squirrels in their Squirrel Appreciation Day 1-21 board, where they shared a new photo for 21 days. Another non-profit, Amnesty International USA, is using its boards to raise awareness on issues like human trafficking and the death penalty. One board shares inspiring quotes, while another gives a recommended reading list. Naturally, all traffic is directed back to the site for donations.
- Use Pinterest as a research marketing tool – A great way to crawl inside the minds of your customers is to crawl through Pinterest, looking at what your fans are pinning. Remember, pinners are curating content that is important to them. A lot of the content revolves around major milestones in their lives: getting married, buying and decorating a home and having a baby…plus, things that inspire them.
- Use Pinterest as a minimum viable product – You can even treat your followers as a focus group by creating a board that revolves around an idea you have for a product…and then see how they react. Did you get a lot of comments? Repins? Likes? For example, Virgin Airlines might create a board dedicated to a new plane they want to test. In the board, they would share pictures of seats, foods and even locations that the plane would travel to. Followers could then add items that they would prefer to see on the plane. You probably wouldn’t get enough statistically reliable data to build a plane, but from a cost perspective, this would be an ideal way to get customer feedback.
Finally, don’t use Pinterest if you are not planning on measuring your results. In fact, it’s critical that you start paying attention to referrers if and when you launch your Pinterest account. Lay down a baseline of traffic you would like to see coming to your site, create benchmarks and establish a deadline.
If you haven’t reached your baseline by your deadline, re-evaluate whether Pinterest adds value to your brand marketing. Yes, you might be extending your personal brand awareness, but a direct lift in traffic to your site should be your number one metric for judging its usefulness.
9 ways to get Pinterest followers
While Lady Gaga might be able to pick up several million followers in a matter of months, mere mortals like us will probably not have such good luck.
But don’t let that frustrate you. Follow these 9 tips for encouraging people to follow you, and who knows…maybe in six months, you’ll have several thousand followers.
- Re-pin what your customers are pinning – To attract the attention of particular followers, create a board in your account labeled “coolest re-pins” or something like that…and then start re-pinning the content that they are sharing on their accounts. This is a great way to make your account less about business and more about the relationship, showing them you are actually taking the time to interact. A company using this strategy well is Whole Foods.
- Follow pinners/boards who/that fall in your target market – Basically, look for people who share the same interests as you do and who might be interested in what you do for a living. For example, if you are a photographer, then you would follow boards that are tagged “photography” or “weddings.” If you are a tech geek, follow people who enjoy science.
- Comment on pins – When you see a pin that you like, leave a comment with the pinner. Do this frequently, and you will start to gain his or her attention. Don’t forget that you need to add value when you comment. “Great stuff!” doesn’t cut it.
- Create a pin that goes viral – Sharing pins is obviously the main way you would promote your brand. But content on Pinterest has a chance of going viral. If you share a pin that someone likes, they may “re-pin” it…in other words, they share it with their audience. The more people re-pin an image, the longer it will stay on the popular page, getting more re-pins and follows.
- Use the 1/19 content sharing rule – Like my rule for Twittering promotional content, you should share 19 pins that are not promoting you for every pin that is promotional. For instance, you may only want to share your very best blog posts on Pinterest. Or it could be an infographic or guest post you wrote for a big blog.
- Encourage people to share your content on Pinterest – You can grab Pinterest share buttons from their sites and embed on your own. However, you may want to wait to do this until adoption of Pinterest grows and you’ve established it as a place where you are going to spend resources. I would recommend that you don’t overload your website with share options…people tend to get confused when there are too many options.
- Encourage people to follow you – You can also embed a Pinterest “Follow” icon on your website/blog.
- Tag popular pinners – You can get the attention of other pinners by including an “@mention” tag like Twitter in your caption. This will send a message to that user, who may then pick up on what you are pinning and re-pin.
- Use hash tags – Like with other social media sites, hash tags work on Pinterest to help you gain attention across multiple platforms and build up a following during a marketing campaign. They also work in gaining followers in much the same way as they do on Instagram. On Instagram, if you include hash tags on your photos, you will appear in those popular searches.
My final tip is to use Pinterest as an individual rather than a company. This is probably why Martha Stewart has double the followers than Martha Stewart Living. You are more likely to get followed if you have a personal profile since people won’t have the suspicion that you are trying to sell something, which will be the case if you set up your profile as a company.
How to optimize Pinterest for best SEO impact
From a web marketer’s standpoint, the most valuable aspect of Pinterest is link building. As AJ Kumar pointed out, the social and SEO value is obvious:
- Pinners can share content effortlessly – This leads to a high probability for content to go viral, spreading across the network…much like it does on Tumblr.
- Each pin has a link pointing back to the original source – No matter how many times a pin is re-pinned, each pin has a unique link pointing back to the original source.
In addition, these are not “no follow” links. In other words, you get all the authority of Pinterest with each link back to your site. That could change as the popularity of the company grows and it joins the ranks of Twitter or Facebook, but, in the meantime, it proves useful when it comes to ranking.
Chris Silver Smith shared some great tips on Search Engine Land for optimizing Pinterest for local search. Let me summarize some of the important points:
- Make your profile public – Do not hide your Pinterest profile behind a private setting…otherwise you will not get crawled by search engines.
- Include keywords in your About profile – Just like when you are creating a profile for Google+ or Twitter, your Pinterest profile should tell people who you are and what you do and convey the main benefits to anyone who might follow you. Keywords are a must.
- Set your location as specific as possible – Share both the city and the state in which you work to attract and draw local traffic.
- Connect your other social sites – Go the extra step and publish the other social sites you belong to, Twitter and Facebook being the most popular options. You can also add a subscribe button.
- Use a review page for business URL – If you have a really good review on a business directory like Yelp, use that URL for your company website on Pinterest. This can feed it authority to help that review rank high.
- Create boards around your keywords – Create a board about your city and pin pictures of your city in that board. Do the same with your service, product or event. Don’t forget to tag these pins with keywords.
- Promote infographics on Pinterest – Pinterest is highly visual, so infographics work well for items you can pin. Have one professionally created, and then pin and promote.
More than likely, Pinterest didn’t use “nofollow” on the links as an incentive for people to use the service in the early stages of its growth. So, the engineers may eventually turn all outgoing links from Pinterest into “no follow” once they reach a critical mass.
Conclusion
Pinterest is clearly here to stay, and it clearly offers a new way for you to promote your business. But it is technically still in beta, and the full power it has to promote brands is limited. For most brands, it may not be the right platform.
But if you have the right fit for the platform, there are plenty of ways in which you can interact with your community, experimenting and innovating with the consumer experience. It’s all about the relationship anyway. And for the time being, it offers good SEO benefits through its no “nofollow” policy.
Have you had any success marketing on Pinterest?
P.S. Feel free to follow me on Pinterest. 😉
P.P.S. If you want an invite to Pinterest, leave a comment with your email address, and I will send you one.
How can I get an invite? Applied for around a month ago, but still nothing. Any tips?
I’d be willing to help you out, shoot me an email (via the contact form on my site), I have 3 left.
Thanks for helping out Gregory.
Hey Ankit, just comment with your email address and I will send you an invite.
Me also waiting for invite.
can u pls help me in?
my id is 06bhoomi@gmail.com
Done. You should have an invite.
Done
Hi Neil. Can you please send an invite on my email also?
What’s your email address?
Its yogindernath at gmail. Looking forward for the invite.
Sent, let me know if you don’t get it.
Neil, GREAT article. My wife’s been addicted to this site, and we have crafty stuff all around our house because of it. As a marketer, I’ve been looking into how to make the most out of it. This really drills deep into it’s benefits. LOVE the testimonial board idea.
You should start using it. For your stuff, I think you can get a good amount of sales from it.
Pinterest is one of topics for which very low good information is written. And a post from Neil is really heplful. Awesone writeup.
Thank you! My goal was to write the most detailed guide out there on it.
Neil Patel, this is the ultimate Pinterest guide and I think that is very usefull for all, not only for the marketers.
Great job for puting this things together. :]
I have to share this on my Google+.
Thanks for sharing it! People who are on Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter… are ideal people to be using Pinterest.
Thanks for this detailed guide to Pinterest, Neil! I am still new to the site and wasn’t quite sure how to go about using it. This offers some invaluable tips and ideas. Just what I needed!
Yep, happy to help. If you have any question, just let me know.
Thanks for the guide Neil! Will be referring to this when we use Pinterest for marketing and for our user generated wall for our shopping site CuriousCatch.com
Thanks for sharing it, I really appreciate it.
I had no idea what pinterest was about. Thanks for the orientation. Hope I get an invite link soon!
Glad this post has been informative for you. You can try and request an invite straight from the site or you can find a friend who already is on it and ask them to send you an invite.
Neil…You are writing blog posts & articles like anything…
Amazing content, great information & very useful resources.
May people are selling total CRAP on the internet in form of cheap eBook & all…they should come to your blog and understand is QUALITY.
Keep it up bro…
Thanks Malik, I appreciate the kind words. Thanks for reading Quick Sprout!
I got a pinterest account last weeks, after pinning some photos I left and didn’t come back since. I still use tumblr for all the visuals.
You should try to use it a bit more. Spend an hour a day for 1 full week and then let me know what you think about it.
I think you will end up liking it.
The word “Detailed” is not enough to define this article. You have explained each and every part of it.
Thank you Jose, I put a lot of work into this one. 🙂
Hi Neil,
This is Great stuff. I was reading about content curation just this morning and Pinterest was one of the main sites I was intrigued by. This is definitely one very detailed account of how to use it.
I even have some ideas on how to use it in my business.
I hope to get invited by them soon.
Thanks for the deep insights.
If you need one, just leave a comment with your email address and I will send you one.
Hey Neil.
I definitely would like an invite. My email address is david@craneconsultinghouse.com.
I greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
Just sent one over to you, let me know if you get it.
WOW Neil! I just found Pinterest last week and had NO idea how to use it. I was just using it as a dream board. I’m so excited to get pinning today. I’ve forwarded your article to several of my entrepreneur friends – hope you have more fans by the end of the day – you are a master at making complicated things seem easy. Thank you for all you do!
Thanks Shannon. I appreciate you spreading the word about this blog post.
Really fantastic article, Neil!
I was hesitant to jump on the Pinterest wagon, but I’m glad I did. It’s definitely a great source of traffic, and if used correctly, can bring in a lot of new business.
Our company has one and we’re doing pretty well with it. But I love how ModCloth has a fan board. We might have to set up something like that.
Yea, they did a really good job. Not too many companies are actually doing things right like them on Pinterest.
This social site is pretty cool. I’ve seen it popping up especially on a lot of graphic designers blogs. In terms of content – pictures are worth a thousand words and are the most clicked on media on Facebook.
Was just a matter of time when we saw people sharing pictures exclusively as content.
Thanks for the detailed guide.
Yea, it is a top 100 website on the web. My guess is that they will climb into the top 20 by the end of the year.
Thanks for the great article. I have been using Pinterest for a while now and love it. I am not even using it to its full potential yet but the possibilities are huge. For the small amount I have posted I have had numerous visitors to my blogsite. Great pictures work the best. Thanks again, Sheryl
The more cool pictures you post on your blog and then pin it, the more traffic you will get.
Good tips to use the power of Pinterest. It’s been more than two weeks and no email from Pinterest. Can someone help me?
Thanks
What’s your email address? I will send you an invite.
I been wondering for a while if I could use pinterest in social marketing, my wife has been a member for quite some time know and she loves it. To be honest I have not look at it yet, but she has a few followers that offer to pin some stuff off are sight. I will have to take a look at it. Thanks for the post Neil.
You should. And if you need an invite, just leave a comment with your email address.
Great article! I would love an invite to Pinterest.
Please leave a comment with your email and I will invite you.
Thanks!
I have been curious about Pinterest; thanks for the great snapshot on how it works and how it can work for me!
No problem, glad I you could find the information you were looking for here.
Wow Neil…what a resource. You are like my mini Google for great stuff for my biz.
Best
Thanks! I really appreciate the kind words.
Huge informative post, Neil. I have an account on Pinterest but I didn’t know what it was about, until now. Thanks for sharing.
Hopefully you will make use of your account now. 😉
I used my twitter account and it seemed to work aite to have access to it. Btw, awesome info Neil.
Yep, you can use Facebook or Twitter to login.
Neil – great article, very extensive. I’d like to add that a great place to go for inspiration would be Tumblr – though it is very ‘lifestyle’ oriented as well.
I think it’s funny you mentioned men. I’ve heard from a few that they don’t “get” Pinterest but are interested anyway. Yes, I agree the current images are very geared toward men but I can see them getting on the bandwagon. Especially the trendy and geeky guys.
Kadee
Funny enough, at first I really didn’t get it. I was a late adopter to Pinterest, until my female friends started to do really well on there.
Hey Neil,
How bout an invite. Have been holding back some great pictures on a special car project I would like to share. Going to make a video about it. Been a while since i’ve done one.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ya never know now days might have a cool gearhead of a gal wanting to restore a classic rare corvette…. or follow along on the restoration anyways.
Always open to new ideas for an ole fart . Change or get left in the dust…..Brent
If you leave a comment with your email, I will shoot one over.
Thanks Neil – you keep us on the cutting edge.
Anytime. And thanks for commenting, as I learn just as much from comments as you may from my posts.
Hey Neil, by far the best Pinterest guide I’ve read so far. I’m not yet a user so I know nothing. But I’ve read many tutorials on how to use Pinterest and pin stuff. You’ve gone overboard 🙂
Is there an invite available for jane.sheeba@gmail.com? Thanks in advance!
Invite sent.
Thanks Neil 🙂
You’re welcome!
– Dang! I had an itivne to that a while back, signed up and then forgot about it. Now it is saying I don’t have an account. Care to pass an itivne my way? It would be much appreciated![]
Can you send me your email so I can get you an invite.
Many thanks, Neil — outstanding Pinterest tutorial!
I’ve got an invitation waiting in the wings. I’m not going to head over there until I’ve mapped out a strategy. I don’t like to approach a new social media venue willy-nilly. 🙂
Your post has been an immense help and eye opener as to the possibilities of adding Pinterest to my marketing mix.
You shine!
Thanks!
You actually don’t need to map out a strategy, I would just dive right in and then work on your strategy. Play around with a bit…
Neil,
Love the blog but this is a pretty blatant attempt at linkbait, no?
Not one big. I just wanted to write a really good guide on Pinterest as I couldn’t find one on the web…
If I wanted to make it more like link bait, I would have called it “The Beginner’s Guide to Pinterest”.
Thanks Neil for introducing this interesting website.
No problem, give it a try and see what you think. 🙂
Great writeup Neil, i think it would really help who are yet to take advantage of Pinterest, can u shoot an invite for me? 🙂
If you give me your email in a comment I will certainly send one to you.
Hi Neil,
Great guide about Pinterest, I heard about this site but thought it would be another social networking site but after reading your post.. I can now say it’s a great site and I must register myself over there.
Awesome, definitely give it a try. Let me know if you have any questions as you go.
Just I had work on this pinterest in one of my client project but still i haven’t create my own account, by reading this post i would like create my own since this will be very useful for mu own business.
Yep, you should start one. That way you can benefit from it personally as well as understand it better when working with clients.
This is an excellent article, but I am concerned about marketers commercializing, exploiting, and eventually ruining Pinterest.
Each social media sites runs into that problem. Eventually people will want to cart making some profit from it. Hopefully if or when that happens it won’t ruin Pinterest.
Thanks Neil for the comprehensive post. I too was late in the Pinterest game. It’s only a matter of time before this moves beyond home and crafts. Remember, eBay was originally a site to auction Beanie Babys 🙂
Exactly, hope you take the time to catch up!
Thank you, Neil! I did not read anything about Pinterest before your great post. I love the whole concept behind Pinterest. Could you send me an invite, please.
If you leave your email in a comment below I will send you an invite.
I did not even know what is pinterest, till now.
you have an invite ? I can invite you .
Neil That post was awesome I joined it and never used it .. now posted one image 😛 Thanks to this post which shows me benefits of this new site .
Thanks, I appreciate you trying to help out.
Great, now you have read just about everything you need to know on it.
Me neither until reading this post. It seems that new opportunities arouse every day.
Yep, you can find opportunities in each day.
I posted several recipes photos from my cooking blog and experienced a bump in traffic, no conversions though. I am waiting to see how this works in the long run if I include Pinterest in my blog post promotion strategy going forward. It only takes seconds to pin.
Cool, let me know how it ends up working out for you. It could take a while but it seems to be a promising site.
I really appreciate the quality content you are sharing every week. Thanks for this comprehensive post! I’ve already pinned it! 🙂 And I’ve sent it to folks to inform them of what this is all about.
…And yes, I fit the demographic and yes, I’m “addicted” to Pinterest.
Thank you Sara,
I appreciate you sharing this post, as well as for reading Quick Sprout.
Yep, addicting indeed. 🙂
I really like the idea of creating boards around your bio’s keywords. I never would have thought of creating a board for my city and/or state, but that could be fun, and could double benefit me; I might find other writers right here in my city that I could hang out with.
Here’s my problem, though: I’m pretty addicted to Pinterest. I am known to spend hours just scrolling through my homepage and repinning pretty crafts. Since crafts are not at all related to my profession — fiction — it’s not the best marketing effort… but perhaps I can justify it with your 1/19 rule. 😀
I’m also shocked that Pinterest is topping Facebook as a referrer; not too long ago, I read an infographic that said Facebook was still #1, but Pinterest had passed out Google+. I’m wondering whether things changed that quickly or maybe it just depends on which stats you’re looking at. What do you think?
Yea, you can pin stuff about crafts and other things related to your business… just do a bit of both.
As for traffic, it depends on your site. For some sites, Pinterest drives more traffic and others Facebook does. For mine, Twitter does as my audience is more likely to be on Twitter than Pinterest.
I’ve been reading and hearing more people mention pinterest, but I never really understood what it was all about and how it worked. Thank you for demystifying the whole thing!
Great to know you understand it better. Now, try it out and see how you like it.
Neil. What a great job. The best guide on Pinterest I’ve come across. I can see why the ladies love the site. But, guys wake up. It’s one of the best sharing sites out there. I’m a very visual guy and this is great.
Thanks Rico,
Definitely, it seems to be more used by women, but I feel the men are starting to see it’s benefits and are catching on.
Neil, this post rocks! The last one I read on Pinterest said “nothing here for marketers since you can’t self-promote.” Your post is spot on in its advice on how to “play” and softly promote. If you still have invites available, I’d love one at tracy @ living90045.com.
Thank you!
Thank you Tracy,
I just sent you one, let me know if you don’t get it.
This post is tremendous Neil. It seems like it has become your passion of helping readers as much and as in detail as you can 😉
I’m following you on Pinterest 🙂
Thanks Pratik,
Helping people is my passion, especially my readers ;). Thanks for following, appreciate your support!
This is an detailed guide for using Pinterest. Gonna use to to drive more traffic.
Awesome, let me know if you have any questions as you go.
Wow, Neil!
Just got started on Pinterest so your post really hits home. This is the most detailed guide on Pinterest I’ve seen so far.
Thanks for your awesome content!
Thanks Pavel, I put a lot of time into it. Glad you liked it.
Hi Neil,
I read about Pinterest second time and this is attract me to share my collection on social.
Can you please send me a invitation on my email id that i have used in comment.
Thanks Neil
Hey Alok,
I would be happy to send you but I don’t see you email…
Pinterest seems good for promoting products with its price and excellent medium for marketers. Really in the nearer future it will become popular in all over the world like Facebook.
Yep, it seems promising so far.
Let’s see what will the future of the pinterest but as per my opinion, it will gone beyond our imagination in the term of popularity, what’s say?
I am not sure what will become of Pintrerest, but it continues to grow in popularity.
Hi Neil,
can u send me an invitation here: favouritehobbiess@gmail.com
Thanks
Just sent one to you, let me know if you don’t receive it.
Hi Neil,
I have not received the invitation
Just re-sent one.
Hi Neil,
Received Thanks
Great.
Hi Neil. Great article. Super helpful.
Question for you. I work for a Social Media shop and Pinterest would be perfect for at least one of our clients. As a community manager for a brand how exactly do I sign up AS a brand?
I already have a personal Pinterest account. I have looked in “help” (etc.) and there does not appear to be a way to create a brand account that is somehow “linked” to a personal.
Should I simply invite myself … via a different email address … and then create a new profile AS the brand?
Thanks in advance.
That can definitely work. I would suggest just tossing your brand logo up there and creating a message that is catered towards your product.
Outstanding example of a mega-post – It’s changed my opinion of Pinterest. I’ll be sharing it with various clients as a great example of how to get out ahead of pack.
Now all I need is an invite! 🙂 – bob.walsh@47hats.com
Thanks Bob,
Just sent you an invite. Let me know if you receive it.
Hi Neil,
Thanks for a detailed intro on Pinterest. I’ve already send a request on Pinterest. But still on waiting list. Could you help to send me one? > ss@sumans.me
Thanks.
Regards,
Suman
Sure Suman,
Sent, Let me know if you got it.
I looove this site…its my stress-buster at work. You forgot to mention the awesome images they have pertaining to food, enough to drive you to the nearest patisserie!
Great marketing tips put forth Neil! It should soon go in the social media plans of my clients.
LoL, yep the images are pretty awesome.
Thanks Akankasha, best of luck!
And, now what do you think of this? http://llsocial.com/2012/02/pinterest-modifying-user-submitted-pins/
Pinterest is changing user submitted pins to cash in on affiliate links, when the money should be going to the affiliate.
I read that article also. It does not bother me that Pintrest is changing the links but it does bother me a little that they did not disclose that information (at least, according to the article I read) I still think Pintrest is a neat site full of potential and I am glad they are finding a unique way to monetize it early on, just wish they had let people know. I don’t think it would have mattered, but they must have thought it would.
Brad, is this something that will keep you from using Pintrest? Just curious
Thanks for your additional input and thoughts on the matter.
Definitely an interesting article, thanks for sharing. I am not to concerned with them making money off affiliate links. Social media sites always find a way to make money at some point. It will be interesting though to see if this affects others usage of Pinterest.
Hi Neil,
That was an amazing write-up. I hadn’t heard of Pinterest before last week, and now it’s really buzzing. Thank you so much for sharing your views and insight on this, I’m sure it has helped many! I’m still looking to discover pinterest.com as I, like many others am waiting on the invitation. If you have an extra one going, I would love it on bmtaylor85[at]gmail.com
Thanks for the help
Thanks Ben,
Sent you an invite, let me know if you got it.
I have been on pinterest a few times and found a hilarious picture of a cat where they shaved its legs except for its feet and it looked like it had boots on.
I need to go back again and learn how to utilize Pinterest for myself.
Pinterest definitely has some fun and interesting pictures.
Definitely go back and see what more you can do with it.
Neil – Incredibly thorough & informative article about Pinterest – Thank you for sharing the great advice! (I’m now following you!)
When you have a chance, please check out Botl, a content-sharing social network with a “message in the bottle theme.” I recently launched it in open beta mode, and will be introducing the “shelf” later this month (comparable to Tumblr’s archive and Pinterest’s wall). Users follow each other (upstream & downstream), and they share messages containing images, including animated GIFs and slideshows, music & sound effects, and video. After sharing a message, they can see when and where it’s viewed and how many miles their bottles travel as they journey around the world. The site is at http://www.botl.com, and the Facebook fanpage is http://www.facebook.com/botlit. I’d appreciate your thoughts on the site, particularly in light of your background and knowledge of social media!!
Great, thanks for the follow!
I actually communicate best through email so if you can shoot me a message with your site, I will take a look and give you my thoughts on it. You can email me at neil@neilpatel.com.
I appreciate this great article and ideas for marketing. I’m confused, though, because the PinterestEtiquette guidelines say to “avoid self promotion.” How do these big companies get around that?
Often times large companies will act as content curators. They in essence can promote their own materials by finding them on re-seller websites.
Thanks for such a detailed post! I wanted to get as much information as to why and how to use Pinterest before becoming a pinner, and you definitely covered all aspects.
Thank you Christelle, glad you found it helpful.
Great article Neil. If you have an invite available I would love to get in. Mikoleary/at/mac/dot/com
Sent, let me know if you receive it.
Great article, Neil! Thank you so much!
I have a technical question. (I don’t “get” Pinterest yet!)
When pinning, it asks for a web link to an image. But a link to an image is different from a link to a website (like a blog) where an image is located. I notice that most images on Pinterest link to a website, and not just the image.
Is it possible to add an image (e.g. from your computer) and link it to a blog where there is more information about it?
For example, I would like to promote my 85-year old mother’s new book of love poems. I have an image of the book, but I would like to link it to the printer where it can be purchased (http://www.blurb.com/user/mylinepoetry). When I just pin that page, it is her photo that is pinned, not the image of the book (and I don’t think she wants that).
Any suggestions?
(If anyone still needs an invitation, let me know.)
Hi Jan~
If the image you want to pin is not on the page you want to link to, then upload the photo you wish to use (click Add+ in the top right corner of your Pinterest page to get the book image from your hard drive). Once the image is pinned, click Edit on the image and add the page link (as noted above) and Save. Simple as that. If you have any more questions, please feel free to contact me. I’m an avid Pinterest user.
~Donna (Belle West on Pinterest)
http://pinterest.com/bellewest/
Thanks for helping out Donna.
Not quite sure what you are getting at here. I think the posting the photo on your blog will work to accomplish what you are doing. Let me know if that works 🙂
Thanks for the guide Neil. I’m already applying some of your advice.
Awesome, let me now if you have any questions as you go.
Neil that is a really good article. I don’t want to ask you how much time you’ve spent writing it. 🙂
Now about having success with Pinterest I can say that yes here at Freshome.com we had lots of success with pinterest since we are a very visual website. The traffic from Pinterest increased month by month and now Pinterest is in the top 10 reffers.
You can check us on Pinterest here – http://pinterest.com/freshome/
Thanks Mihai,
Good to hear you are having success with Pinterest!
You don’t mention or I might have missed it issues concerning the use of copyright material on PInterest.
I’m constantly contacting PInterest asking them to remove my content from their site that people pin on there.
You ask the owners permission before you pin stuff on Pinterest. This will become a major issue in the future. Not every country has such lax copyright laws as the USA…
You bring up a great point. However, it currently is completely legal to use pinterest to share other people’s content. I feel you should continue contacting Pinterest if you have concerns over copyright information.
Great article. I heard about Pintrest from a friend months ago and thought it was interesting but a waste of time. It wasn’t until I read this that I realized there was a marketing aspect. Thank for all the detail Neil.
Another similar site I found is Gentlemint which is geared mostly towards men it seems. Otherwise, they are the same as far as I can tell. I am still waiting on an invite there, but maybe Gentlemint.com is the alternative to all the men out there that doesn’t “get” Pintrest.
I like looking at all the pictures, as bad as that sounds. You can get a lot of ideas for your business.
Interesting, I haven’t heard of Gentlemint.com I will have to check it out. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Neil, quick question, are Pinterest links still DoFollow?
Yes, they are still DoFollow.
nice elaborate article….would appreciate it to also get an invite on remco.tevreden@yahoo.com
Done, let me know if you don’t receive it.
Just got my invitation today. This is the most comprehensive Pinterest guide on the internet to date. It’s going to help me get more followers, and stop me from getting kicked off the site.
Many marketers will be tempted to promote themselves, but they have to hold it in and provide valuable content.
Thanks Neil.
Awesome, let me know if you have any questions as you go!
Thanks for this super-comprehensive post Neil! Definitely one to take my time going through step by step. Interesting to see the types of businesses it’s NOT so good for (ie the traditional high tech ones that would normally want to be all over a new online platform like a rash!) – and also thanks for the tips on how local businesses can use it! I’ll be over to follow you once I’m set up 🙂 cheers!
Thank you Tanya,
I appreciate the follow. 🙂
Hi Neil,
Kindly send me an invitation bstar16@gmail.com
Thanks
Sure thing Sachin,
Sent, let me know if you receive it.
Oh my. This a very long and useful post. I bet it took you a lot of time to write all of this 🙂 Thanks again for sharing with such a great opportunity.
Thanks John,
It did take quite a long time, but was well worth it. 🙂
Neil, great job! You have put lots of time and research into this guide. Very much appreciated.
Thank you Sirous,
I hope it has been helpful to you.
I love the design, so great to see that people still place emphasis on the way their websites look. Im sick and tired of poorly designed sites with confusing colors!
I agree, design is an important aspect that people need to remember to spend time and effort on.
Great information, Neil! Thank you for taking the time to document such a comprehensive marketing guide. I didn’t understand the paragraph about “nofollow’ though, if you could explain this to me:
“More than likely Pinterest didn’t use “nofollow†on the links as an incentive for people to use the service in the early stages of its growth. So, the engineers may eventually turn all out going links from Pinterest into “no follow†once they reach a critical mass.”
Whaaaaat?
http://pinterest.com/bellewest/
No follow means that the site has no link value. However, Pinterest has not turned off that feature meaning every link on their has link value. Once they realize the potential for spammers they may turn on no follow links.
Fabulous post Neil 🙂 So many New things to learn from you every day, Once again thanks for that.
If you have invites left, can i have one buddy ?
Sure, if you leave me your email in a comment below I will shoot you one over.
Thanks neil. I had so many questions about pinterest i couldn’t get answered and you have done a great job at answering them. Yes i agree men don’t understand pinterest because i don’t. However, it is part of my career to learn and understand it. I look forward to using your suggestions. And also tweeted at you twice about this.
Awesome, glad this guide has been helpful to you. Let me know if you have any questions as you go.
Great summary Neil. I’ve been meaning to look into Pinterest and you’ve provided a wealth of starting-up knowledge. I would like an invite please. Thanks a bunch.
Thanks Lew,
Just give me your email in a comment and I will send you one.
After reading your usual in-depth article on Pinterest, I am very keen in signing up. Could you please help me out here? Thank you in advance.
No problem, leave your email below and I will send you an invite.
Here is my email: laykim69@yahoo.com
Thank you in advance.
Sent, let me know if you get it.
Hi Neil, good job you’ve done with this guide. I’ve really been trying to understand the Pinterest concept and now on your blog, I got it all. Thanks for the help. (If you still got invites left, do send me: mac_cy2 at hotmail.com) Thanks again.
Just sent you one over. Let me know if you got it.
Thanks, I got it. The web just got Pinteresting 🙂
Lol, great. 🙂
Hi Neil, I loved this article and although I have been using Pinterest strictly for personal use I can definitely see where big companies are starting to recognize it as a marketing tool.
I did want to mention that you *can* pin things from Facebook, it’s sort of a “backdoor” process but it works. Here is a pin on how to do it:
http://pinterest.com/pin/260294053433031386/
Great, thanks for sharing this with everyone.
Hey Neil, this post just rocks and i have already bookmarked it.
I know that this is a post for marketers to make the most of Pinterest, i was looking forward if you can throw some real light on the copyright issues that are surfacing and have the potential to hinder Pinterest rocketing popularity.
Pinterest has recently released a one line code, which website owners can install in their websites and can prevent images from pinning. What do you think of that Neil and how long can it help in preventing copyright issue.
It will definitely be interesting to see how or if it affects the popularity of Pinterest. As for how long it will last in aiding the prevention of copywriter is something we will have to wait and see about.
I joined the Pinterest group and I can’t find an easy way to get to my page. I have the red app on my facebook page. It takes me to a pg of requesting invites. When i see something on a friends page from Pinterest I can link on and start looking or adding there. Is there a link or app or site I can just login to and get there? if my friends don’t show a post I don’t know how to get there.
I am not quite sure. I have been working on an easier way to get to my page as well. If you find anything please let me know.
Hey Neil, Any updates on Invite buddy ?
Happy to send you one as soon as you give me your email.
Jigesh@zippy-health.com
Sent, let me know if you receive your invite or not.
Yep, you are correct on that.
Fantastic article. can you please send me an invitation. thanks
Sure thing, just leave me your email and I will shoot an invite over to you.
I need an invite merci
No problem, give me your email below and I will send you one.
Pinterest in new for me but seems useful for increasing traffic of websites. I will try it and give the feedback later on this product.
Awesome, definitely give it a try and see how it works out for you. Love to hear your feedback.
Hi helpful guide,
now Neil can you send me a request on my mail id.
If you give me your email address I will send you an invite.
Hi Neil,
What a great article, it really helped me understand Pinterest.
Can’t wait to try it.
Can you please send me an invitation?
Thanks!
EV
Awesome, glad to hear it. I would be happy to, if you leave me your email in a comment below I will send you one.
Wow, very interesting and detailed information. I asked for invite to pinterest but God knows how long it will take, so if u can invite me please. atariq7@hotmail.com
Thanks, I just sent an invite. Let me know if you receive it.
Thank you for your insight…particularly the SEO impact advice. We have been using Pinterest only mildly and now we are more motivated to get our pin on! #letsgoviral
Great, glad these tips have been helpful to you.
Best of luck.
I have been hearing a lot about this site but your article really put things in perspective for me. Great article!
Can you please send me an invite Neil? My email address is: trueinternetmarketer@gmail.com
Sent, let me know if you receive it or not. 🙂
I received your invitation Neil. Thank you.
Great!
Neil, I LOVE reading your posts – here and on Kissmetrics. Thank you for doing so much to inform and guide the rest of us! You’re the best. Leslie.
Thanks Leslie,
I appreciate you support, so glad you enjoy Quick Sprout and Kissmetrics!
Oops. I forgot to add, yes, please, I’d love an invite to Pinterest! Thanks!! -L-
Sure, no problem. Just leave me your email and I will send one over to you.
Hi Neil!
I have been readingyour post intensively to get the most of it. Yet I haven’t figured out what you ment on: Use a review page for business URL – If you have a really good review on a business directory like Yelp, use that URL for your company website on Pinterest. “This can feed it authority to help that review rank high.”
English is not my first language, any help would be appreciated.
Basically use great reviews to drive people to your website using Pinterest 🙂
Thnx for the hint.
No problem, hope I helped make it clear for you.
I keep hearing about Pinterest so I guess I’ll have to join up too – though don’t you ever get over saturated with all these social media type sites that seem to keep cropping up? E.g. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc, etc, etc?
How much of your time is spent monitoring them and adding to them?!
Definitely give it a try. I actually enjoy all the social media sites. I find when you embrace the you can learn to utilize them to your advantage and help build your brand, business and network.
I would say it takes maybe an hour or two at most out of each day to monitor and add to these different sites. People will spend more time then that but only because they want to not because they need to.
I think that with you running a successful blog then using and monitoring the social media each day is extremely worthwhile.
I just find that with what I do it’s likely to more of a distraction and probably wouldn’t generate a lot of traffic. Or at least, I’ve not yet figured out how to go about doing it so as to make it worthwhile!
I’m just tried to get an invitation from Pinterest and will see how it goes; thanks for the guide though – can’t wait to use it.
Also is it just me or does anybody pronounce pinterest as ‘Pin Interest’? – I think it sounds better lol.
Awesome, let me know if these tips help when you get started.
Humm I have not pronounced it that way but I agree, it does sound slightly better. 🙂
Article bookmarked piece. Awesome, Neil. I think you are beginning to hold a monopoly on great content. I wonder if there’s any of your posts here on QuickSprout that are not worth bookmarking to read again and again.
Pinterest is indeed “interesting” and I see many marketers writing courses about how to profit from it. Clearly reading this piece for free can provide one with lots of needed information about Pinterest. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words.
Hi there Neal,
I followed your blog from some another blog. As soon as I got here, I hit bookmark. Really good information you have added about pinterest. I didn’t understand how pinterest worked but now I do. As for now, I am going to read your other posts. Do you have any other sites, I would definitely want to give it a read.
And lastly, can you pooolease send an invite 🙂
Thanks and have a great weekend
Rake
Hey Rake,
QuickSprout is my only personal blog but my two companies KISSmetrics and Crazyegg have blogs that you might enjoy. Here are links to them.
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/
http://blog.crazyegg.com/
I have recently just found Pinterest. It is amazing! I can’t believe the amount of traffic that has came from Pinterest! This is a great informative post that opens up the world of Pinterest to someone who may not know about it!
Yep, it is pretty popular and it only keeps growing.
Great writeup, dude. Best I’ve seen on the web. Question: how long you think the “do follow” will last? Only a matter of time before it becomes spam haven otherwise.
I think it will last. It’s a website owners duty to make sure they aren’t letting spammers link out from their site.
Nice post! I think this has a lot potential in the future. Can you please invite me! Thanks!!
Thanks Dobles, sorry for the delayed response. As you probably know now, you don’t need one to join anymore.
How exactly does one get an invite on pinterest? Or is that something like tweeter that you just go login and create an account?
Now it is like Facebook and Twitter. You no longer need invites.
Hi
Really nice posts with tons of information.
I really need to have an invite to start exploring the possibilities. I hope you will help.
Thanks in advance
VGNair
Thank you, however you no longer need an invite as I would assume you now know.
Hi Mr. Patel.
Good day to you. Would you be considerate to kindly invite me please, so I could start PINTEREST. I’m very new here with this thing and i’m so eager to learn this more and hopefully I could gain more knowledge and as I see as you’re an excellent & good mentor, i would definitely earn good passive income in the future. Here’s my email ad again; madzfortaliza_2006@yahoo.com.au
Your immediate response with my request will be highly appreciated. I’ll be waiting.
Thank you so much and more power to you.
God bless us.
Sincerely,
Madz
Hey Madz,
You no longer need someone to invite you to join Pinterest. You can just sign up once you go to the page. 🙂
this is an excellent guide. there is just one more thing i think you should add that i just started doing myself: make sure each blog post you create has a very appealing image or title image so that people can pin posts that they like. this one is a perfect example: i wanted to pin this to my “21st century marketing tools” board on pinterest but i decided not to because there are no visually appealing images.
Good point, I would also add to that use picture quotes if you can’t find an image that goes with your content.
wow, what a huge post neil! I didn’t realize how huge pinterest is getting. I have to get one of those pin it buttons for my site.
Yep, it is growing rapidly!
I’ve been hearing a lot about Pinterest. Thanks for this great article. It’s time to get in on this trend. I would very much like an invite.
Thanks
Hey Shelley, sorry for the delayed response but as I am sure you now know you no longer need an invite.
Its a very great article
While marketing on Pinterest we should also remember that : Even if we are on Pinterest to Market , still we should act like individuals and not Some BORING Company…..
So share Mix stuff of all kinds and then this will make things better for you and also work fun…
Follow Neil’s 7:3 rule
Talk 7 times about different stuff and 3 times about your Business…
I achived this by making Random boards about Sports ,WWII,Body arts,etc… for my blog.
I recently pinned Increase followers on Pinterest
Thank you Adnan,
I am glad you agree. Very few people are on Pinterest solely for business, which is why adding fun pictures, quotes or stories will help draw people to your page.
Hey,
Awesome article. when i was reading about pinterest then i m very glad to know that it is very benificial for us.and it is also very benificial for the business of marketing or we can also increase our business through it.it is very good post.
Thanks for the sharing.
Yep, Pinterest is definitely a useful social tool.
Pinfluencer is running a monthly webinar series on Pinterest promotions best practices and pinterest roi analytics. check out some past recordings at: http://blog.pinfluencer.com/pinterest-promotions-best-practices-webinar-by-pinfluencer-november-series/
I want to make a lonnnng board for a long collage or something, how would I do that?
hey neil,
interesting topic you have chosen for the post. that will be helpful for all of us. it was nice to read it.
Thanks.
Matt
Aw, this was an extremely nice post. Spending some time and actual effort to make a very
good article… but what can I say… I hesitate a whole lot
and never seem to get nearly anything done.
Thanks for the great article. 6 months ago I had no idea what Pinterest was used for. We are still working on trying to get it to work with an ROI. We are using pictures and we are getting more visitors to our website. I love websites like yours because they are so helpful
Wow! Great article and tips. Love this post. I’ve created a pinterest account ages ago but have never really got into it.
Thanks for sharing great guide, its really helpful.I love the post.
Hello there, There’s no doubt that your site could be having browser compatibility problems. When I take a look at your web site in Safari, it looks fine however, when opening in I.E., it has some overlapping issues. I just wanted to provide you with a quick heads up! Besides that, great website!
Hello! Neil,,
What a great job. The best guide on Pinterest I’ve come across. Thank you,,,,,,
Thanks for this great article. It’s time to get in on this trend. I would very much like an invite.
What i don’t understood is in reality how you are now not actually much more smartly-liked than you may be right now. You are very intelligent. You realize thus significantly relating to this matter, made me for my part imagine it from a lot of varied angles. Its like men and women don’t seem to be fascinated until it’s something to accomplish with Woman gaga! Your personal stuffs nice. At all times care for it up!
Hey Neil,
I have a quick tip to add to the Pinterest SEO-discussion:
1. Don’t change board-name. If you change board-name will the URL change as well and the old URL will be dead/404. Yaiks!
See screenshot: http://www.trovatten.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dont-change-board-name-on-pinterest.png
Frederik, thanks for the heads up. I’ll look into it..
I finished cheery heart merely penetrating representing this info for approximately time. Behind 6 hrs of ongoing Googleing, by last I acquired it inside your web internet site. I speculate what’s the lack of Google strategy that achieve not rank this sort of informative internet sites in maximum of the list. Normally the highest sites are rotund of garbage.
Jamie, glad you found me and thanks for reading 🙂
Hi Neil,
Regarding the backlink and SEO aspects of pinterest, I have a pinterest account with links to my site, yet the links are not showing up in Google Webmaster Tools, which seems odd. Any idea why?
Thank you
Hmm… email me and we can figure this one out..
I find the same issue with opensite exporer, it doesn’t show all your links.
That is true, they should really fix that.
It’s amazing how in only ~12 months, Martha Stewart now has over 330,000 followers 😀
http://pinterest.com/ms_living/
She is a one man marketing machine.
I’ve just started using Pinterest, it’s quite time consuming and there is only so much you can post slush machine or slush syrup related.
Slush, great point. Try twitter out!
Thanks for this elaborate guide to Pinterest, Neil! i’m still new the location and wasn’t quite certain the way to act mistreatment it. This offers some valuable tips and concepts. simply what I needed!
Abass, glad I could help. I think the Pinterest tips will really help you increase your engagement. Please let me know if you need any help or have any questions 🙂
It’s actually a cool and useful piece of info. I’m glad that you simply shared this useful information
with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.
Wow! Well, this was what I needed to learn more about Pinterest. I notice this was written almost 2 yrs. ago. I wonder how much it has changed and grown since then.
My main promotional interest right now is internet marketing, but I’m not sure how I could make a pinterest board around that subject without self-promoting. I’ve had a pinterest account for a few years, but have just used it for fun to seek out mainly dog photos, since that is my long time passion.
I’m going to look further into pinterest, though, to see if there is some way to leverage it for my business. This post is very thorough and I now have a much clearer understanding of the whole Pinterest platform.
Thanks, Neil, for this in-depth post! – Karleen
Karleen, glad we could connect. Thanks for reading the article and providing great feedback 🙂
A large amount of features on these steam showers, I love the multimedia opinion and also the lighting
Thanks, you guys always go into much more detail and nuance then most other articles. Pintrest is definately something I will start utilising asap
Will, awesome! Let me know how it works out for you 🙂
You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be really something which I think
I would never understand. It seems too complicated and
very broad for me. I am looking forward for your next
post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!
Have you ever considered about adding a little bit more than just your articles?
I mean, what you say is valuable and all. Nevertheless just imagine if you added some great visuals or
video clips to give your posts more, “pop”! Your content
is excellent but with pics and clips, this site could definitely be one of the most beneficial in its field.
Very good blog!
Reef, glad I could help. Thanks for the feedback 🙂
Old post but its gold 🙂
Yasir, glad you liked it 🙂
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Really good article Neil, I just want to highlight what you wrote in the article about getting links from Pinterest. Do it right and it will/can be a gold mine for marketers and SEO.
You can get so much traffic from it
I liked your article as it was informative and gave ideas about other social sites. Thank you Neil great job
Glad this was helpful
Hello Neil, Thank you for sharing this guide for marketeter’s to how to use Pinterest, I am doing Pinterest activity for this platform- https://au.pinterest.com/Myassignmentau/, I will now implement what you have suggested here,
Let me know how you get on.
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