The eBiz Blog

With millions of users sharing content every day, Pinterest has become a major player in social media and a vital addition to any online marketing plan. When used effectively, Pinterest can attract new customers to your products and services, help build your brand and show existing customers new and innovative ways to use your products. And perhaps most importantly, Pinterest is a very effective driver of website traffic. In fact, according to one study, Pinterest drives a quarter of all retail referrals.

So how do you leverage this social media powerhouse to drive visitors to your site?

Make It Easy to Pin Your Content

Scroll through any blog or retail site these days, and you’ll notice that the vast majority include “Pin It” buttons under their posts or on individual items. While Pinterest users can pin items to their boards using a toolbar, it’s far easier for them to simply click a link that will immediately take them to their Pinterest account. By including the buttons — which are readily available on the Pinterest site — you’re subtly encouraging visitors to share your content, which in turn presents it to the wider audience of their followers. By using the Pinterest button, you can also easily track how often your content is pinned and shared, which is vital information to have when you are planning your marketing strategy.

Create Relevant Boards

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make when using Pinterest is only posting their own content. In other words, they create an account simply to post images of what they have to offer. That’s not an effective way to get followers, as Pinterest users are savvy and looking for more than advertisements. Instead of using your board as an extension of your site or your brochure, create boards that are related to your business that help build your brand and offer useful ideas and information to your followers. For example, if you sell kitchen tools, create a board related to dream kitchens, or recipe boards with ideas on how customers can use your tools in their cooking. Visitors who like what you’re posting will follow your boards — and be more likely to check out your website.

Time Your Pins

It should come as no surprise that researchers have devoted a great deal of time and effort to determining the best times to post on Pinterest; that is, those times when your pins have the greatest chance of being seen and shared by the largest number of people. It should also come as no surprise that, given Pinterest’s key demographic of 25 – 44-year-old females, that the best times to post are in the evenings and on weekends. Specifically, research shows that Thursday evenings and Saturdays are the busiest times on the site, but posting during the midday (lunch) hours, after 7 p.m. and any time during the weekends tends to result in the most re-pins and likes.

As you become more familiar with Pinterest, you’ll notice trends among your pins and followers, and develop a better sense of what works best for your specific, custom site. But starting with these three points will get you off on the right foot and help you get the most out of this social media powerhouse.

Pinterest “P” image from Wikimedia Commons