Pinterest Tips

Below are my notes about Pinterest, prepared for yesterday's panel.

Should I start an account? Ask these questions:

• Are my demographics a good fit?
• What topics relate to my purpose that people are talking about
  & sharing?
• How will Pinterest fit with my other social media accounts?
• What is “success?” What are my goals? (these may well change)
• How will I know that I am successful?
• Who will contribute to the account? Do there need to be rules?

Advantages, Disadvantages

•  Little overhead: no design time, can create presence very quickly
•  High level of sharing, virality
• Completely visual
• Poor mobile interface for sharing
• Monitoring/management tools (ie Hootsuite) haven’t caught up
• Content is so different, can be time consuming to add to the mix

Create account & starter content

•  Use keywords in your account profile to enable discovery
• Add “Pin it” button to your toolbar
• Search out your peers and follow them; watch for ideas
• Start with minimum of 5 boards, have fun with the titles
• Start monitoring what is pinned from your website (“source” search)

Develop following, encourage growth

•  Add pins regularly
• Add “Pin it” to blog posts share your pins on Facebook & Twitter
• Add the Pinterest app to your Facebook page (It will add a badge to top)
• Explore keywords using Pinterest’s own search tool; “like” and comment on pages you would like to interact with
• Add Pinterest links to your website and paper publicity
• Explore keywords using a search engine like google. Search for terms like “xxx on Pinterest”
• Use #hashtags centered on your goals, like #Tucson #dogs #art #sunsets, picking ones people are likely to be searching.

Dos:

• Tap into emotion, know what motivates your audience
• Have fun, write creatively
• Descriptions are important
• Be selective. Create, hunt and pin the best of the best
• Share from your website (uploads won’t link back)
• Credit your sources
• Consider crowdsourcing pins

Don’ts:

• Skip the hard sell and direct, overt marketing
• Don't be egocentric; focus outside your business to your larger community
• Infrequency
• Poor quality images
• Disorganized boards where the pins don't match the desription

Polish and extend your page

• Choose interesting photos for your board covers, and adjust cropping
• Arrange your boards high interest --> low interest
• Experiment with content and monitor response
• Listen to your customers/clientele/members for topics
• Watch your peers for ideas
• Experiment & take chances; remember this is a new medium and you won’t really know what works for you until you try it

You have a good following? Get creative, try promotions

•  Contests
• Scavenger hunts
• Crowdsource recommendations