Ah! I'm excited to feature my first guest post on the blog from a marketing maven I really admire, Dominique Bennett-Bouchard. This woman is a powerhouse on Pinterest and I wanted her to share some tips with us on how we can capitalize on one of the most underrated social mediums. Without further ado...
As a creator I’m sure you’ve come across a number of ‘essential tool’ lists, advising you on how to market your content. Yet, despite all of the email newsletters I’ve sent and Instagram images I’ve spent way too much time figuring out a caption for, Pinterest Marketing has been the largest source of traffic towards my website.
Pinterest can come across as a massive collection of DIY crafts you’ll never have the time or skill for and pretentious fitness quotes, (I mean come on, there are a million things I can name that taste better than skinny feels.). But as one of the fastest growing social platforms with almost 85% female users, chances are, your target audience is in perfect range (did you get that? That was a shooting joke. I don’t think I delivered that well…)
Here are a few tips on How you Can Drive Traffic From Pinterest to Your Blog
1. Show off The Goods Pinterest recently introduced a rotating showcase that appears at the top of your profile. Show off all of your best ideas by choosing your top 5 boards. Don’t forget to keep the rest of your profile organized. Make sure the first row of boards (first 5) on your profile are related to your brand. For example, Frugal Fanatic, a well known financial blog, organizes her first 5 pins to include ‘MAKING MONEY’, 'FRUGAL LIVING' ‘POPULAR PINS’, ‘MONEY SAVING TIPS’ and ‘WORK FROM HOME’ - all completely on brand with her site.
2. Use Rich Pins Using rich pins in your Pinterest marketing strategy helps you to appear more professional and gives viewers more info on why they should bother clicking. There are 5 different types of rich pins, depending on the type of content that you create. Food bloggers can benefit from Recipe Pins that include serving info, ingredients and cooking times. Travel bloggers can create Place Pins with maps, and Article Pins share headlines, author info, and descriptions.
3. Take Advantage of Pinterest Widgets It’s one thing to share your own content but having viewers share content for you provides reach to a whole new network. Pins with a call to action are shown to get 80% more engagement than those without. Get your website Pinterest ready by adding share widgets, like a ‘Pin-it’ button that automatically appears on images, follow buttons and board/profile previews. Pinterest > Tools > Widgets
4. Design Pinterest Optimized Images Your Pinterest marketing strategy is going to be heavily dependant on the images that you share. There are tons of weird stats about the types of imagery that get the most action on Pinterest. Did you know images with mainly red or orange get 200% more repins than those mostly blue? Starting with the basics, just make sure that you have at least one image in your post that is portrait shaped (735px x 1102px). Another great way to optimize your images is by automating your Pinterest captions for anyone who pins them. Edit your website images to include the caption in the alt-text. Anyone who hits the ‘pin-it’ button will automatically have your original caption.
5. Get in with the Popular Crowd One of the easiest ways to increase your reach is by participating in group boards. Pinterest is filled with collaborative boards that allow other users to share pins about a specific niche and often have large audiences, with thousands of followers. Find group boards that cater to your brand’s subject by using PinGroupie.com. Search by category, group size, keywords, etc.
Do you have special technique that works for Pinterest? Share in the comments below! Also, please check out my personal blog where I share digital marketing, career and all around lifestyle tips at: DominiqueBennett.com
PS you should totally follow Dominique on Pinterest. Look out for my next post on how you can step up your Instagram game with a few simple tweaks!