Use Pinterest to Build Your Online Presence

Since I’m spending more time testing out the power of Pinterest for my business, I’ve been asked more often whether it’s working, whether it’s worth investing time into, and of course the all important question of HOW to best use it.

Well, I’m still gathering numbers in regards to how it’s working in my own business, but Cynthia Sanchez over at Oh So Pinteresting wrote a really great post today that talks about a few of the how tos of using Pinterest to build your online presence. She only covers 3 points, but they’re very powerful points that I felt were worth sharing.

Tip #1 – Use Pinterest to build your brand authority

… pin relevant and helpful resources. Your followers will come to think of your account as the go-to place for reliable information about your subject. And as you increase your authority, you’ll continue to build trust, which could lead to increased customer loyalty and referrals from brand advocates.

I’m still figuring out exactly what my brand is, but this makes me realize that I want to get and stay focused in order to be seen as the expert in my niche. I’ve always been one to watch who I associate my own name as well as my business name with, but this reinforces that reasoning (yes, I sometimes question if I’m on the right track).

Tip #2 – Use Pinterest to expand your reach and grow your audience

Use Group Boards and collaborate with popular pinners who have a large following to expose your brand and content to more people.

… Better Homes and Gardens strategically collaborates with popular pinners to boost following.

Using group boards, BHG has grown its overall follower numbers to over 379,000.

Better Homes and Gardens has developed group board strategies to grow their Pinterest following.

Use This Approach Thoughtfully

Your followers will see what your contributors pin, and what they pin will reflect on your business, so trust between parties is important.

The collaborative partnership should benefit both parties.

…

A poorly conceived partnership built around content that isn’t relevant to your existing audience could lead to a loss of followers. Collaborate with someone outside of your niche and your followers will be confused. The collaboration must make sense.

I just recently set up a Gift Ideas account and invited a friend to share the products and ideas she likes as well. After reading this, maybe I should create group boards on my existing account rather than build an entirely new account. Seems like that might be more productive time-wise.

Tip #3 – Use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website

Beth Hayden, author of Pinfluence, revealed that Pinterest drives more referral traffic than LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube combined.

In order to take advantage of this, Pinterest users first have to be attracted to your pins and repin them to their boards.

The most successful pins on Pinterest have some traits in common. They combine great images with content to solve a problem, inspire, offer something desirable or appeal to interest in a hobby or activity.

Pins don’t necessarily have to be taken by a professional photographer to be popular.

Share attractive content on Pinterest to drive traffic to your site.

This third concept is the number one reason I started learning more about Pinterest. I had spent a few hours one weekend just “playing” and pinning things I liked, but then found that for weeks after, people were still repinning those same pins. I knew there had to be a way to utilize Pinterest for business traffic as well. The fact that the amount of traffic is so high, makes it well worth the time I’m now investing into my business to learn even more.

If you’d like to read more of this article, be sure to go read Cynthia’s Guest Post over at Social Media Examiner. She offers some really great examples of how this is all working for other people!

Your Turn: Do you use Pinterest for branding your business? Have you used it for generating traffic or are there other things you use that you feel work better?

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