Wednesday, January 8, 2014

5 Steps to Enhance Your Pinterest Presence

Pinterest is a great way to share a story visually rather than in words. The challenge lies in creating a profile that is search engine friendly as well as creative and unique. Before you create your next board, try implementing a few of these tips:

1. Create useful descriptions. When users are searching Pinterest, they can opt to either view pins or boards. Pinterest will pull from descriptions to decide which pins or boards best match the terms the users are searching for. Including strong keywords and phrases will ensure that your content appears in various searches, and increases your chances of having your content re-pinned.

2. Don't generalize board titles. While Pinterest is known for being a safe haven for the artsy and creative, specific and to-the-point board titles work best. Instead of having one board called "art" or "education," break your boards down into specific workable parts. Use general terms as headers, and give them each a subheading to create your boards. So instead of having one board called "art" you now have three or four: watercolor, sculpture, mosaic. 

3. Make your profile cohesive. Before you go pin and board crazy, make a plan so that your profile looks cohesive and visually appealing. The cover photos for your boards should have similar colors to make the page come together. Organize your boards and place those with like content together, so that viewers don't have to dig.

4. Pin original content. If you have a blog or website that you are looking to drive traffic to via Pinterest, be sure that you are uploading that original content to your profile! Include a link to the source, and strong descriptions to increase your chances of being repinned.

5. Promote your pins. Now that your boards and pins are in better shape, it's time to share them with others. Add a button that links to your Pinterest profile, or even a widget that displays your most recent pins. Create blog or Facebook posts sharing your most recent pins, and be sure any images on your blog are website are easily pin-able.

If used correctly, Pinterest can generate tons of traffic to your blog or website, and is a creative way to share a visual story with your followers. To see what content from your blog or website is pinned the most, simply go to pinterest.com/source/yourwebsiteurl.com. Pay attention the images that are most pinned, get an ideal of the visuals your followers enjoy and work from there.

Have you been utilizing Pinterest? How, and what have the results been?

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