By Jason Poulos (@TheSaganaki)
Over the past couple of months there has been a lot of buzz around the growing social bookmarking site Pinterest. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Pinterest is a visual based social bookmarking site that allows users to share things they like. Users can “pin” images from a website to specific boards they create on Pinterest. Once an image is pinned, it contains a link back to your website. An intriguing or appetizing image will entice users learn more about the image’s origins and generate traffic back to your site.
Why Consider Pinterest
If you have a website, you want visitors. Participating on a site that receives over 10 million monthly unique visits is a must. Just as a successful brand optimizes for search engines and participates in other social networks, leveraging content to a larger audience is imperative.
No Participation Required
The great thing about Pinterest is that your website can reap the benefits of the network without even touching the site. No need to register and maintain a user base or brand profile (although I’d recommend participation), you can get away with doing nothing! Assuming your site already has some traffic behind it, you can fully rely on your current web traffic to curate your content on Pinterest. To do this, you just need 3 things on your website.
- Great Content: This kind of goes without saying and as you may know content is king on the web. Ask yourself, do you have content that will work on Pinterest? Keep in mind it’s a visual based site…
- Excellent Photos: This is absolutely necessary, if you don’t have photos to support your content you can’t participate on Pinterest. Not only do you need photos but they have to be good photos. Over staged or over produced photos won’t resonate with the community.
- Pin It Button: Pinterest offers a few ways to add the “pin it” button to your website but they aren’t ideal. If you have a wordpress site, this is a easy tutorial on adding the button. Even though Pinterest provides a bookmark driven button, adding the “pin it” button will make it easy for users to pin your content.
Some Traffic Examples
CRT/Tanaka has added the “pin it” button to a couple of our clients websites that feature recipes (Blueberries, Maple Syrup). Recipes are a hot item on Pinterest and we wanted to leverage the recipe content as easily as possible. In both cases, by simply adding the “pin it” button and having pin worthy content and photos, Pinterest has become one of our top referrers for both sites.
I’d also like to mention a co-workers blog. Rather than adding the “pin it” button to her site she created a board on Pinterest and pinned her blog’s photos. With minimal effort, her site received a 535% spike in traffic due to her pins and participation on Pinterest. Be sure to check out topoftheapple.com, lots of delicious photos and recipes!
With a degree in communication design from VCU as well as experience in web development and digital marketing, Jason brings a unique blend of assets to CRT/tanaka. In 2012 Jason helped win 4 awards for his SEO work on PureCanadaMaple.com. Outside of his digital work, Jason enjoys brewing his own beer and restoring his1970 Chevrolet Nova. Jason is a new father and enjoys spending time with his family and his 150-pound English Mastiff.
As a fellow male studying PR, it’s great to see you promoting the new phenomenon that is Pinterest. It’s unfortunate the site is currently made up of nearly 80% female users, because there’s a lot of value in it for men as well.
I like that you even go so far as to explain how you can use Pinterest to your advantage without actually even using it. A pure no-brainer for anyone trying to establish themselves in the blogosphere. How long will it take for more men to realize this?
Good ideas here to utilize Pinterest for blogs and websites. I do believe we will see more people and businesses capitalizing on this tool as it continues to expand. Improving site traffic by creating a Pinterest Board based on blog photos is an idea I plan to try myself. Thanks!
Discovering Pinterest long before most people had even heard of it, I am thrilled at its success. Besides the benefits you listed, another great thing about the website is that unlike Svpply or Fancy, Pinterest’s priority isn’t necessarily about purchasing things. The main feed is more welcoming because prices and stores are not bombarding us. As businesses start to capitalize on this website, I hope this doesn’t change.
Glad everybody likes the post. Matt, it’s tough to get males interested because at first glance Pinterest isn’t that appealing. As of now, Pinterest is more of a dumping ground for me. I archive a lot of infographics, beer, music and recipes on my boards. I really don’t follow that many people as I haven’t found people providing content I’m interested in. Hopefully more males will pin content making Pinterest more interesting.
Assuming that Pinterest doesn’t change, brands really don’t interact with their followers. Brands can make their boards but users have the option to follow. From a user stand point, this is nice because you can avoid any of the commercialization that Pinterest might receive.
Thanks for the info! This blog post will help me convince my supervisor at my internship that using Pinterest is in their best interest. I think that this site is a great new tool for organizations of all kinds, and I’m very interested to see how it is used in the future.
I’m loving the attention that Pinterest is receiving right now! I became a Pinterest member in its early days, and it is great to see how companies are starting to realize the (free) potential marketing that the site can generate. It will be interesting to see what new features Pinterest adds in the future.
Jason,
In response to your comment, I’d like to say I am a student reporter at Kent State University and, if you don’t mind, I’d like to quote your response in a story I’m working on.
No problem Matt, go for it. Kent State was one of my options for school. They have/had a pretty decent design program.
I am part of the 40% of television viewers who also use mobile devices. Most people would agree that time is of the essence. The more I can multi-task, the better. It will be interesting to see how companies try to differentiate their brand while using the “second screen”. How is the move from television to computers, mobile devices or other electronics affecting regular television advertising? We’ve already seen a change in television advertising through systems like Tivo, will this second screen lead to the end of commercials all together?
I am part of the 40 percent of television viewers who also use mobile devices. Most people would agree that time is of the essence. The more I can multi-task, the better. It will be interesting to see how companies try to differentiate their brand while using the “second screen”. How is the move from television to computers, mobile devices or other electronics affecting regular television advertising? We’ve already seen a change in television advertising through systems like Tivo, will this second screen lead to the end of commercials all together?