By: Diana Lewis, Account Coordinator
Recently, many people have written articles and blog posts on why you should join Pinterest. Now that you’ve joined, you might be wondering what’s next and how to optimize your account. We’ve got some tips to help you stay pinterested and increase your efficiency on this evolving, addicting, time absorbing site:
1) Find People to Follow Who Share “Pinteresting” Things.
To find Pinners with similar tastes and interests, seek out the users behind your favorite pins. Then, check out the users that Pinner follows. As of now, Pinterest doesn’t have a suggested users tool, so in the meantime, you have to do your own leg work. You can also browse by topic or search by description. In light of the recent legal issues that have garnered media attention, sharing things that are already on Pinterest is a safer way to play the game than importing other people’s content yourself.
Like many pinners, Martha Stewart Living and Michael’s Crafts have boards with content based on holidays. Their St. Patrick’s Day boards have everything from recipes for green beer to shamrock flower arrangements. Considering the nature of the website, it won’t be long before we see thousands of DIY egg-dying tutorials and other Easter ideas. Pinterest makes it easy for you to only stream relevant content you care about.
2) Follow Boards.
One of the curious, but potentially awesome, things about Pinterest is your ability to follow a Pinner’s specific boards, instead of their entire content output. Most of the time, I take a quick survey of a Pinner’s taste and decide which Boards I relate to best. Then I only follow those Boards so I can avoid pins that don’t interest me.
3) Mention People.
Like Facebook and Twitter, you can mention people in your pins. By using the @ symbol, you can tag people in the comment section of your pins. This is also a great way to credit people and let them know that you’re using their information, and draw attention from targeted individuals or brands.
4) Stay Social.
Because Pinterest links to Facebook and Twitter, you can instantly share your pins to your other networks. You can also interact with other users by “liking” and re-pinning their pins.
5) Install the Bookmarklet.
By adding the Bookmarklet to your browser you can pin any video or image you find on the web. It’s so easy! This way, next time you see an idea you love, you’re able to click “Pin It,” choose an image and add the pin to one of your Boards.
6) Use Pinterest-related Sites.
Pinerly is like the Hootsuite of Pinterest. It allows you to better manage your account with a user-friendly dashboard. You can track your pin stats and even schedule pins. It’s not public yet, but you can sign-up for the wait list here (the more you share the faster you get on).
7) Collaborate with Others.
By allowing others to contribute to your boards, multiple people can share their ideas and findings. Keep in mind, you must be following at least one of the user’s boards to allow them to become a contributor. This is a great way to work together with community partners and sponsors for events or specific topic areas.
8) Go Mobile.
By downloading the App, you can pin on the go and upload your photos as “pins” from your phone. The iPhone app even includes an image editor, similar to a very basic version of Instagram.
9) Get Discovered.
Because your brand will be exposed to a broad, public audience, there is a likelihood that your brand will be discovered by people who never knew you existed. Use different categories to tag and find different boards, pinners and pins. Plus, it makes it easier for people searching to find you!
10) Measure Success.
Because it preserves the original source of the image, Pinterest is a great way to drive more traffic to your website or blog. All shared links are tracked with Google Analytics to test conversions and referral traffic. By simply entering pinterest.com/source/(yourwebsite.com) into your browser, you can see how many people have pinned your website or blog content.
You can also use PinPuff to measure success. PinPuff is essentially the Klout of the Pinterest world. You can easily look to see who’s popular and influential, and find leaders in categories that interest you.
Pinterest is still a new, evolving platform. The creators are now releasing new profile pages, and people will be able to pin from Vimeo, Hulu, Netflix and other sources. Don’t let the constant change deter you! Pinterest is a vibrant, image-filled community that appeals to a wide range of interests. And you know what they say – a picture is worth a thousand words.