Pam Dyer, January 14, 2014
Social media marketing has gone visual.
Brands are increasingly focusing their efforts on using distinct imagery to educate and engage their audiences. A picture really is worth a thousand words and Pinterest, the online pinboard, has taken center stage. Shareholic reports that Pinterest is second only to Facebook when it comes to driving referral traffic. The lifespan of a pin is the longest of any social media post, which is why it’s important to manage your Pinterest account to your best advantage.
Social media marketing is time-consuming. Putting your brand’s best foot forward generally entails managing multiple social media profiles. The daily activities necessary to be effective on each platform can be very labor-intensive. Check out his tips and put them to work for your visual marketing initiatives on Pinterest.
Be prepared
Before you begin managing a Pinterest account, it’s important to plan ahead in order to achieve maximum engagement.
- Set goals. Decide what you want to achieve — grow your followers, increase website traffic, improve sales, increase repins, etc.
- Find your most popular boards and pins. This inventory will help you determine what is most popular with your audience.
- Subscribe to useful content. Blogs and other Pinterest boards will provide shareable images.
- Save articles and images you like. This will help you build a backlog of visual content.
- Pin when it’s most effective. Pins that are posted 2:00-4:00pm and between 8:00pm and 1:00 am receive the most engagement.
Managing your Pinterest account
Now that you’re prepared, you can methodically manage your Pinterest account.
- Respond to comments. Comment on pins shared from your website, on repins, and on pins in which you are mentioned. Limit your number of comments to 2 or 3 at a time — more than this will cause your account to be flagged.
- Repin and like some pins. Liking pins is a great way to same images you can pin later.
- Schedule your pins. Use Pinterest’s scheduling feature to distribute your pins throughout the day and keep fresh content in front of your followers.
- Cross-promote. Share your pins on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your other social media profiles to drive traffic and audience engagement.
