10 tips for successful pinterest marketing

Pinterest is a pinboard-style, social sharing site where people can pin photos, graghic images, infographics and videos. Although many people originally thought of Pinterest as a place to share images reflecting personal hobbies and interests, the impact on business success when promoting through Pintest cannot be ignored.

In fact Public Relations, SEO & Marketing, Graphics, and Venture Capitalism rank among Pinterest users' top 10 interests.

Started just 4 years ago (December 2009) Pinterest already boasts over 70 million users, 72% of which are women who love to spend money and have the money to do so. Pinterest has shouldered it's way between Facebook (20% of Facebook users are on Pinterest every day) and Twitter and is now considered the top social media referral source for business websites.

Pinterest drives more referral traffic than YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+ put together. And traffic arriving to websites from Pinterest is found to be 10% more likely to by and spend on average 10% more than visitors arriving from other social media sites.

Only a handful of Pinterests notable influencers are top selling retailers and magazines - the majority are bloggers, individuals and small businesses. It's time to start taking this site very seriously.

So how do you set up an optimized business account, get followers and drive traffic to your websites through pinning? Here are 5 Tips to get you started:

Tip #1: Open a Pinterest Business account - it's free- make sure you optimize it by using your business name and keywords in your Pinterest home page. When you start your business page, you will be asked to create a user name, this is your first opportunity to brand your business on Pinterest.

You don't have to use your business name if using a focus keyword or keyword phrase would suit your marketing purposes better. I chose to use 'The Online Video Marketer, ' rather than my business name because it was more important for me to optimize for keywords, rather than brand my business name. This also follows,the nomenclature I use for my other social media profiles and helps me get found when people search for online video marketing.

Tip #2: Create targeted pin boards - keep in mind target market, and different aspects of your brand, don't be afraid to add personal interests. Your prospects and customers are buying from YOU, not your brand.

You are more likely to attract followers if you mix it up. I have several boards where I pin pictures, graphics and videos that are fun and interesting and give my followers more of a sense of community by following me.

Tip #3: Make your website pinnable - ensure that you have plenty of pictures AND VIDEO on your site for pinning by you and others as well. Add a 'Pin-It' button to your site to make it easy for visitors to pin to their boards - again adding to your viral reach.

Tip #4: Link your photos and videos back to your website. After you have posted an image or video to your board, re-open it and put your website or web page URL where you want to drive traffic. This is an important step in getting Pinterest traffic to go to your website.

Once you do this, every time one of your pins get 'liked' or re-pinned, you are increasing the likelihood that it will result in you getting a referral to your website.

Tip #5: Spend time engaging with other people's boards - it's just like any other social media site - you have to 'pay to play.' Meaning, if you want others to engage and re-pin your pins, you have to spend some time doing the same.

As with all online marketing activities, you should check your analytics to ensure your efforts are getting results - This allows you to track how many people have been pinning from your website and how many people have viewed your pins. Make adjustments based on your findings.

6. Add a "pin it" button to your website. With this in place, visitors have the ability to pin any image they come across. If you don't have this button in a prominent location, it becomes much more time intensive to add a pin, which will scare many people away.

7. Don't go nuts. As tempting as it may be to load up your feed with "pins," you don't want to go overboard. Doing so will annoy your followers. Even if they continue to follow you, they will become "blind" to your pins.

Quality over quantity definitely holds true here.

8. Begin the curation process. This is as simple as browsing categories within your industry, and pinning items that are of interest to you and your company. Even if these items are not your products, pinning them will increase traffic to your account.

9. Take advantage of cross promotion. Are you looking for the best way to jump start your Pinterest account? You can do this easily enough by sharing your new account with followers on your other social media channels.

Tip: you can also send out an email to clients, coworkers, and friends with a link to your account.

10. Remain consistent. The last thing you want to do is get others excited about your Pinterest account, just to give up on this form or marketing before you achieve success. You may not get the results you are looking for right away, but if you remain consistent you will begin to reach your goals soon enough.

If the time has come for you to introduce Pinterest marketing to your business, the five tips above will point you in the right direction.

Marketing your business on Pinterest is not nearly as challenging as it sounds. Once you get started, you will realize just how simple and effective it can be.

Check out best digital marketer