@deairby I love pinterest….beware it is highly addictive! Leveraging it for business has been tricky though. I would have thought that my antique silver would make good subject matter for pinterest, but I am reluctant to pin my own stuff. Seems tacky to me.I know a couple of business who have readers that do pin their items and pinterest is a huge traffic driver for them.

@deairby Like all of the sm platforms, you need tohave a significant size following for your message to get anywhere. No harm in posting food photos it,ight drive traffic for you. But unless you follow other people no one is going to see your boards beyond a small circle .

These articles may be of interest:

http://mashable.com/tag/pinterest/
http://mashable.com/2011/12/26/pinterest-beginners-guide/

Like any social network, you need to post things of interest to the community. This site appears to be a great destination if you have the right intentions. I was recently sent an invite and thinking about how I would like to use it. Funny three weeks ago I never heard of it and now it seems to be mentioned everywhere.

I just followed all of your pinterest accounts.  Wanna follow mine?

@Dee Reinhardt I followed your account too. Now I need to do something with mine.

thanks for all the comments. please, when you find out more, let us all know @swrightboucher @kathyweir @deereinhardt @andreainfusino @nancystuckwisch

  @deairby  @swrightboucher  @kathyweir  @deereinhardt Ok I have found everyone except @andreainfusino.

I love, love pinterest helps me archive and organize images/links/etc for work and play!  Looking forward to seeing all of your pins.

Nan

I’m a big fan of Pinterest and I’ve been wondering how it works in terms of backlinks… Any SEO experts in the house wanna shed some light? If not, you can still follow me at pinterest.com/valissa

@nancystuckwisch sorry, i just followed you right now! here’s my profile: http://pinterest.com/andreainfusino 

i would like to make another question: is pinterest a sort of instagram competetitor in some way? (above all with mobile apps of both)

never thought about using pinterest for recipe storage or any other screen saver type thing @nancystuckwisch @andreainfusino Yes, I see it as competition for evernote but can other people see what I post on evernote or is it a private “notepad”?

thank you for suggesting me pearltrees, it remembers me stumbleupon!
however pinterest single page has no meta robots infos, nor REP directives. Searching on google with site: command it shows very a lot of pages, so it could be really interesting for content building and indexing. Links on single pins are dofollow. That’s could be used for link building tactics!

I love Pinterest and I see a ton of possibilities for business - including my employer. We’re planning on ‘pinning’ home DIY projects we’ve produced for our blog - this is completely unrelated to homeowners insurance but it’s something we know our current customers enjoy and, best of all, will drive new traffic to our site.

Website Magazine just released an article on why Pinterest is doomed to fail.

What do you think? Do they have a good point that the marketers haven’t jumped in yet to ruin it?

http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2012/01/05/is-pinterest-doomed-to-fail.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

@kkonen @ashleychyle @casmccullough @andreainfusino @nancystuckwisch @deairby @valissa @nancystuckwisch @swrightboucher @kathyweir @deereinhardt

@kkonen Get the Pin It button for each of your photos. That way, others will be more inclined to share. The trick to Pinterest is to share a little of your own stuff but encourage others to share it by making the tools accessible. Plus, share more of other people’s work and comment on why. This helps build your reputation and makes you more follow-worthy.

hi everybody,and thank you @donpurdum for sharing that article. This remarks a point very important to me and where i supposed some SEO benefits from pinning stuff, here’s the danger of Pinterest will be only another way to call it a “link building resource among many others”. 
I would like to say that it’s openess could hurt the Pinterest community, going to destroy its user natural behaviour instead of marketers behaviour, putting random or spammy links into Pins and stuff like this.
However i would like to find something good in Pinterest, above all. Sometimes i also see model pictures or artistic nude pictures and i warn myself that Pinterest could became a sort of Porn-terest. That’s another concrete risk, for me.
I’m going on working with Pins and Repins just like Pinterest supposed me to do, and i just developed a Wordpress plugin extending the one released in 2010 for WP 3.3.1 It could be useful understand how many people will ask me to join Pinterest and install the plugin, in order to wait for some offical API not yet released.I hope Pinterest will not be a place of marketing, even just a place for fun where marketing is just a part of the game.

Are Morch, it came in less than a week. I haven’t had time to determine my plans. I am thinking I want to tie it into Tucson pictures and the accounts I work with to show people how great and diverse our community is and what a great place to visit.

I have one and a pin I put up weeks ago has gone viral and my inbox is full of notices!!!! help?  @stevencole

you’re not kidding! But seriously, I wish I could figure out how to turn it into $omething because I get about 30 or more repins and “now following you” notices a day. @stevencole

@leecg Here’s the link: 5 ways to leverage Pinterest for your business. I hope you find it helpful. One thing I’ve started doing lately is a “Just for fun” section on my monthly newsletter which has a couple of links to stuff I like on Pinterest. 

I’m not sure if someone else has mentioned this, but I read somewhere that one of the biggest traffic drivers to etsy is pinterest…. makes sense!
@casmccullough Thank you! I will take a look at it now.

@casmccullough Thanks for posting the article. Everywhere I am reading the last two weeks Pinterest is constantly being mentioned. It’s on my to do list.

Thanks for the article, @casmccullough !

I dont have any experience with the site other than I know some people that can barely make it out of the house for fear of being away from it. Sounds a little addictive to me.

great article, Cas, well done, thanks for the link @casmccullough

Yes, @andreainfusino, what is the wordpress plug-in!!!????

Not sure if this article has been shared: Five way to leverage pinterest for your business.

http://www.supportawahp.com/2011/5-ways-to-leverage-pinterest-for-your-business.html

here’s a summary of the various media offering tutorials on Pinterest
http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/media-offering-a-pinterest-tutorial_b32405

For anyone who’s interested in Pinterest for SEO purposes, I’ve been doing a bit of reading and it looks VERY promising! (Although, as everyone else has mentioned, the site is also super addicting.) Twice the reason to invest in this “time waster”, I say
Here are some of the better articles I’ve found: Using Pinterest in B2B, Pinterest & Link-Building Strategies (very helpful), Pinterest for Social Mentions & SEO.
And! This morning I encountered the first Pinterest brand page I’ve seen. It was a web company just sharing infographics, but I’m certainly interested in following them to see how they go. 

hi There, i was so busy!Here’s the link where you can download my wordpress plugin! –> http://www.andreainfusino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pinterest-profile.zip 

@deairby & @deereinhardt thank you for your (p)interest! Tweets are really apreciated! Try here

@Valissa, I agree it can be addicting and I don’t even have an account. I have friends that are always talking about this and that, bringing food over that they have made. I see post all over FB about being addicting and people looking for invites. I’m a little hesitant to get my own account because I have a lot projects I want to get done, but it does always keep me engaged. 

@kathyweir, so you are using Pinterest mainly for business or pleasure? Thanks for sharing your ideas.

I created a FB page last night about this because it has become addicting,  I wanted to create a spot where others can get together off of Pinterest and I wanted people to share their thoughts good and bad. You can visit it at http://www.facebook.com/pages/You-Might-Be-Addicted-to-Pinterest-if/325209250844355 

It’s amazing how many are hooked and how fast. Is it perhaps because intuitvely grouping images is easier than words? It’d be a shame for marketing to take it over

Greetings, all.  I have been using Pinterest for about a month now.  I am bewildered by all this social media stuff sometimes.  But Pinterest is quite easy to do and it helps me with visits and sales at my site.  I spend about 30 minutes each morning doing pins.  Its my relaxing time with coffee.  I have various boards set up for different quilt related categories.  I use one for new fabrics arrivals to my website.  Also have a couple boards that are just for fun, my style and smile.  I think it is important to show a side outside your area of specialty. Do I understand all of it? No, but have found out that to make Pinterest successful you need to follow others, repin, and like others pins.  Spreads your influence over Pinterest.   My Pinterest boards:  http://pinterest.com/nancysfabrics/

Pinterest is bringing more traffic to my website than Google and Facebook is (check your Google Analytics and if you’ve been using Pinterest, probably the same is true for you), however, you should know that Pinterest is profiting from any pins that have affiliate links.

Is this a big deal? Eh.

Maybe to some people it is a big deal that Pinterest did not disclose this information up front and now their shiny image is a little tarnished. There is somewhat of a backlash brewing about this, amongst some bloggers but when all is said and done, I think most Pinterest users won’t care.

Here is the LLSocial post that blew the whistle on Pinterest’s use of Skimlinks, which is a website that allows you to modify affiliate links or insert affiliate links:
http://llsocial.com/2012/02/pinterest-modifying-user-submitted-pins/

Here is the follow-up story, after LLSocial got 35,000 page views and was cited as the source in some high-profile websites, including the New York Times, CBS News and Mashable : http://llsocial.com/2012/02/pinterest-modified-link-story-followup-insight/

I find Pinterest particularly powerful when I combine it with Tweets and Facebook posts. Powerful, in the sense that, my brand gets more attention than usual. For example, I tweeted about an infographic that Brian Solis and his team created a few years ago and how it is still valid/ahead of its time. The link in the Tweet went to my Pinterest board of infographics. Brian re-tweeted my Tweet. Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) favorited my Tweet and I got a bunch of new, valuable, engaged followers in Twitter because of that one Tweet. Was it because of my using the Pinterest link in my Tweet or was it because I made a good point about Brian’s infographic (still valid/ahead of its time) or both? Not sure yet…

I have to do more experimenting before I know for sure if injecting Pinterest juice into my Tweets is good strategy for growing my engaged followers in Twitter. First time out the gate, it worked.

Pinterest is so knew that we are all still learning. Here is my Pinterest page: http://pinterest.com/lorigama/

Bottomline: Like with any new thing you’re considering using to promote your brand:

1. do some thinking about your strategy with Pinterest;
   
2. have a goal;
   
3. and then have fun with it and you’ll attract new fans who will naturally begin to like you and trust you and become part of your tribe.

Been using Pinterest for a month now as well, and yes, very much addictive. I did able to get some order for my crochet projects.  I even gain some twitter followers because of it. 

Thanks @deairby for starting this thread and thanks everyone for the great articles you’ve shared.

Dear friends,

We are using Pintrest for a few weeks now and we start seeing traffic coming in from this very popular platform. We can share easily pictures that people in our niche like to see. We noticed that if you mix it up with random picures that you love that your Pintrest boards will get a personal touch. People relate more with your brand and the start to know us a little better.
Follow us on Pintrest to get inspired how we build trust among our target market http://pinterest.com/ibizainside/
Love to hear your experience with Pintrest.
Virgil & Marisa

Some good tips being shared here. As with all social media sites it is balancing your activity so it is not all about yourself and just getting stuck in. I personally need to make more use of it, but I have an engaged crowd on Twitter that I spend my time on.

From an SEO perspective:

Naming of boards
The board name is the meta title, so think of keywords. I wouldn’t just call a board “Furniture I make” or “Wood furniture”. I would break the different products up into separate categories with a board for each one.

So if for example I made bespoke furniture, I would have one board called “Oak Dining Tables”, another called “Oak Wardrobes”, and so on…

Choosing your description
I meant choosing your meta description, sort of…

You will want any important keywords at the front as usual and you can add a link here to a page on your site. This is where it gets weird though, Pinterest has a habit of sometimes of putting their navigation details in front of it. I can’t see why they do this and it does not happen to all pins either. Maybe it is older pins that I see effected and things have improved?
Pinterest also appends the description onto the end of the title (your board name), so best getting those keywords in really early – just don’t forget to make it readable to anyone looking. If it looks spammy it will be less likely to be shared.

Links
You get a follow link for what you put in the description and this can be of course a different URL than from where the image came from. Great link building opportunity adding a link to every pin you make.

The image URL is placed in a header 3 tag… <h3>
I’m no guru, but I imagine it carries some more weight being placed within that tag.

Another thing
It really does not matter what your subject is, if it has an image pin it. Just because everyone else is pinning cupcakes/quotes/clothes, it does not mean you will not find an audience of your own. There are people who are interested in planes, trains, stationary, metalwork… Whatever it is I’m sure someone somewhere waiting for your pin on Pinterest.

There is some *great* advice here! 

My input is just to think of these different channels in terms of their *users*. Yes, right now Pinterest is women. It’s easy to do a search on the most popular topics on Pinterest (which I believe are food and beauty and decorating – or something like that).

Think the way any marketer would: who is there, why are they there, what are they doing? And then provide content that you believe fits. Spend some time wandering around Pinterest. Get a feel for it. Then join the conversation and do your best to be a good ‘cocktail party guest.”

If you’re pinning food ‘porn’ (hope nobody minds that term, which is heavily used out there and I think is really funny), I think you can expect to have some success. 

If I *had* sum up what I think Pinterest is at this moment, I’d say an ideas and inspiration place for the things women care about. (Personally, I love it for hairstyles and decorating ideas.)

I love Pinterest, but use it for personal use. I love seeing boards and stuff that interest people I follow on pinterest. I love anything visually beautiful and I get a kick out of sharing images that show my personality. 

@marionwesterling, I’d suggest using it personally first in order to enjoy it the way it’s meant to be enjoyed and to learn the ropes.  Pinterest is getting a lot of flack for allowing potential copyright infringement.  Check out this website for more information about protecting intellectual information:  http://linkwithlove.typepad.com/

This may help, too!  http://pinterest.com/about/help/  Happy pinning.

thanks for the link @promotionsocial

@promotionsocial I just went to check out your pinterest info on your blog and saw that most of the images have the white box of death!  :(  Thought you’d want to know!  If you are having another webinar about it, I’d love to hear about it!

If anyone has some blogs or other great resources for Pinterest please send them my way. I have started diving in to researching it, I like to have as much information as possible prior to diving into something. I have just requested an invite so I can learn by doing. Hubspot had a great ebook that I just finished. 

@promotionsocial – this is where I see the empty image boxes:  http://promotionsocial.net/blog/

I am on Pinterest and love it! I just posted the same comment on my FB page last night: http://pinterest.com/worldofinterest/ This is me

I find it a great creative outlet.

hi @deairby sorry if i’m so really late!!
you have just to install like other wordpress plugins, unless you have to upload the file and not download from codex
i remember the file to download: wordpress pinterest plugin here–> http://www.andreainfusino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pinterest-profile.zip 

Hi all,I just downloaded this e book from Hubspot http://www.hubspot.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business/Default.aspx?RewriteStatus=3&source=hspd-SME-how-to-use-pinterest-for-business-20120227  I haven’t had a chance to read it though.

My best,Anita

Considering that Pinterest generates more traffic than G+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined it is essential. At the same time one needs to ensure that they pay back to whom ever they got the image from.

I love using pinterest to get traffic. Seeing as my blog and myself are still in the early days it helps a bit. We all love looking at pictures. Pinterest just made that even more social so why not use it to drive traffic to that post. 

@tysonstevens I did a few articles on pinterest as well. Have a look at let me know what you think.  http://gdesigns.co.za/?s=pinterest

I may be coming into the conversation a bit late, but I would like to just give my two cents. I think that pinterest can be very beneficial but there are several things to consider. I have clients constantly asking me why I haven’t recommended Pinterest for them. I remind them that to use it as a marketing strat you need to have a blog. It is pointless to pin random things that are not going to flow traffic back to your site. Also traffic doesnt always mean conversions, what ever yours might be. So you need to take into account of this. If you Run a camera company for instance, posting great photos from your blog will be very beneficial, however, if you are a Butchery then things are a lot different. Bottom line I say to my clients, if you dont have a blog, then Pinterest is at best another Social platform for you to play on

Hi,

My name is Liz Samuelson and I am relatively new to pinterest, but I would love for anyone to come check out my stuff. I would be glad to return the favor. You can find me at http://www.pinterest.com/lizsam11

Thanks for the support. Liz

Liz – I would personally love it if you started a new discussion on building a lens on Squidoo…I get most things but for some reason I don’t get that!  ;)

BTW – this is me on Pinterest…now I have to catch up to all of you!http://pinterest.com/aflyonthewall/

Robyn