• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Social Media Examiner

Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

  • 🔥 Free Newsletter
  • ⭐ FREE Web3 Course
  • 🗓️ Our Events
    • Social Media Marketing World (Mar 13-15)
    • Other Industry Events
  • 💡 Society
  • ⚙️ Tools
  • 🎙️ Podcasts
    • Social Media Marketing Podcast
    • Social Media Marketing Talk Show
    • Web3 Business Podcast
    • Our YouTube Channel
  • 🎯 Partner With Us
    • Podcast Sponsorship
    • Email Sponsorship
      • Email Newsletter
      • Dedicated Email Blast
    • Event Sponsorship
      • Social Media Marketing World
    • Tools Sponsorship
  • 👋 About Us
    • Our Story
    • Articles
      • Web3
      • Instagram Marketing
      • Facebook Marketing
      • YouTube Marketing
      • LinkedIn Marketing
      • TikTok Marketing
      • Expert Interviews
  • Search
  • Social Media Marketing World10th annual. Biggest industry event. Sale ends soon!IMPROVE YOUR MARKETING

    6 Tips for Using Pinterest for Business

    by Mitt Ray / May 14, 2012

    social media how toAre you wondering how Pinterest could help your business?

    Pinterest is one of the hottest social media sites at the moment. Pinterest was the fastest stand alone site ever to reach 10 million monthly unique visitors.

    One study shows how Pinterest has been bringing in more traffic to websites than LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube put together.

    Brands are benefiting with Pinterest in generating traffic and sales.

    So if you'd like to attract a lot of traffic to your website using Pinterest, check out these 6 tips.

    #1: Use Original Pictures to Drive Traffic

    If you visit the Popular Section of Pinterest, you'll see that most of the popular pictures and images in this section are original and unique. The popular images are “repinned,” “liked” and commented on the most number of times.

    popular page on pinterest
    Screenshot of a popular page on Pinterest. The popular page consists of images that have been "repinned," "liked" and "commented" on the most.

    Study the pictures here before you start creating your own pictures.

    An example is Ana White's Carpentry Blog. A recent post on Social Media Examiner shows how her blog receives more than 6,000 visitors a day from Pinterest. This is because she focuses on publishing original pictures of her carpentry work on Pinterest.

    These include pictures she took of the cupboards, desks and other furniture she created and posted on her blog. Her blog readers then pin Ana's pictures onto their own Pinterest boards where other Pinterest users see them, repin them and like them. The end result is a lot of traffic to her blog.

    ana white pinterest page
    Ana White's Pinterest profile.

    You can check the images that are being repinned from any website by using the link http://pinterest.com/source/domainname.com/.  All you will need to do is replace “domainname” with the website’s name.

    If you want to be successful in driving traffic from Pinterest to your blog, focus on creating unique pictures and/or images.

    #2: Pin Other People's Content to Build a Wider Following

    Pinterest isn't all about pinning your own pictures onto your boards. Just like on any other social medium, you need to share other people's content too. So look for others' pictures and content relating to your product or service and pin them onto your boards.

    Make sure you stick to a specific topic on each pinboard. A pinboard is a set of pins. You can create different pinboards on different topics. You can add an unlimited number of pins to a pinboard. More definitions about the different components of a Pinterest profile can be found on the Pinterest Help page.

    The Conference You've Been Waiting For

    As a small business marketer, you can probably only pick one or two events to attend each year. Get back into the game with an unbeatable conference experience and expert training at Social Media Marketing World in sunny San Diego, California—from your friends at Social Media Examiner.

    🔥🔥 As a valued reader, you can save $300 if you act now! Sale Ends Tuesday!

    CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE
    chobani pinterest profile
    Chobani's Pinterest profile consists of pictures and images pinned from different websites.

    Sticking to a specific topic on each pinboard allows people to follow the ones that interest them. Pinterest gives you the freedom to pin anything you want, but make sure you name a pinboard appropriately and pin pictures related to that topic.

    An example of a company doing this well is Chobani, a yogurt company. If you visit their Pinterest profile, you'll see that they not only pin pictures of their products, but also pictures from recipes in which yogurt is an ingredient.

    They also have a pinboard where recipes of products that don't have any yogurt in them are pinned. There's also a pinboard on fitness. All of these help promote Chobani's product and brand, as they show the various ways in which their yogurts can be used in recipes and reinforce that yogurt is a healthy food.

    Pin other people's content and carefully choose the topics of the pinboards you create to build the following you want for your brand.

    #3: Create Catalogs to Bring in Sales

    Another fantastic way to display your products on Pinterest is to create catalogs. You can create a pinboard and pin pictures based on one of your collections.

    You can also add a price to these pictures. When you want the price to be displayed on the pinboard, all you have to do is add the $ sign followed by the price to the description and the price will be displayed.

    Adding the price will make sure you only attract people to your website who are really interested in buying the pinned product.

    Tools Resource Guide

    Looking for something to make your life easier?

    Discover the tools we recommend to drive engagement, save you time, and boost sales across your entire marketing funnel or business.

    Whether you need help planning content, organizing social posts, or developing your strategy, you’ll find something for every situation.

    FIND YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TOOL

    For example, let's say an image of a product like a gold chain that costs hundreds of dollars has been pinned without the price. If it's an attractive image, lots of people are going to visit the site, but many of them will not buy it after they realize it's price.

    But if you add the price, there's a greater possibility that people who visit your site from that image will buy it, as they will know the price before they visit your site.

    A company using catalogs effectively is Nordstrom. If you visit their Pinterest profile, you'll find pictures from several collections pinned onto many pinboards as catalogs.

    nordstrom pinterest profile
    Nordstrom's Pinterest profile has several pinboards. Many of these pinboards are catalogs of different products.

    Another company that is making good use of pinboards to display their products on Pinterest is Feather Earrings. If you check out one of their pinboards called “Must Have Products,” you will find pins of their products displayed along with their prices.

    feather earrings pinboard
    Feather Earrings has a pinboard on their Pinterest profile where they pin their products and add the price of each product to its description.

    Creating catalogs on Pinterest can be a very effective way to drive traffic to your website and increase sales.

    #4: Host Competitions

    You can create picture competitions on Pinterest. Let your fans know what the prize is and ask them to take a picture and share it to win the competition.

    Ask your fans to pin that picture onto their pinboards. They can then either send you the link to their picture, or you could ask them to use a unique hashtag to enter the competition. Then you'll have to search the hashtag on Pinterest and come up with a means of deciding the best picture.

    A company that recently ran a competition was Lands' End Canvas. They ran the “Pin It to Win It” contest. Here the participants needed to create pinboards with their favorite Lands' End products and the person who created the pinboard with the best collection of products won. Details about this expired competition are available on the Lands' End Facebook page.

    lands end pinterest
    Details about the Lands' End Canvas "Pin It to Win It Contest" were published on their Facebook page.

    #5: Get Fans Involved to Help Spread the Word

    Pinterest gives you the option to allow other contributors to your pinboards. The pinboards you create don't have to contain only your pins—you can select other people and let them pin pictures onto your pinboards too.

    Take advantage of this feature. Select some of your favorite or most active fans and ask them to pin pictures onto your pinboards. You could even run a competition where the prize is to be a regular contributor to the pinboard.

    Get fans involved to help spread the word about your products.

    add contributors
    You can add contributors to your Pinterest pinboards by choosing the "+Contributors" option.

    #6: Pin Offers

    Create a unique image about your latest offer and pin it onto one of your pinboards on Pinterest. Create an exclusive pinboard to pin the latest offers for Pinterest users only.

    These offers could be exclusively uploaded to your Pinterest pinboards, or they could be pinned from a website page.

    When you pin free offers, your fans will definitely repin them and share them with their friends. Everybody loves offers. Make sure you don't put a limit if you want many repins.

    The Wall Street Journal is making good use of Pinterest to promote their latest offers. On their Pinterest profile, they have a pinboard where they pin images of daily deals from their promotional service WSJ select. Their pins contain a picture of the product and have a description of how much the deal is worth.

    wsj offers board
    The Wall Street Journal has a Pinterest pinboard called WSJ Select where they pin images of the latest details from their website WSJ Select.

    More Possibilities on Pinterest

    The above methods are just a few ways you can use Pinterest. If you spend some time and think about it, you can find scores of ways to use Pinterest to promote your business.

    What do you think of Pinterest? Are there any other creative ways you have used Pinterest? How has it helped your business? Please leave your comments in the box below.

    Get Your FREE Course: Web3 for Beginners

    Web 3 for Beginners

    Curious about Web3, but don't know where to start or who to trust?

    Introducing Web3 for Beginners, a course taught by Michael Stelzner, the founder of Social Media Examiner.

    Learn the basics of Web3 and apply it to your business with this FREE comprehensive course.


    CLICK HERE TO GET FREE ACCESS

    Tags: Pinterest

    About the authorMitt Ray

    Mitt Ray is the author of the book White Paper Marketing and the founder of Social Marketing Writing, where you can download his free Pinterest Marketing Video Tutorial. Follow him
    Other posts by Mitt Ray »

    Get Social Media Examiner’s Future Articles in Your Inbox!

    Get our latest articles delivered to your email inbox and get the FREE Social Media Marketing Industry Report (39 pages, 50+ charts)!

    Industry Report Cover

    Worth Exploring:

    Facebook

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Instagram

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    YouTube

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Linkedin

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Web3

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Social Media Marketing Industry Report

    Get Free Report →

    Social Marketing Trends

    The data you've been missing!

    Need a new plan? Find out how thousands of marketers plan to change their social marketing activities in our 14th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report. This 39-page report reveals what marketers have planned for their organic social activities, video marketing, social ads, and more. Get this free report now and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner.

    Enter your email to get
    our free report:


    Footer

    Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
    Copyright © 2023 Social Media Examiner®
    All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy.

    Helpful Links

    • About us
    • Our content via email
    • Our podcasts
    • Our YouTube channel
    • Our live show
    • Our industry report
    • Sponsorship opportunities
    • RSS
    • Accessibility