10 Ways to Use Pinterest for Promoting your Business Blog

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Pinterest logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The key to success for your business blog is using the tools available to direct traffic to your site. One of these tools is social bookmarking.

Pinterest is a popular social bookmarking site with the potential to explode your sales and website traffic — if used properly.

Attractive Pins
Pinterest is a visually-stimulating website where attractiveness is key to success. Don’t just upload stock images and expect massive amounts of traffic. You need an attractive image and a blurb which contains a call-to-action to click on the pin. By filling out the blurb, you get your pin in the search results for the keyword you choose.

Gain Followers
All pins are uploaded into the “Everything” category real-time. By regularly pinning interesting content, other pinners begin to follow your boards allowing easy access to your information. You want to gain followers to gain traffic to your business blog.

Direct Traffic
Each pin on Pinterest leads back to a blog or website where the image originated. You receive a back link and traffic to your business blog. Pinterest can only direct traffic.

Sell Products
Pinterest established a specific section on the website for buying products for sellers. By adding your products to the “Products” and “Gifts” sections, shoppers can filter the search results to products available by price. After clicking on the item, the buyer is redirected to your site to purchase said product.

Highlight Services
Service-based companies such as photographers use Pinterest as a place to upload their portfolio. Followers may be interested in purchasing your services if you regularly showcase your talents and services on your boards.

Curate Content
Pinterest is a venue to show your company’s interests and tastes. By re-pinning other posts and adding pins of other products — not your company’s — you show that you are more than a business spamming a website.

Make Connections
If you want others to follow your boards, you must develop relationships and follow other boards which align with your business’s interests and goals. Re-pinning, commenting and following are key to establishing yourself as a part of the community.

Contests & Giveaways
People love free stuff. Sponsor a giveaway or a contest where re-pinning and sharing your content enters the customer into a giveaway of one of your products or services.

Integrate Your Website
Make it easy for your blog readers to pin your content to Pinterest. Add a button to each blog post which directly uploads your content to Pinterest.

Connect Your Social Media
Pinterest connects with other social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Set up your social media accounts to show your content from Pinterest to your followers on your other social sites.

This article was written by Hayley Granton and Michael Myles.