Pinterest has quickly become an important and influential tool to promote yourself, brand or business. The site hosts over half a million business pages with over 70 million users. If you are looking for ways to increase the number of followers to your Pinterest account, here are some useful tips:
Visual Content:
Pinterest is image-driven and quality visual content is critical. Winning characteristics of a successful Pinterest image include having little background, being colorful and moderately light in color.
Key Words:
Keywords play a strong factor in attracting followers to your boards. Carefully selected words will help ensure that, even months after you pin an image. Focus on simple words – people generally do not search using fancy terms. Check out your competitions boards – what key words are they using? Hashtags will also help reach a broader audience as well as giving your images enticing descriptions.
Consistency:
As true with other social media channels, frequent sharing and consistent pinning keeps your audience engaged with your content and will drive new followers. If you are a global brand, be sure to spread your content posts over the whole day so you are not leaving people out in other time zones. Some experts recommend pinning 15-20 times per day, however, 5 times per day is optimal and manageable for a small business.
Be Social:
Create your content with the mindset of helping your followers – social is the key component to social media interaction, after all! Develop relationships within the Pinterest community by following other boards within your niche and harnessing the power of group boards to gain access to new audiences. Leaving insightful comments on other users pins shows that you are taking the time to view the images and care about the subject, which can lead users to check out your page and ultimately following your profile.
Special Occasions:
Taking advantage of upcoming holidays or events in your city or region is a great way to get some quick exposure. Design a board specifically for the occasion to generate interest for your account and to gain new followers.
Tutorials:
Pinterest is not just about stunning visual images. According to Pinerly research, tutorials see a 42% more click through rate than regular images. Create a board with DIY instructions for activities that your audience will find unique, creative and helpful.
Website Design:
Make your website Pinterest friendly! Adding a Pin It button to your images easily allows users to share your content directly from your site. Also, include the Pinterest icon in your social media status bar for interested users to be directed to your profile. Pinterest Widgets can also be added to your website to show a beautiful snap shot of your top pins and will drive traffic to your Pinterest profile.
Promote Boards:
Many users prefer to only follow boards that interest them and not user profiles as it helps avoid unwanted material appearing in their feed. Find which of your boards are the most popular and begin to heavily promote.