Pinterest Savvy: Strategies, Plans, and Tips to Grow Your Business with Pinterest
by Melissa Taylor
Are you using Pinterest? Recently, while looking at my analytics, I noticed that I get more traffic from Pinterest than I do from Facebook or LinkedIn. I have a Pin It button on my website so I pin many of my blog posts. I have picked up a lot of tips reading books on Pinterest that I download for free at Digital Book Today. And whenever I come across a blog post on Pinterest, I always read it. I noticed Pinterest Savvy: Strategies, Plans, and Tips to Grow Your Business with Pinterest by Melissa Taylor on Digital Book Today so I decided to download it and give it a read. If you have never used Pinterest, this book is an introductory one and gives all the steps you need to take to get started and become savvy. Although a lot of information in the book I already knew, the new information was worth the read.
At the beginning of Pinterest Savvy, Melissa Taylor talks about using Pinterest to pin articles that she wants to read later, and I thought, “Why would anyone want to do that?” There are far more effective tools such as Evernote and Readability that offers more flexibility. I didn’t let that stop me from reading the book. Taylor gives an example of how she increased her followers by changing the name of a Board and making it more specific. That made me think. I have lots of book reviews and interviews that I have pinned, and I would like to think that my content is good, so why don’t I get more re-pins, and traffic to my blog from Pinterest?
Perhaps the answers lie in not being specific enough with the name of my boards. I have a board called Books Worth Reading, and another, Leadership and Management which I use for interviews that I conduct. Had Taylor not written about this in particular, it wouldn’t have dawned on me to change the names of my boards. As a result, I have changed all the names of my boards to make them more specific. Are the names of your Pinterest boards specific enough so people will view them? She also participates in collaborative boards where a group of people post to, in essence what is a community board. I had heard about collaborative board, but I didn’t know how to start one. Pinterest Savvy explains how to do that and Taylor also mentions that the collaborative board has enabled her to gain more followers, and she recommends that people limit the number of people who are a part of the collaboration. They repin each other’s pins, exposing them to a wider audience.
If using Pinterest for business, it’s important to verify your website. I wish that I had Pinterest Savvy over a year ago when I was going through the process. The process now is much more streamlined. She outlines the steps for you. Taking this step is important because it adds legitimacy to your business. Another important thing is having rich pins. The approval process is slow – takes about a month – and there were times when I believed that the process wasn’t working. Rich pins ‘pop’ and stand out, enabling you to get more exposure, and it doesn’t hurt that your company name and title of your pins are in bold and that your logo is very visible.
In Pinterest Savvy, there is a section on monetizing Pinterest for those who are interested. One suggestion in the book is to write an e-book, then include the link to the sales page in a viral post. Another way to monetize Pinterest is by working on brand campaigns. Melissa Taylor includes a list of companies that you can sign up with for this opportunity. One2One Network and SocialSpark are among the companies on her list.
Pinterest Savvy: Strategies, Plans, and Tips to Grow Your Business with Pinterest by Melissa Taylor is a short book that you can read in about an hour. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Liked this post? Share it and subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more! If you’re new to the blog, visit the Start Here page for my pillar posts.
Author Bio: Avil Beckford, an expert interviewer, entrepreneur and published author is passionate about books and professional development, and that's why she founded The Invisible Mentor and the Virtual Literary World Tour to give you your ideal mentors virtually in the palm of your hands by offering book reviews and book summaries, biographies of wise people and interviews of successful people. Connect with me on Facebook and Twitter.
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