Pinterest Marketing

Jennifer Evans Cario is founder and President of SugarSpun Marketing, a boutique social media agency specializing in sustainable social media strategies, web analytics, and corporate training. She also serves as the Social Media Faculty Chair for Market Motive, a web-based training facility, and as adjunct faculty for Rutgers University's Mini-MBA programs. Jennifer has been in the industry since 1996 and has trained or consulted for a wide range of B2B and B2C companies across the United States and Canada.

Introduction xxvii

Chapter 1 Understanding Pinterest 1

What is Pinterest? 2

Visual Bookmarking 2

Visual Idea Searching 4

The History of Pinterest 5

Pinterest’s Quietly Explosive Growth 6

An Organically Formed Community 6

Demographics 6

How Pinterest Makes Money 7

Affiliate Links 8

Ad Platform Potential 8

Premium Account Potential 9

Pinterest’s Long-Term Potential 9

Early-to-Market Advantage 9

Third-Party Integration 10

Sustainability for Users 11

Chapter 2 Who Uses Pinterest for Marketing and Why? 13

Why Are Companies Using Pinterest? 14

To Drive Traffic 14

To Generate (and Track) Loyalty 16

To Demonstrate Product Potential 18

To Better Understand Consumers 20

To Establish Brand Personality 22

What Types of Companies Can Benefit from Using Pinterest? 24

Bloggers 24

Retail Stores 26

Online Publications 30

Big Brands 32

Small Business 34

Nonprofits 36

Chapter 3 What Makes Pinterest Valuable? 39

Pinterest Plays Off the Impact of Imagery 40

Visual Bookmarking 42

Saved Images for Later Exploration 43

Driven by Impulse Clicks 44

Pinterest Has a Low Barrier to Entry 45

Easy Account Setup 45

Minimal Account Management 46

Freedom from Publishing Schedules 46

Pinterest Provides an Outlet for Content Curators 47

Users and Businesses Can Share without Flooding Streams 47

Provides Businesses with Freedom to Share More Content 48

Pinterest Offers Content Segmentation to Users 49

Pinterest Serves as a Gateway Rather Than a Destination 50

Better Than Bookmarks for Users and Businesses 51

Pinterest Works Off Latent Click Conversions 52

Increased Opportunity for Traffic 53

Pinterest Puts All Users on an Equal Playing Field 53

Both Big and Small Companies Have Equal Leverage Potential 53

How Pins Get Fed into the Stream 54

Potential Benefit of More Traffic with Followers 55

Equality in Ultimate Pins Based on Size of Posting Account 55

Chapter 4 Week 1—Set Up a Pinterest Account 57

Monday: Create an Account 58

Registering for an Account 58

Setting Up Your Profile 61

Personal Name vs Company Name 63

Setting up a Business Account 63

Tuesday: Understand the Category System 66

What Are the Pinterest Categories? 67

Why Do You Need to Use Pinterest’s Categories? 68

Browsing Categories 68

Wednesday: Understand the Search System 69

Searching for Pins 70

Searching for People 71

Searching for Boards 72

Thursday: Create and Organize Your Boards 72

How to Create a Pinboard 72

Naming and Categorizing Pinboards 75

Organizing Pinboard Display 76

Friday: Start Pinning! 78

Chapter 5 Week 2—Curating Content with Pinterest 79

Monday: Repinning Content from Pinterest 80

How to Repin Content 80

Repinning Content from Your Friend’s Feeds 80

Repinning Content from Category Feeds 81

Tuesday: Pinning New Content with the Pin It Button and Bookmarklet 82

Spotting the Pin It Button on Websites 82

Installing and Using the Pinterest Bookmarklet 84

Using the Pin It Pop-Up Window 85

Wednesday: Uploading Original Pins to Pinterest 86

Why Upload an Original Pin? 86

Editing an Original Pin to Include a URL 87

Thursday: Pinning Products 88

How to Trigger a Product Listing 88

How Pinterest Displays and Categorizes Products 89

Friday: Pinning Content Using a Smartphone 90

Using the iPhone App 90

Using the Mobile Version of Pinterest 91

Chapter 6 Week 3—Find and Attract Followers 93

Monday: Understand Followers and Following 94

Why Following Users is Important 94

Why Gaining Followers is Important 95

Understanding the Exponential Reach of Pinterest 95

Tuesday: Find People to Follow 96

Finding People You Know 96

People by Association 98

People by Category 98

Wednesday: Selectively Follow Users’ Boards 99

The Problem with Following a User 99

Follow One (or Many) Boards 101

Refi ne Your Follow Strategy over Time 102

Thursday: Understand Commenting and Liking 102

Liking a Pin 102

Commenting on a Pin 104

Friday: Recategorize Pins over Time 105

Creating Multiple Boards for the Same Topic 106

The Value in Recategorizing 107

Deleting Pins 108

Chapter 7 Week 4—Purposely Propagating Pins on Pinterest 111

Monday: Getting Your Pins into the Stream 112

How Pins Enter the Topical Stream 112

The “Popular” Stream 114

Getting into the Product Stream 115

Tuesday: Building Momentum by Timing Pins 115

Testing the Impact of Pins by Time of Day 116

Giving Pins a Boost 116

The Cycle of Popular Pins 117

Wednesday: Controlling How Pins Are Posted 117

Influencing the Images a Pinner Shares 117

Influencing the Description of a Pin 118

Disallowing Pinning from Your Site 119

Thursday: Understanding the Impact of a Good Image 120

Pins vs Repins: The Difference is in the Drive 120

Types of Images That Capture Interest 121

Why Teaser Images Work So Well 122

The Question of Watermarks 123

Friday: Creating Pinterest-Specific Image Collages 123

Using Step-by-Step Collages 124

Using Before-and-After Images 125

Using a Magazine-Style Captioned Image 125

Chapter 8 Week 5—Track and Monitor Pinterest Traffic 127

Monday: Finding Out What Content Has Been Pinned from Your Site 128

Searching Pinterest for Pins from a Specific Website 128

Quick-Click Access to Other Pinned Images 129

What to Look for in the Listings 131

Tuesday: Understanding the Value of Pins vs Repins 132

What Does a High Number of Pins Mean? 132

What Do Pins Mean for Your Marketing Efforts? 133

What Does a High Number of Repins Mean? 133

What Do Repins Mean to Your Marketing Efforts? 134

Wednesday: Tracking the Traffic Generated by Pins 135

Checking Your Analytics for Traffic Increases 135

Measuring Pinterest Traffic 136

Identifying Traffic from Individual Pins 137

Which Pins Create the Most Value 138

Thursday: Understanding Why Pinterest Traffic Arrives over Time 139

The Pinterest Wave 140

Impulse Pins and Latent Click-Throughs 140

Why Traffic Doesn’t Always Match Pin Numbers 141

Friday: Using Third-Party Tools for Pinterest Analytics 142

PinAlerts 143

Curalate 144

Repinly 145

Chapter 9 Week 6—Developing a Successful Pinterest Strategy 149

Monday: Learning How Your Target Market Uses Pinterest 150

Mining Pinterest Search for Consumer Insight 150

Identifying Potentially Influential Pinners 153

Tuesday: Discovering Patterns in Topical Pins 155

What Concepts or Ideas Are Pinned Repeatedly 155

What Images Are Being Selected 155

What Are the Board Names Being Used for Pins? 156

Wednesday: Recruiting Evangelists and Fans for the Effort 157

Letting Influencers and Evangelists Curate Your Boards 158

A Warning Regarding Group Boards 160

Pinning and Featuring Fan Content 161

Thursday: Finding Tie-ins to Other Social Media Channels 162

Promoting Involvement on Facebook 162

The Twitter Connection 164

Video Sites (YouTube and Vimeo) 164

Friday: Understanding Your Staffing Availability 165

Determining Staff Needs 165

How Much Time to Spend on Pinterest 165

Regular Hours or Scattered Hours 166

Chapter 10 Week 7—Leveraging Boards for Better Reach 167

Monday: Creating a Strategic Pinboard Structure 168

What Are Your Goals for Pinterest? 168

Tuesday: Categorizing Boards 174

When to Add New Boards 174

Determining Board Names 176

Wednesday: Organizing and Reorganizing Boards 178

Moving and Removing Pins Over Time 178

The Value of Reordering Board Displays 181

Thursday: Creating Boards with Multiple Curators 183

The Value of Multiple Curators 183

Finding and Adding Curators 184

Friday: Creating Short-Term Boards for Marketing Purposes 185

Seasonal Boards 185

Event-Driven Boards 186

Campaign-Driven Boards 187

Chapter 11 Week 8—Using Pinterest to Attract Traffic 189

Monday: Promoting Your Own Content 190

When to Pin Your Own Content 190

Joining or Creating a Cooperative 192

Tuesday: Creating Pinterest-Focused Content 192

The Most Popular Topics on Pinterest 193

The Most Popular Types of Pins on Pinterest 194

Wednesday: Leverage Your Team 198

Taking Stock of Team Interests 198

Focused vs General Staff Involvement 201

One Account or Multiple Accounts? 201

When Your Team Consists of a Single Person 203

Thursday: Developing a Resource Board 204

Pinning Content That Educates Your Audience 204

Pinning Content That Inspires Your Audience 205

Pinning Content That Supports Your Brand 206

Pinning Content That Displays Your Brand in Use 207

Friday: Pinterest Best Practices 208

Individual Pin Best Practices 208

Pinboard Best Practices 209

Pinterest Marketing Best Practices 210

Chapter 12 Week 9—Using Pinterest to Engage with Fans 211

Monday: Play to the Interests of Your Audience 212

Look for Natural Brand Tie-ins 212

Offer Activity-Inspired Discounts 214

Measure Response to Test Boards 215

Tuesday: Featuring Content That Highlights Your Brand 216

Inspirational Content and Quotes 216

Educational Content and How-tos 217

Your Products in Action 219

Wednesday: Promoting Other Sites’ Content 220

The Value of Promoting Third-Party Content 220

Pin the Content of Evangelists 221

Promote Other Pinners and Bloggers 222

Thursday: Creating Crowd-Sourced Boards 223

Curating from Hashtags and Mentions 224

Leveraging Content from Other Channels 225

Leveraging Third-Party Pinners 227

Friday: The Value of Cross-Channel Integration 229

Highlighting a Featured Pinner 229

Promoting Pinterest Content on Other Channels 230

Chapter 13 Week 10—Pinterest Marketing Through Contests 233

Monday: Understanding Pinterest Contests 234

Pinterest TOS 234

Why Run Contests Through Pinterest? 235

Tuesday: Exploring Contest Examples 236

bmi Pinterest Lottery 236

Homes.com Spring into the Dream Contest 238

Wednesday: “Pin It to Win It” and Board Curation Contests 239

How It Works 239

Why It Benefits Your Brand 239

Measuring Value 240

Thursday: Pinterest Scavenger Hunts 241

How It Works 241

Why It Benefits Your Brand 242

Measuring Value 242

Friday: Pinterest Product Feature Contests 242

How It Works 242

Why It Benefits Your Brand 243

Measuring Value 244

Chapter 14 Week 11—Measure and Refine Your Strategy 247

Monday: Setting Pinterest-Related Goals 248

Setting a Business Goal 248

Letting Your Goals Define Your Tactics 249

Putting It All Together 250

Tuesday: Analyzing Your Campaigns 251

Matching Metrics to Campaigns 251

Analyzing Campaign Details for Consumer Insight 253

Wednesday: Understanding Common Pinterest Problems and Their Solutions 254

Lack of Repins 254

Lack of Followers 256

Lack of Traffic 258

Thursday: Continually Testing Your Approach 258

Test Topics and Concepts 259

Test Descriptions and Calls to Action 260

Test the Best Time to Pin 261

Friday: Learning from a Pinterest Case Study 261

Chapter 15 The Future of Pinterest Marketing 267

Pinterest Will Change the Web 268

Beyond Browsing: Content Curation 268

Potential for Buyouts or Partnerships 269

The Archival System: Changing the Way We Engage with Content 270

Pinterest’s Effect on Search 271

A Future Pinterest API 272

The Potential of a Pinterest API 272

Speculation on the API Delay 273

API Discussions for Developers 273

Understanding the Pinterest Effect 274

The Impact of Social Channels Over Time 274

Pinterest and the Future of Social Media Marketing 275

Appendix A: Pinterest Marketing Resources 277

Pinterest Marketing: An Hour a Day Pinboard 278

97th Floor Blog 278

Pinboard from PinnableBusiness.com 278

Marketing Land 278

Pinboard from Team MarketingProfs 278

Social Media Examiner 278

Pinterest Marketing Articles Pinboard 279

Entrepreneur 279

Pinterest for Marketing Pinboard 279

Mashable 279

Appendix B: Appendix: Pinterest Tips from Top Marketers 281

Ryan Sammy 282

Prafull Sharma 282

Matt Siltala 283

Carrie Hill 283

Amanda Nelson 284

Katie Laird 284

Dirk Singer 285

Megan Rivas 286

Jamie Grove 286

Glossary 287

Index 289