“Pinterest Basics for Bloggers” plus 1 more

Posted: 25 Mar 2012 01:00 PM PDT

This guest post is by Yang of ChilliSauce.co.uk.

Does your world only revolve around Facebook and Twitter? Now it's time to move on: in case you haven't heard, Pinterest is the new rising star of social media!

Pinterest was developed in December 2009 as a closed beta that was released within a restricted group of individuals. After it opened registration to everyone in 2010, the Pinterest boom began. On August 16, 2011, Time magazine named Pinterest among the "50 Best Websites of 2011".

Pinterest has dominated the headlines in Mashable, TechCrunch, VentureBeat and many other websites. The world seems to be going Pintereset crazy.

The Pinterest home page

So what is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a visual social network. Every time you come across pretty or eye-catching images online, you can "pin" them to your Pinterest bulletin board, where you can share and organize them into various categories.

For example, if I see a pretty wedding dress, I will pin it to my "wedding ideas" board, which is full of images of my favorite wedding-related ideas gathered from various websites.

Pinterest boards

Image 2: Pinterest Boards

Shareaholic compiled a Referral Traffic Rrport that looks into various social media platforms, such as Facebook, Youtube, and so forth. Their findings, based on aggregated data from more than 200,000 publishers that reach more than 260 million unique monthly visitors, show that Pinterest has driven more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined!

Shareaholic Referral Traffic Report

So what are you waiting for? Let's start mapping out Pinterest strategies for your site!

How can you use Pinterest on your blog?

To get started, you need to register for your own Pinterest account.

Take some time to fill out your bio, as this is a great opportunity to introduce yourself or your business to the masses of Pinterest users. Then you are ready to start pinning!

A good place to start is by following other popular pinners and "re-pinning" their images onto your board. Browse through the categories on the network that interest you (see image below), such as "Art, Design, DIY & Craft" and so forth. When you find an image you like, you can pin it to your boards.

Pinterest has more than 30 categories

Bloggers can make use of these "clickthrough images" to attract more people to our blogs. Set up your bulletin boards and pin images from your site. Then, when other users click on an image, they're taken to your site, where that picture is located.

Take my favorite chocolate bars, for example: I saw this yummy Snickers bars under the "Food & Drink" category.

Clickable Snickers bars image

When I clicked on the image, it immediately led me to the How Sweet It Is website, where that image is hosted (see below).

The landing page of that clickable Snickers bars image

Scroll down and there's the image, pinned to my Pinterest board

6 tips to kickstart your Pinterest campaign

1. Pin with discernment

Every time you pin or re-pin a picture, it shows up on the Pinterest community boards. Here, all the pinners can see your pins, which gives you exposure to the public. So pinning quality images from your site to your boards is a must.

But don't spam the community boards with your pinned images. Remember that Pinterest is public and social; I'm sure you don't want to brand yourself as a spam artist. In the following example, I just pinned a yummy Snickers bar and my pin immediately appeared on the whole community board.

Start pinning!

Your pins show up on the Pinterest community board

2. Pin quality images

Pinterest taps into people's love of "visually sumptuous eye candy." Therefore, when you're blogging, try to attach interesting and high quality images to go with your articles.

If your pictures are not clear or look dull, then don't waste your time on Pinterest. The whole point of the network is to use images as "bait" to attract more people to your blog. If your images don't stand out in Pinterest, then people are not going to click through.

3. Track recent activity from your account

When you're logged into Pinterest, the top-left column, labeled Recent Activity, shows who has re-pinned, liked, or commented on your pins. In social media platforms, social always comes first. So do these people a favor: browse their pin boards, and re-pin or comment on their images as well!

Being social and showing them your appreciation will help you become popular on Pinterest. I still get a little buzz every time I see people re-pin my image, and I always visit their boards and show them we share the same interests.

The Recent Activity column

4. Use watermarks

Try to add watermark with your blog's URL to your original images. Then, no matter how many times your images have been pinned or re-pinned, readers can always see the image is originally from your site, which gives your blog maximum exposure.

Add a watermark to your images

5. Add catchy descriptions to your images

Try to craft catchy image descriptions that include key words or tags that are likely to be searched.

To make them more engaging, express yourself and your sense of humor here, to provoke a response from other pinners. Or simply ask a question as the description, such as "Who wouldn't love a yummy donut like this?"

6. Speed up pinning with the Pin It button

Don't forget to add a Pin It button to your bookmarks on Pinterest: go to About in the main navigation, and click Pin It Button. Then, drag the white button to your bookmarks bar.

Now, the next time you come across an awesome image, you can just click the Pin It bookmark, choose the picture that you want to add to your pin board, add an engaging and interesting description, then you're done! Easy!

Add a Pin It button

Drag the Pin It button to your Bookmarks bar

Can't wait to try it? It really is easy to get started! I look forward to your comments about your experience with Pinterest.

Yang manages the Chillisauce.co.uk website, who specialise in organising corporate events.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Pinterest Basics for Bloggers

The Rise of Visual Storytelling In Marketing

Posted: 25 Mar 2012 07:00 AM PDT

This guest post is by Magdalena Georgieva of Hubspot.

The September 2011 introduction of Facebook's Timeline proved prophetic. "It's a lot more visual," wrote Sam Lessin, a product manager at Facebook, about the new look of the social network.

Visual, as it turns out, is also the direction in which the world of online marketing has headed.

The rise of visual storytelling as a means of spreading a marketing message couldn't possibly have evaded you. A number of image-based platforms out there, including Pinterest, Instagram, and SlideShare, have already made a strong statement about how visual content can impact business results.

Images, presentations, and infographics are getting shared with ease, attracting thousands of views and sending tons of traffic to their original sources. Then, marketers assume the responsibility of qualifying the new visits and converting them into leads.

What's so irresistible about images?

Images on the web can take control of your time in an instant and lead you down a path that you didn't intend on taking.

You must have experienced the irresistible urge of flipping through photos during your lunch break and letting them distract you for a minute or two. One moment, you find yourself laughing over the images and the next moment, you are sharing them with friends.

Not surprisingly, six out of the ten most popular pieces of content that HubSpot has shared on our Facebook page in the last 30 days are images. Their cumulative reach was in the range of 7,000-12,000 views.

Let's take a look at the platforms that brought about this rise of visual storytelling in marketing.

Since December 2012, news of Pinterest, the popular image-based sharing platform, has dominated the technology and marketing blogs. The website has now exceeded 11 million unique visitors and is quickly becoming a big referral source for many organizations.

In our new ebook, How to Use Pinterest for Business we reveal that the network has been sending more traffic to HubSpot's blog than Google+ has. We'll be keeping a close eye on how much of that traffic is actually qualified and converts into new leads.

Editor's note: Later today, ProBlogger will show beginners how to get a head-started Pinterest. So if you’re not already hooked, look out for that post!

Instagram

The photo sharing application Instagram has accumulated 15 million users and is quickly outgrowing Foursquare. The iPhone app is a great way to successfully tap into the mobile and social marketing trend and enable users to experience your brand in a different way.

"Think about the artsy ways you could showcase your work, your staff or your customers with this tool," writes John Jantsch.

Starbucks, Red Bull, General Electric, and Marc Jacobs are among some of the brands that are using Instagram for great marketing.

Slideshare

Slideshare is a platform that enables businesses and individuals to upload their presentations online and share them for free. It's a great tool for B2B companies, for which presentations have remained a powerful form of social media.

In 2011, HubSpot's presentations hosted on SlideShare accumulated more than three million views and thousands of downloads and social media shares.

Just like with Pinterest and Instagram, SlideShare can yield positive results for your organization if the presentations you are sharing convey clear value in a well-designed form. "Take an extra hour or hire a designer to make sure that important presentations are visually powerful," advises HubSpot's Kipp Bodnar.

Naturally, there are many other image-based platforms out there that can be used in combination with your other marketing activities. For instance, you can upload pictures to Flickr and share them on Facebook or Twitter. ISSUU is another website that hosts visual content, such as magazines, ebooks, and other documents.

What should you do about the rise of visual content in marketing?

Get on board: Join a visual storytelling platform and start posting some of your existing image-heavy content. Make sure the pictures you upload convey value and are consistent with your brand identity. Don't forget to optimize the description of your posts and include links back to your website.
Include calls to action: Make sure that your visual content includes calls to action that take viewers to a landing page on your website related to the specific visual content. This will be your way of qualifying prospects and getting them to convert into leads. For instance, you can include calls-to-action at the bottom of infographics, in the descriptions of images, or on the last slide of presentations as a natural next step for readers who want to further engage with your brand.
Measure impact: At the end of the day, what's going to matter most is the levels of traffic, leads, and customers you generate via a specific platform. Use marketing software that tracks how your traffic is changing, and has the capability to compare different sources and provide you with reliable reporting. With access to such insights, you can revisit your strategy and prioritize the efforts that deliver the best results.

Have you started using visual content to market your business? What is your number one tip for newbies?

This is a guest post by Magdalena Georgieva, an inbound marketing manager at HubSpot. HubSpot is a marketing software company based in Cambridge, MA that makes inbound marketing and lead management software.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The Rise of Visual Storytelling In Marketing