I think it’s fair to say that Pinterest has pretty much taken the Social Media world by storm. Barely two years old, Pinterest boasts 10+ Million users and over 9 Million unique page views per day, according to a post on TechCrunch last month. In addition, its demographic is mostly female, and those women are spending lots and lots of time pinning.
There have been quite a few changes on Pinterest over the past few weeks. First of all, they did a complete redesign of the site, then they changed their terms of service, due to much confusion and discussion in the blogosphere.
Now that Pinterest has tipped into the mainstream, many businesses are looking at how they can use it to drive traffic and business back to their websites and blogs.
I’ve been experimenting myself. When I first joined Pinterest, I did so as a way to bookmark recipes that I later wanted to try on my cooking blog. As I’ve become more Pinterest-savvy, I’ve started to pin photos of recipes I create onto Pinterest.
What I’ve noticed, is that every time I pin a recipe, I generally get between 10-20 repins. Here’s a breakdown of referral traffic to my blog (please don’t judge my tiny stats–this is my “for fun” blog):
Again, I’ve only just started doing this, but I imagine that, as I do it more, Pinterest will be come more and more a source of referrals to my blog.
Best Practices:
Use Pinterest as bait: There are two types of pinning that I do on Pinterest. The first type is very passive: it’ll be for an outfit that I think is pretty that I want to try to replicate, or simply a stunning photo that I love. I simply pin and that’s the end. The second type of pinning has to do with DIY: I want to go down the rabbit hole and follow it back to the original source because I want to learn the “how-to.” I want the recipe or the directions. If you post things to your blog or website that are DIY, recipes or how-tos, then you should be pinning those things as well. Your pin is a bit of bait that leads the reader back to your blog.
Use pretty, pretty pictures: I just have a regular point-and-shoot camera and my iPhone, but I’ve recently discovered the importance of high-quality photos. The truth is, there is tons of competition out there in the blogosphere, and whatever you can do to set your blog apart from the others, you should try. Taking good-quality photos is one of them. Photos that seem to do best for me are usually ones I shoot with a macro lens, very close-up.
Post in the early morning or late afternoon: According to this recent blog post, the peak tine to post to Pinterest is between 7 to 9 am and 7 to 9 pm (EST). And if you are too busy to post pins during peak times, someone has come up with a Pinterest dashboard (you knew it was only a matter of time!): Pinerly (h/t @davecharest).
Happy Pinning! And please share how you are using Pinterest to market your business.
Going Viral on Pinterest: Driving Big Traffic and Making Pinterest a Real Marketing Solution
Pinterest Drives More Traffic Than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn Combined [STUDY]
My sweet spot is about 9-11 but good to know!
It’s not as clear cut as Pinterest will get your more traffic. There is a lot of fine tuning that needs to be thought about. I wrote a blog on the subject: http://bit.ly/Hwc8xQ
Hey, Tudor;
I read your blog post, and we are actually in agreement. You’re right-if you’re just pinning images to your boards that are hosted on other sites around the interwebz, well, that’s not going to do much good for your business, website, or blog. But if you’re pinning images to your boards that are hosted on your own site, then there is a much better chance people will follow the breadcrumb trail back to your site. Especially if that pin piques their interest, like it leads to a how-to or a recipe or a DIY or something like that.
The look for your blog is a bit off in Epiphany. Even So I like your site. I may need to install a normal browser just to enjoy it.