I absolutely love it when a social network releases a new feature that makes it easier for users to discover new content. That’s a gift to brands and businesses that cannot be ignored. And that’s exactly what Pinterest has done with their recent announcement of “Making Pinterest a bit more personal.” Rolling out in the coming days and weeks, Pinterest users will find new ways to customize their home feed and easier ways to discover new pins and pinners.
Making Pinterest a bit more personal
As the announcement suggests, once implemented, Pinterest users will be able to edit their home feed and find new boards to follow, as well as unfollow boards they’re currently following. Pinterest will suggest new boards based on the pins and boards you’ve already created.
Pinterest will also suggest specific pins you may be interested in, based not only on the pins you’ve saved, but also some of the websites you’ve visited.
Brand Discovery
That means that soon, Pinterest will be actively helping Pinterest users to discover your business and brand if they’ve already indicated an interest in pins like yours. This could potentially be huge for your business.
On Google+, there is a similar feature called the “Suggested User List.” When new users create accounts, or if you head over to the People section and look for people to follow, Google+ provides recommended users based on different categories and criteria. Myself and others have seen dramatic increases in followers as a result of being included in one of these lists. Thanks to Google+ suggesting me, I have increased my reach on that platform and achieved greater engagement, which leads to more interest, traffic and leads.
Steps to Take
So if getting your pins and boards in front of more Pinterest users sounds like something you’d like, what’s the next step?
First, make sure that you have a Pinterest account for yourself or your brand.
Second, make sure that you’ve set up a variety of boards. While you will likely want to create boards that are focused on your business topics, try to add some other boards that might be of more general interest and only loosely related to your business. Myself, for instance, I have boards on Social Media and Marketing, but I also have a board for Technology where I pin fun and interesting gadgets and articles I find or write.
Third, pin regularly. Each new blog post or article you publish needs to be pinned to an appropriate board, and then supplement those regularly with pins from other sites. Make it a habit to follow other interesting pinners and boards and repin items of interest.
Fourth, make sure that you have Pin buttons on your website. Not only do you want visitors to be able to find you on Pinterest and pin your content to their own Pinterest boards, but Pinterest is now actively monitoring the sites that Pinterest users visit. Even if they do not pin something from your site, Pinterest may choose to recommend one of your pins based on their visit.
This is the real take-away for business owners: Pinterest pin suggestions will be generated based on websites that are actively using the Pinterest Pin It button.
It is not immediately apparent whether or not you must use a Pinterest widget, or if one of the third-party sharing widgets like AddToAny will work, and I have asked Pinterest for clarification. Once that’s received, I will update this post.
If you’re not sure where to start with your Pinterest strategy, here’s a great infograph from ZogDigital that summarizes it nicely:
10 Pinterest Best Practices
- Plan
- Set Goals
- Align
- Optimize
- Engage
- Orgnanize
- Diversify
- Integrate
- Evaluate
- Enjoy
Are you ready to start using Pinterest to grow your business? Contact me if you’d like personalized consulting and training, and feel free to leave your questions in the comments below.