Pinterest Adds a Category for Quotes

Have you seen the new categories on Pinterest? We’re most excited about the new Quotes category. As we all know quotes are huge on Pinterest. This one of Adele has almost 600 repins (and is a clever way to market music by putting lyrics together with images of the singer).

 

Quotes are a great way to market your business. We like how DegreeSearch uses quote marketing with education-themed pre-made quotes available for pinning. It appears to be effective. There are over 60 pins from the blog post that has the images. The best part of quote marketing is that you can reuse the images. Create quotes related to your business and put them on all your social profiles (blog, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest).
The other categories added are Tattoos and Weddings. The name of the The Pets category is now called Animals. The Prints & Posters category has been renamed Illustrations & Posters.
Categories are what shape content on Pinterest and most of the categories appeal to women more than men. If you compare the categories on sites like Reddit or Digg you’ll see the difference. You won’t, for example, find a token “women’s fashion” category on those sites (Pinterest has a “Men’s Fashion” category).

Pinterest No Longer Invite Only

Like Facebook, Pinterest started out as an exclusive network. You needed an invite to join (which could take weeks, and in some cases even months). Today that changed. Anyone can sign up on Pinterest through their Facebook account, Twitter, or via email address.
With all the excitement around Pinterest it’s no surprise that Ben Silbermann, CEO of Pinterest, and his team want to capitalize on the site’s popularity and open up to a larger audience. However, is this the right move or will allowing everyone in hinder the popularity of Pinterest? Obviously, no one really knows, but here are a few ways we think the change will impact their future growth.
HURT: Facebook and Twitter are No Longer Required for Sign-up
One early strategy that perpetuated the growth of Pinterest is that they mandated that registration be through Facebook or Twitter. When this happened, Pinterest tapped into your life on those specific networks. This was especially powerful with Facebook, because when registering you automatically followed your Facebook friends who were also on Pinterest. Now you can simply sign up with only your email address. There isn’t even an option to import your email addresses or inviting friends when registering on Pinterest.
HURT: Email Registration Option Makes it Easier to Game Pinterest
As stated in our last point, now you can join Pinterest with just an email address. Utilizing Facebook and Twitter in the past as the only way to register made it harder to spam the network with multiple accounts. Both Facebook and Twitter are veterans in fighting spam and have their own spam defenses, Pinterest benefited with these security measures. Unfortunately, now all spammers need to do is is create multiple email addresses, and they are in business.
HELP: With Less friction, More People will Join Pinterest
There’s nothing that kills momentum like making people jump through hoops to join yet another social network. Pinterest’s numbers have grown but also have slowed down in recent months. Facebook started out being for college students only. They would never be a publicly traded company or reach their level of success without opening it up to everyone.
HURT: You Dilute the Pinterest Community
When Pinterest started they tapped into fashion and mom bloggers who had vast networks. These influencers shared it with their friends, which was instrumental in overcoming social network fatigue for many. Now that anyone can join, will that core audience be turned off? Will the quality suffer? It definitely opens the door for lower quality pins or spammy members of the community. While you can’t stop this from happening, it used to be harder.
HELP: Pinterest is One Step Closer to Opening their API
We think this is a signal that Pinterest will be opening their API soon. With further growth Pinterest will need to lean on their community to provide custom tools, especially for businesses who will leverage the API to build tools, apps, and addons. With rapid growth, it is not too far of a speculation to see more corporate sites integrating with Pinterest directly. Hopefully with this change, we will see the web evolve from what Eric Schmidt of Google calls a cesspool, to more of Ben Silbermann’s dream of the web being a beautiful and Pinteresting place.
What do you think, is this a good move? And if so, is the timing right?

7 Pinterest Tips from McDonald’s

This is a guest post from our very smart friend Ponn Sabra of American Muslim Mom


The #pinchat host and attendees were extremely welcoming (topic for another post), but their guest tweeter was filled with wonderful Pinterest Tips and Lessons.
#Pinchat is held on Wednesdays at 9pm EST. We use TweetChatto keep track and participate. The first #pinchat of June is with @Curalate – a monitoring and anayltics tools for Pinterest.

Top 7 Pinterest Tips from McDonald’s

1.) Set An Obtainable Pinterest Goal

McDonald Corp’s objects is simply To Share Fun and Unique Content in a Visually Appealing Way.

2.) Dare To Explore In Phase 1

They reiterated a few times, that this is just Phase 1 for them on Pinterest. They also made a cute joke, that they can’t track ROI (Return On Investment) with social media marketing, because we don’t know if seeing their fries on Pinterest caused anyone to drive-thru to buy some. So, keeping to Lesson #1: Setting Realistic Goals is important when venturing into a new social media network. I definitely think they’ve achieved their modest goal already, don’t you? Nonetheless, they want to be successful in their endeavors.

3.) Tweet Every Pin

I found it very interesting that they Tweet all their pins. I do most of the time, but when I write a long-description I know the tweet will be cut off so I just don’t pin. I believe the lesson learned here is that “pictures DO speak louder than words, so when you use words, keep them to a tweet (140 characters or less).” Knowing they tweet each pin, and were open to a Twitter chat, I was curious to know what kind of integration they made with Facebook and Pinterest.

4.) Always Make Appropriate Links To Your Pins

I was very curious if they link out to various websites, or were they intending to just make nice, nostalgic stand-alone “collection” boards. I was very pleased with their methodology, because they are truly utilizing the social nature that their other websites don’t have the capability to do, like share, comment, like, repin, and bring you back to them. So, don’t forget to link out!

5.) Recycle and Integrate with Flickr Creatively

I really enjoyed the conversations about their creative use of their Flickr accounts, mostly because people claimed that Pinterest might kill them. However McDonalds shared that Pinterest started to breathe new life in their Flickr accounts. They host most of their images there for local events, sponsorships, etc. there, and will continue. http://www.flickr.com/photos/aboutmcdonalds http://www.flickr.com/photos/voiceofmcdonalds

6.) Preference Lies With “Organic” or Amateur Images

Before the chat, my girls and I were noticing how beautiful their boards are…and wondered, how can we duplicate their efforts as entrepreneurs and small business owners. So, when we complimented them @McDonaldsCorp My wise @kidbloggersclub said, you’re at an advantage: You have gorgeous pictures! #pinchat

7.) Keep The Conversation Alive

They are open to comments and suggestions for pin-boards and sharing their experiences to date. However, legally they cannot accept suggestions for the next-best Big Mac sandwich, since we’re a Fish-Filet-Family we find no need to offer them food-recommendations.
However, I’d love to see a “Billions Served” pinboard showing different arches around the world with low numbers in the millions…rather than billions. Now, maybe I’m showing my age, but I keep telling my girls, “I remember when it said Millions not Billions…” but with no dated images, I don’t know if my memory is just failing me.

Looking forward to how you apply these lessons learned to your small business Pinterest board. Please share your experiences or concerns in the comments area below.

6 Reasons Why you should use the Pinterest “No Pin” Code

I did something crazy. I added the Pinterest “no pin” code to my craft and sewing website. I thought long and hard about this choice and decided that for the protection of my brand and process it was a necessary step.

So I sat back and waited, and to my surprise, it worked! I have the “No Pin” code on my website and I still get tons of traffic from Pinterest.
Here are six reasons you should apply the “No Pin” Code to your website:
1. People can still pin, just not whatever they want.
All you need to do is provide the “pin it “ button and people can still pin, just what you decide to let them pin. The goal is to continue to get traffic from Pinterest and still protect your copyright and brand. Be sure to inform your audience pinning is possible – they need to use the buttons you provide.
2. It doesn’t give away the whole show.
By only letting people pin a few things gives them a reason to come to your website and browse. For example most of my pinnable pictures show the final result of a tutorial, but not each detailed step. They want those pictures they need to come to my website.
3. It pushes your pinfographics. 
My pinners have no choice but to use the long pinfographics I provide. My long pinfographics get more repins than my basic pictures, getting me more traffic.
4. It protects your brand. 
While I have made it a practice to watermark everything, I’ll be honest the majority of my tutorial demonstration pictures are not Pinterest worthy. I want my pretty final result pictures pinned, not something mid process. By making only my glamour shots pinnable it puts my website’s “best foot forward.”
5. No more random pins. 
Before I starting “controlling” what was pinned from my website I went and browsed my Pinterest source page. I was amazed at the random things people pinned: like an ad that had nothing to do with my site, or a picture that had nothing to do with the tutorial page it was linked to, etc. The repins of these are low, plus I had my doubts that the pinner was  really going to be able to recall why he or she pinned that image in the first place?
6. You provide the text. 
While there are ways clever ways to write the caption for a pin, the easiest is using the pin it button. Be sure your specific key words and your website make it into the pin description.

I know that if someone really wants to pin something on my website there are ways to work around the “No Pin” code, but most pinners are impulsive and the majority won’t take the time and added steps needed to work around it.
Adding the “No Pin” code to your website is a big step. By adding the “No Pin” code to mine, the amount of pins has stayed relatively the same—and repins have gone up. Like most things with the web it will take experimentation to see if it’s a good fit for your website. For me I sleep better at night knowing that I’ve protected my copyright and brand.

Angel has a bachelor degree in Film Studies from the University of Utah, with a professional background in film, television, radio, and ad production. Angel currently divides her time between her small production company Angel Dawn Productions, her online sewing and crafting blog www.FleeceFun.com, two little girls, husband, and on very good days getting the dishes done!

Our Pinterest Infographic that Crushed It on Mashable

by Paul Wilson
Obviously, we are huge fans of Pinterest, but our purpose with PinnableBusiness.com is to show that Pinterest is more than just looking at beautiful images. From day one our goal has been for people to take Pinterest seriously as a business tool.
A few weeks ago Mashable ran our Pinterest infographic concerning an idea that helps to establish our philosophy of using Pinterest as a business tool. We have coined the idea of optimizing Pinterest for business as P.I.O or Pinterest Image Optimization.
Our PIO infographic on Mashable received 1,600 Pinterest pins, 1,400 tweets, 596 Facebook Likes, 378 shares on LinkedIn, and 239 +1s on Google+. In all, we received almost 5,000 total social shares. Yet, the most exciting part was to see how Pinterest was the strongest sharing component in comparison to the rest of the social sharing that occurred. We felt this further supported our point that Pinterest is an ideal fit for business. Not to mention, that it was quite gratifying to see the traffic pour in from Mashable to our little Pinterest Business blog.
We learned a lot from this experience, and we have plans for many more things that will assist businesses who want to market through Pinterest. So, it was assuring to see such a positive reaction with our initial push. Let us know if you have ideas and/or suggestions on how businesses can utilize Pinterest to its fullest potential.

 

Special Thanks

• Dream Systems Media for designing the infographic
• Jeremy Cabalona from Mashable.com for writing about our infographic
• Riccardo Perini for valuable input on the title
• Mary Ihla for insightful advice on point 5
• Godwin Delali Adadzie for proof editing point 8
• The great people in our LinkedIn group for sharing their insights

Shopify Survey: Pinterest Users Spend 2X More

Ecommerce store platform Shopify just released numbers on the profitability of Pinterest for their shop owners. They looked at over 25,000 Shopify online stores to see how Pinterest drives sales. The results are dramatic.

• Pinterest sends as much traffic to Shopify stores as Twitter does.
• Shoppers coming from Pinterest are 10% more likely to make a purchase compared to those who arrive from other social sites.
• The average order from Pinterest traffic is $80 – DOUBLE that of people referred from Facebook. Order size is right up there with Amazon and search traffic. Amazing.
• Pins with prices get 36% more likes. Wish we knew if adding a price affected sales.
• In 6 months, Pinterest went from sending 75 orders, to 320 in April 2012.
• The most popular pinsent  262,943 people to a product page (which unfortunately now says, “page not found” so please do not pin the image below).

 

Want to learn more? Check out Shopify’s Ultimate Pinterest Ecommerce Guide and  Pinterest account.  Below is the infographic. It won’t be surprising that their most popular online stores on Pinterest are women’s retailers. Specifically Esther, Asuyeta, & Emmy Lu. I put PinAlerts on each and will write a case study with tips in a future post.

Sony Introduces Pin Deals on Pinterest

Sony is going to offer exclusive offers to their followers on Pinterest. I like how they’re structuring it – limited time offers of popular items.
First, Sony has the right idea – they started with their community in mind – how can they give back? “Now that we’ve been pinning for a while, our team began thinking about what’s next. What can we do to reward our fellow pinners for the time and energy they have spent helping us create our boards? And as we pondered that thought, the idea of Pin Deals was born.”
Here’s how it will work, starting now, they will offer an exclusive deal each Wednesday. The deal will be on a gadget or an accessory and it will be the best price you can find on that item.
This reminds us of what Dell did on Twitter.

I like Sony’s very pinnable (more colorful and feminine) logo.

 To find the deal, watch their Sony on Sale board. At 9:30 AM (PST) they’ll add a new pin of the product. Here’s the brilliant part – they require a certain # of repins to unlock the deal. Their Cyber-shot® TX20 camera requires 20 repins in 48 hours to unlock it.
At that point they’ll edit the link on the pin where they’ll give a special code to get the deal price.
They previewed their next deals on their blog (or should we say marketed their products to the Pinterest crowd).
Then they asked their community to suggest items they want to be featured. So the campaign has many elements that make for a successful campaign. It’s not just posting good deals, it’s fun, fresh and it’s the first campaign we’ve seen like this.

5 Pinterest Marketing Takeaways from Pin Deals:
1. It involves the community – rewarding and thanking them for participating.
2. The offers are time sensitive.
3. They encourage repins and make it a requirement to get the deal.
4. They preview all the products and encourage the community to get involved.
5. They ask for feedback from the community on future deals.

I think this is a great idea – how can you steal this idea for your business?

Thanks for reading ! If you like this post feel free share it to your friends and please subscribe via RSS feed

The Indiana Jones Approach to Pinterest for Business

You may remember Indiana Jones as the title character in a series of adventure movies created by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. He is a scholar, adventurer, and hero traveling the world to save archaeological relics from the hands of evil. When it comes to being successful on Pinterest, there are certain traits that we could learn from Indiana Jones that help.

Be creative

Indiana Jones had to be creative to outsmart the bad guys. He had to use what he had on hand to get himself out of dangerous situations. On Pinterest, it is the accounts that are being used creatively that are getting attention.

Jasmina Kallay, a writer, along with with BeActive Media, have taken a very creative approach in their use of Pinterest. According to the BeActive website, they are the first to utilize Pinterest to launch a drama series. The series is based on Jasmina Kally’s novel Beat Girl. They have given the main character of the novel a Pinterest profile and created boards to unfold her story. The boards link to YouTube videos and images that reveal Heather’s story. There are also boards that give you further insight to Heather’s personality like ‘Me, Myself and I’ where the images and descriptions are used to give insight into Heather’s childhood.

 Source: Heather Jennings on Pinterest

Build the relationship

In each film of the Indiana Jones series, there is always a person that he has to develop and nurture a relationship with. He likes to portray the ‘in-control tough guy,’ but without his friends, he would fail.
Bed Bath & Beyond has recently launched a Pinterest account. At this time they have 10 separate boards, most of which have pins linking back to products for sale on their website. However, they have also done something special to give a more personal touch to their account.
In the profile description at the top of their Pinterest page, they include this line, “If you need anything, Andrew & Danielle are happy to answer your questions.” Who are Andrew and Danielle? On their very last board called ‘Meet our Team,’ Andrew and Danielle introduce themselves. In the video, Andrew adds a personal touch by announcing his upcoming wedding and they encourage Pinterest users to ask questions, leave comments and repin.

 Source Bed Bath & Beyond on Pinterest

Bring home the treasure

There is always some sort of archaeological treasure that the bad guys are about to get away with to use for evil deeds in each Indiana Jones film. He must get it back and return it to safety.
In business we can look at having no sales as the bad guy and increased revenue as our treasure. Pinterest can be a valuable tool to bring in your treasure. Inc.com reported about a company called CamiBands that got a very nice surprise from Pinterest.
In the Inc.com article by Marla Tabaka, she writes that the company received an influx of orders out of the blue. The product is described as a “multi-use wardrobe extender” by CamiBands owner Holly Xerri. It had been worn by a Today Show host in the Fall of 2011 and brought in 3,500 hits to their website from that appearance. A few months later, in December of 2011 the CamiBand’s site received 40,000 hits over 4 days, all of which came from Pinterest.
When the orders started pouring in, Xerri had never heard of Pinterest. She now has an account.

 Source Holly Xerrri on Pinterest

Right now Pinterest is the marketing equivalent of and unexplored foreign land and the full potential of Pinterest

 is yet to be discovered. To improve the chances of bringing the treasure home, Pinterest should be approached

 with creativity and personality. 

Thanks for reading ! If you like this post please share to your friends and please subscribe via RSS feed 

Pinterest Drives More Sales Than Facebook for Fashion Retailer Boticca.com

Retailer Bottica.com has the perfect product for Pinterest – they curate high end fashion direct from designers.  They released a study that compares sales from Facebook and Pinterest.
The retailer looked at a month’s worth of visitors to their site this Spring to see which site sent the most sales. They took a sample of 50,000 visitors from their Pinterest profile and 50,000 from their Facebook page. While Pinterest referrals spent more money on the site, they didn’t stick around long or engage. They either bought or left quickly.
Here’s what they found:

• On average, Pinterest users spend $180 vs. an average of $85 spent by Facebook users
• Compared with Facebook, Pinterest users spent 65% less time on the site
• Conversion rates from Pinterest were lower than via any other channels
• Bounce rates from Pinterest were higher than other channels

The findings match up with this Pinterest study quite well. Of course, Pinterest is new and there are retailers doing well and others think Pinterest is more about window shopping than actual sales. However, when they do buy, Pinterest users will drop some cash.
We predict that selling directly on the platform may not work well, but that people will click through from Pinterest to your site to buy. Another aspect of driving sales is through search engine optimization – boards are ranking if you optimize the title and description.
Note the pinfographic below – it’s a little wider than the max 554 pixels wide but not so much Pinterest will mangle it. It has great branding (top and bottom) and it has colors and images that appeal to Pinterest’s demograpic. We bet it gets a lot of repins!

Thanks for reading ! If you like this post please share to your friends and please subscribe via RSS feed

Kotex’s Unique Way in Approaching Pinterest

Kotex, a company that provides female menstruation products, launched a creative and well executed marketing campaign utilizing the power of Pinterest. From their efforts they were able to drive almost 700,000 site impressions.

Their approach was a unique way in building their brand, but also creating a visible ROI. I am also personally impressed by their campaign wrap-up video below, which walks you through their whole case study. If you haven’t seen the video it is worth a watch!

7 Tips on Giving New Life to Old Posts via Pinterest

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Angel Peterson, owner of FleeceFun.com.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but with Pinterest it’s also worth thousands of dollars in revenue.   A good picture that is re-pinned over and over can put a small business or website on the map, raise sales and ad profits.  Clean pictures and graphics are now crucial to take advantage of the wealth of traffic Pinterest has to offer.   Pinterest however, is about pretty pictures – not new content.  You can take old posts and breathe new life into them by introducing new graphics or updated pictures to appeal to Pinterest users.

When I first started blogging I was more concerned about churning out content, and less concerned about the picture quality that came with it.  After researching other successful blogs in my field I discovered that I needed nice beauty shots to accompany my posts to catch a reader’s eye.  I’ve since gone back to those early posts and taken new pictures of items.  To my surprise revamping old content has brought new traffic to my site thanks to Pinterest.  Through trial and error here’s what I’ve discovered to increase visitors.

Reuse:

1. Every post should be pinnable.

Every post on your blog should have a gx or picture that can be pinned on Pinterest.  The graphic or picture doesn’t need to be complicated.  Simple is better.  Start with your best posts and add in Pinfographics, or pictures related to the topic.  While you’re editing the post be sure to add a ”pin it!” button below your new graphic.

2. Make Your Content up to par.

Take a cold hard look at your previous posts, web pages and pictures.  Are they up to your Pinterest standards?  Are they well lit?  Do they effectively portray what you are selling/teaching/writing?  Are they esthetically pleasing? Is the look consistent with your brand?

If you come across few (or several) posts that don’t meet the above criteria it’s time to swap out the picture/graphic for more effective ones that will appeal to your Pinterest audience.

Reshoot:
3. Change Your Perspective.
Shoot items from several angles.  Shoot up close, shoot far away.  Give your audience a new perspective on an old item.  Be sure to take several shots orientated in portrait – this format appears better on Pinterest.
4. Solidify your Brand.
Make sure to keep a consistent look for your pictures.  An easy way to keep pictures looking like they belong in the same family is to use the same set up every time.  Same backdrop, same lens, and same lighting are a sure fire way to keep a look consistent.
With graphics, keep fonts and image styles the same. And always, always watermark or add a logo to your pin elements.
5. Take your photos up a notch.
Get more dramatic with your photos.  Use live models instead of lifeless mannequins. Don’t rush to grab a shot, plan out photo shoots and take your time.
If you are adding pinfographics and aren’t a wiz with Adobe Illustrator, purchase professional royalty-free stock graphics.  A little investment now will pay out later.
Repin:
6. Re-submit your content to your usual sources.
If you have places that you regularly submit to try reintroducing the post to them.  Have a “review” article once a week that points to a previous post that you’ve just revamped.  Gently nudge people with “you may also like” suggestions on your blog.
7. Send your efforts out into the void.
Once you’ve spent all that time reshaping your website it’s time to show off your hard work.  Don’t sit there like a wallflower – pin it!  Send your hard work out into the universe and see what happens.  Don’t send it all out at once.  Stagger it.  Let it trickle out and soon you’ll find those oh-so-wanted pins and re-pins popping up on your Pinterest source page.

5 Secrets to Creating Viral Images on Pinterest

 

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Maureen Wilson, owner of MadeByMarzipan.com.

I’ve discovered a trick that’s tripled my website traffic and doubled my ad revenue in a single month. Nope, I’m not pitching an infomercial. I’m pitching infographics. Or rather, “Pinfographics” (information made into a graphic and optimized for Pinterest).

You’re familiar with infographics, appealing graphic designs that are created to share information. “Pinfographics” follow many of the same design principles, but are created with a different intent: to direct traffic to the host site, thereby increasing revenue through ad clicks and sales.
Here are some key tips to keep in mind when creating and posting Pinfographics:

1) Make Your Pinfographic Tall

Source: blog.djstormbrewer.com via Jackie on Pinterest

Pinterest is all about real estate. The biggest and boldest images draw the most attention– and the most repins. On a page full of squat boxes, you want a skyscraper!  Make your Pinfographic long enough to take up most of the screen, but not so long that users have to scroll to see the entire pin.

2) Make Your Pinfographic Easy to Read

Source: nsmbl.nl via Kenzie on Pinterest

Have you ever tried to drive by a billboard and not read it? While your eyes may skim over an unappealing photograph, your brain instinctively reads and processes simple text.  Select a large, easy-to-read font, and make sure the message is clear and concise, like on this DIY Wrap Skirt pin.

3) Brand your Pinfographic

Source: bing.com via Diana on Pinterest

You made it, claim it! Put your logo or brand name on every Pinfographic. This will familiarize pinners with your brand.  As they consistently see quality posts from you, they will begin to trust your content. Branding your graphic also ensures that pinners can find you. Occasionally pinners will come across your photo on a search engine, and pin it directly from there. Too bad, no backlink!  That’s exactly what happened with this swimsuit graphic, posted from Bing. Luckily, the brand name is clearly visible, so it’s still possible for users to find the product.

 

 

 

4) Make Them Want More (and click to get it)

Source: homedit.com via Emilialua on Pinterest

You’ve seen the “Pin Tips:” Hull a strawberry with a straw, how to wind your earphone cord.  But have you ever clicked on one of these tips to visit the original site? There’s really no point: they’ve already given you all the information you need. Draw them in with your pinfographic, but make them visit your site for details.
This post, for example, gives you the basics: pallets + cushions = couch. But you can see from the comments that it leaves people wanting more information: is it attached to the wall or just stacked? Where can they find pallets like this? Is there a tutorial for the cushions? Leave pinners wanting more, and they’ll come to your site to find it.

5) Case Study: Do Pinfographics Really Work?

Source: madebymarzipan.com via Lacey on Pinterest

Before:
Here’s an example from my own website: the original pin for this tutorial was just a photograph. At a glance, it’s unclear what the subject of the pin is.  The chair? The baby? Something the baby is wearing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: madebymarzipan.com via Theresa on Pinterest

After:
When I changed this to a Pinfographic format, it hit Pinterest’s “Popular” page and received thousands of pins & repins.

How to add Pinterest to Facebook Page

Ever since I agreed to do this post for pinnablebusiness.com I have been searching for a subject that was (P)interesting! In my searching I discovered a problem many businesses are having—integrating Pinterest into Facebook. For me this topic is extremely (P)interesting.

A popular question many businesses with a facebook page are wondering is:

HOW CAN WE LINK OUR FACEBOOK PAGE WITH OUR PINTEREST ACCOUNT?

The simple answer is that you can’t, at least not intuitively! Pinterest’s Help desk states rather clearly: “You can only use a personal Facebook profile with Pinterest. We recommend brands use a Twitter account to authenticate.”

So, according to Pinterest it is not possible to link your Pinterest profile with a Facebook Page. It is only a matter of time, I believe, before we see Pinterest releasing this feature. Unless, of course, Google decides it can’t live without Pinterest and buys it.

Most business have two options for resolving this issue: 1. Follow Pinterest’s Help Desk suggestions, or 2. Hacking their Facebook Page to at least iframe their Pinterest account. However, neither solution is a great solution.

Fortunately, with Woobox, a third party Facebook app, there is a way to add all your beautiful Pinterest things. It is actually rather simple and below I show in two videos how to do it.

Step 1: Activate Your Facebook Settings in Pinterest

 

  Step 2: Add Woobox to Your Facebook Account

Once you have done these two steps you are ready to go. And now your Facebook Page is a lot more (P)interesting!

New Pinterest Tool Tracks Pins, Sends Email

 

 We’re finally ready to announce our first tool for Pinterest. We created PinAlerts to help you track what is being pinned from your web site or blog.

PinAlerts will send an email alert whenever someone pins something from a site you’re tracking. It’s a great way to get insights into what your readers are interested in.

We based PinAlerts off the model of Google Alerts. Sure you can check Pinterest manually but it gets unwieldy if you check multiple web sites. It doesn’t show a complete history or list of all of your pins. Now you don’t have to remember and the pins are delivered directly to you. Like Google Alerts you can choose how often to get alerts.

One of our favorite features of PinAlerts is reading what people write in their descriptions. We think you’ll agree that it’s quite flattering to see. PinAlerts are also helpful to see what is working for Pinterest so you can fine tune your marketing efforts.

Go sign up for PinAlerts (choose “register” your first time) and let us know what you think. We designed a handy “how to” graphic to help you get started. If you like PinAlerts we hope you’ll share it with your friends and Pin it.

Keep in mind that we have more plans to improve PinAlerts and we’re still in beta. As always we welcome any feedback or suggestions on how we could improve PinAlerts.

If you like PinAlerts please share – here are some suggested tweets and Facebook updates that you can use or edit. Of course you could also pin the instructographic below.

Pre-written tweets {Copy & Paste to Share}

• New Pinterest Tool! PinAlerts.com Tracks What’s Getting Pinned on your Website.
• I just started using @PinAlerts a cool new tool to help me see what’s being pinned from my site on Pinterest.
• Check out this new #Pinterest Tool PinAlerts.com – It Tracks What’s Getting Pinned From Your Blog! cc. @pinalerts

Pre-written facebook posts

• Just found PinAlerts.com, a new tool that lets me see who is pinning stuff from my blog onto Pinterest.
• Are you on Pinterest, or want to see what’s showing up on Pinterest from your website? Check out this new tool http://www.PinAlerts.com

McDonald’s and Pinterest – What are People Pinning?

We've been tracking what people are pinning to Pinterest from McDonald’s website. It’s not what we expected.

As far as their corporate account, our favorite Pinterest board from McDonald’s (tough to choose just one) is the one that shows menu items from all over the world. As in all things food France seems to win. The French menu includes the McBaguette, Le McWrap Chevre and even Macarons.

Unfortunately for McDonald’s, someone beat them to their name. So instead of Pinterest.com/McDonalds (taken by someone with the last name McDonald) they had to take Pinterest.com/McDonaldsCorp

This seems to be a trend. Pizza Hut doesn’t have Pinterest.com/Pizzahut – interesting enough they don’t even have a food board. Instead Pizza Hut uses Pinterest for recruiting employees!

Pinterest tells you who repins what you have on Pinterest but they don’t tell you about original pins. PinAlerts sends you an email with original pins – or whenever people pin something from directly from your website. What surprised us is that McDonald’s doesn’t get a huge volume of pins (you should see how many pins there are from Zappos or Food Network!).

What are People Pinning from McDonald’s website?
From our tracking we can see what people pin on Pinterest. It’s their favorite menu items. McDonalds.com has a full graphic-based menu on the site. People go to this and pin what they love. You’d think it would be all hamburgers and french fries but it’s not. There’s a huge variety.

We couldn’t find a Pinterest account for Burger King or any pins from their website. We found this fun board from an individual. http://pinterest.com/nays/my-burger-king-board/ which included this wacky knit burger fashion statement (with sesame seeds on top):

Pinterest can showcase new or unknown menu items (we wish they’d note which state or countries offered the items).

For example, we didn’t know that McDonald’s has smores pies or soft serve ice cream dipped in chocolate until we saw a PinAlert like this:

Lessons learned from McDonald’s:

If you’re a restaurant or in the food business, make it easy for people to pin their favorite menu item and share it with their friends (with their comments) on Pinterest.

Create standalone images of your most popular dishes or individual images of everything on your menu.

Other Fast Food Restaurants Getting Pinned, Not Burger King
For some reason Burger King is not popular on Pinterest, even though they have images of every menu item too. Any guesses as to why? Is it because more moms like McDonalds and men (who are less interested in Pinterest) like Burger King?

Subway is getting pinned. So is Pizza Hut, KFC and Wendy’s. Just not Burger King.

Shopify Survey: Pinterest Users Spend 2X More

Ecommerce store platform Shopify just released numbers on the profitability of Pinterest for their shop owners. They looked at over 25,000 Shopify online stores to see how Pinterest drives sales. The results are dramatic.

• Pinterest sends as much traffic to Shopify stores as Twitter does.
• Shoppers coming from Pinterest are 10% more likely to make a purchase compared to those who arrive from other social sites.
• The average order from Pinterest traffic is $80 – DOUBLE that of people referred from Facebook. Order size is right up there with Amazon and search traffic. Amazing.
• Pins with prices get 36% more likes. Wish we knew if adding a price affected sales.
• In 6 months, Pinterest went from sending 75 orders, to 320 in April 2012.   

Want to learn more? Check out Shopify’s Ultimate Pinterest Ecommerce Guide and  Pinterest account.  Below is the infographic. It won’t be surprising that their most popular online stores on Pinterest are women’s retailers. Specifically Esther, Asuyeta, & Emmy Lu. I put PinAlerts on each and will write a case study with tips in a future post.

Best Resources to Grow Your Small Business Using Pinterest

So you have heard about the latest social media darling, Pinterest, and you are wondering if your business should jump on board.  If you ask me, I say…YES! After all, it is not only super fun, the new social site directed more traffic across the web in January 2012 than Youtube, Stumbleupon and Google+.  According to AppData, Pinterest has gained over 10.4 million users, 97% of which are women. While Pinterest is currently trending significantly more female, I believe this will change and more males will be following quickly in the female footsteps.
If you are not familiar with Pinterest, in a nutshell it is a virtual pin up board where people have fun creating or browsing other’s pin boards  to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share similar interests. Individuals and businesses are finding new and different ways to use Pinterest each day. Here are five of the best resources I found useful to learn how to use Pinterest for a business or brand.

1. Pinterest: A Beginners Guide to the Hot New Social Network
2. Pinterest PowerHouse Tips and Tricks for Business Users
3. Top Tips for Brands on Pinterest
4. 30 Resources, Tips and Tricks for your Business on Pinterest
5. Pinsantity: How sports teams are using Pinterest

Additionally, here are links to three of the top brands currently using Pinterest. I highly suggest following these brands to learn from their best practices.

1. RealSimple
2. The Beauty Department
3. HGTV

The opportunities for taking advantage of this visually-charged social network are limitless and I for one look forward to continuing to discover the power of Pinterest. You can follow me at Pinterest.com/mrduchp.
Please use the social sharing options below to share these Pinterest resources and feel free to leave your Pinterest url and information on how you are using Pinterest in the comments below.

How to Grow a Local Pinterest Following

At the start of 2012, Pinterest saw a 155% increase in unique visitors just one month (Compete.com) and hasn’t stopped climbing off the charts since. The first thing most local businesses want to know is this rising red planet a social space they should jump into? Next, what is the best way to quickly grow a local Pinterest following?
First things first. Whether or not a business should use Pinterest to market their product or services depends on what they want to accomplish. If the business is one that depends on driving high-volume traffic to a web site to increase sales then Pinterest is definitely a great place to be. In recent months, a great number of big brands and blogs have reported receiving more traffic from Pinterest than Twitter and Facebook.
The most important thing to understand when considering creating a Pinterest account for a business is to make sure to use Pinterest as it is intended–as a place to give and receive ideas and inspiration not a place to overly sell or promote. For best results, find ways to go beyond just posting product  photos and share culture and lifestyle images that parallel the given product or service.
Now, on to the best way to grow a local following on Pinterest — here’s how:  
Start by entering the local area name (city or state) in the Pinterest search bar in the upper left corner and click on the search icon on the right.  Click on  ”people” to filter the appropriate results and voila, the page should fill with local pinners just waiting to be followed. Don’t stop there!  Expand the Pinterest search by entering neighboring areas as well. Because Pinterest requires members to sign in with Twitter or Facebook, the local searchable data is included making it easy to find other local pinners in any given area. Once following other locals, get noticed by liking and repinning and in no time things will start to get ‘Pinteresting.” One more tip–prior to setting out on a serious search and follow mission, take time to set up a few boards filled with ideas and inspirations of your own so those you follow will be interested in following you back.
If you have found this information helpful, please share using the options available below. If you have any local Pinterest building tips or comments you would like to add, please do so in the comments below.
For more Pinterest tips for business, connect with me.

Add Words to your Images

At Pinnable Business we’re fascinated about what sorts of images or videos get pinned (or saved) on Pinterest. We’re constantly looking for answers to questions such as: is it better to brand your image or does that discourage repins? We know that beyond the small details, what gets pinned depends on many factors. It’s a combination of your follower count, when you pin, and of course the image itself. One thing we’ve noticed is that images with words describing or marketing the image often do better than just an image by itself.
Let me illustrate with one of Pinterest’s most popular categories – food:
Here’s a french toast image that got over 80 repins – you’ll agree that it’s a great picture (it makes me hungry).

Now look at this image of french toast that not only has wording, but visual instructions.You’d still want to click through to get the text, but the image really sells the recipe well. It got over 1900 repins:

 

Here’s an image of fruit dip that got over 100 repins:

And now for an image that really sells the dip – this one has over 1900 repins!

And this doughnut shot got 11,000 repins and is branded:

You know what this means? Yes, the images on your web site should be branded or have words on them because people can only pin the images you provide. So test and find methods that work best for your company’s image.

Here’s a Pinterest board with over 55k followers and see her simple formula. All the fonts are the same and the blogger includes a URL on each image.

Your turn. What types of images have worked best for you on Pinterest?

5 Ways Lowes Integrates Facebook and Pinterest

    Lowe’s is a great example of how you can leverage Facebook to drive people to your Pinterest account. Lowes may have started out as appealing to men who want to fix or build things, but they’ve leveraged Pinterest’s female demographic for marketing on Pinterest.

Here’s how they’ve done it.

1. Lowe’s Facebook cover image is a mosaic of their top pins from Pinterest.
This is smart because it combines the power of images and Pinterest with Facebook. The image got 47 likes and 4 shares on Facebook. We’re curious how they tracked their most pinned images from Lowes.com (if they used a tool). You could use PinAlerts but for a site this big it would still be tedious.

2. Lowes included a call to action on their Facebook cover image.
Note how Lowe’s has added a call to action in the bottom corner of their cover image. While it’s against Facebook terms of service to use blatant sales pitches in cover images, this one is subtle enough that it passes. When people click they’ll see the comments, which include a link to Lowe’s Pinterest account.

It says:
Find more inspiring ideas from Lowe’s on our Pinterest page at http://social.lowes.com/iTJ.

3. Lowe’s uses a Pinterest app to showcase their boards and pins on Facebook.
There are several apps for Pinterest on Facebook, this one is gorgeous. Note the background and how dramatic and large their pins are. Here’s a Pinterest app from Tabfusion that looks similiar (not sure how they got the awesome background image).

Notice there’s a call to action and button to follow Lowe’s on Pinterest.

 4. Lowe’s made their logo Pinterest-friendly
Sony has also done this – they have made their logo more appealing to women or just more attractive. Your regular logo may work well on a building or a sign but be sort of boring for social media. Lowe’s has a different version of their logo for their Pinterest profile.

 5. Lowes posts their top pins on Facebook.
Images do very well on Facebook and the same images you pin or your audience pins can make great status updates too. Repurpose your content like Lowe’s did:

Missed opportunity: So far Lowe’s does not link to or add Pin It buttons to their web site Lowes.com – we’re sure that would remind and encourage people to pin from the site.
What are people pinning from your web site? Check out our Pinterest tool PinAlerts.com to find out!
Have you seen any other examples of brands who have successfully leveraged Facebook and Pinterest? Please share in the comments.
If you liked on this blog please connect with me and please subscribe via RSS feed.  
Thanks you for reading.

Pinterest and Marketing

       The first thing a business should ask themselves before joining Pinterest is if your business is a good fit for the platform. If you’re an artist or designer, the answer is ‘heck yes!‘ But what about other business platforms. Ones that aren’t just about the visual.
       I should preface my next statement by saying that I am an aspiring author. I started my own Pinterest to talk about my work. My goal (however lofty that may be) is to attract an audience of teenage readers who might enjoy looking at the pictures I post and the ideas for stories I glean from those images. I have a few teenage ‘friends’ on facebook who seem to enjoy what I post.
       Even though my main business is about words, the visual is attracting to a teenage audience. Since the novels I write are for teenagers it is good platform for me. The point is, your business doesn’t have to be visual for it get your name out on Pinterest.
       Before I started working with this blog, before I even thought about how Pinterest can be an advantage to business I was following businesses. Mainly I was following publishers. They posted pictures of upcoming book covers which interested me in the products they were putting out. They also posted writing and publishing related jokes that I could truthfully appreciate. I enjoy following the publishers on Pinterest.
Now that I am working with this blog, I have been branching out and looking at what other businesses are posting on Pinterest. The best pages that I’ve found have a mix of actual pictures of their product and other things that relate to their business.
        For example, one page I looked at was for a new high tech product. The first thing I noticed was the quality pictures of their merchandise, the next thing I noticed was that it wasn’t all centered on the product, they were also talking about other technology and garnering a response to their opinions.
        They have kept their pinboards on topic with what they are selling but also attracting an audience of tech-experts who want to talk about what the latest and greatest things are on the market.
        Now,  don’t be mistaken, Pinterest takes time. Just like with a Blog, a Facebook, or a Twitter you have to post daily. If you don’t your opinions will get lost. Like other social media platforms rarely will someone come to your homepage and look at everything you have to offer. They will mostly be looking at the latest feed on their homepage rather than browsing one page at time.
        Part of marketing on Pinterest is being current. But does it work? The answer is yes. If you do your research on it, and utilize the tools available to you, it will draw in a new set of consumers that no other social media site will draw in.
You have to keep your fingers in all of the pies, and Pinterest is the newest flavor that everyone is craving.