Archive for pinterest contest

9 Fun Facebook Page Examples to Spark Your Creativity

December 17, 2012 / Andrea Vahl / No comments

social media toolsAre you looking for creative ways to engage your Facebook fans?

Do you need some fresh ways to infuse fun into the Facebook experience?

This article will examine nine Facebook pages that bring excitement to their Facebook pages.

My hope is you’ll find inspiration for your own page.

NOTE: Many of these Facebook apps are developed by a third party and have a standard look and functionality. Other Facebook apps can be used to create a custom tab, but can have some limitations on how the tab looks.

#1: Seasons 52: “Mini Indulgence” Quiz

Seasons 52 is a restaurant chain with signature desserts called the “Mini Indulgence.” The restaurant has developed an interactive quiz that asks you questions to determine “which Mini Indulgence dessert is you?”

The reason this works is because it asks personal questions about things you like to do and “matches” those things with the type of dessert. Yes it’s kind of silly, but people love quizzes about themselves.

indulgence quiz

Take the quiz to find out which dessert matches you.

Key Takeaway: Create a quiz that is all about your customers.

#2: Grey Poupon Society of Good Taste

This is another interactive app that requires fans to “Apply” to be a member of Grey Poupon’s inner circle. You can like the Page freely (no one can restrict that beyond age or country) but this is a step above.

This app uses your personal profile information (where you have checked in, where you went to school, what pictures you’ve been tagged in) and creates a little movie that the judges use to “review” your qualifications and decide if you are in or out of their Society. The interesting thing is that many people aren’t immediately approved and they have to apply again.

But it’s so much fun to see what the reviewers say about your Facebook activity that it makes you come back again, hoping next time you’ll “cut the mustard.”

grey poupon

You must apply to get into the Society.

grey poupon movie

See a "movie" made from your Facebook activity complete with commentary.

Key Takeaway: Create a fun way to use someone’s personal Facebook information.

#3: ABF U-Pack Moving: U-Pack-A-Cube

This Facebook app is an interactive game that requires you to pack the items coming off of a conveyor belt into the moving van. You get a score at the end based on how many things you packed and the difficulty of each item.

upack moving

Pack the van with boxes that come off of the conveyor and try to get a high score.

Key Takeaway: Create a fun game out of your product or service.

#4: Sierra Mist: Mixology

This app allows you to find drink recipes based on the occasion, ingredients or taste preferences. Fans can also submit their own recipes, which is a great way to get people involved.

sierra mist mixology

Find some delicious drink recipes or submit your own.

Key Takeaway: Provide value based around your product and involve your audience.

#5: Dove: Dove Insider

This Facebook app is not that complex, but there are a number of reasons why it works well. First, the name itself is intriguing because people want to get the “inside” scoop. It also highlights a different fan each month with a quote about feeling beautiful.

You also get access to a coupon and a contest. A Facebook app does not have to be that complicated. Just make sure your app delivers value.

dove insider

The Dove Insider includes a fan photo, coupon, contest and quiz.

Key Takeaway: Make your app about your fans.

#6: Ford Mustang: Customizer

The Customizer app allows fans to design their own Mustang from scratch. Then people can vote for designs they like and Ford even gives one of the designs away to a lucky winner each week. People get points for participating in the Customizer, which adds a gamification aspect to your marketing.

ford customizer

Customize your own Mustang and get points for participating.

Key Takeaway: Gamify your Facebook Page to keep people there.

#7: Gap: Pin to Win

Facebook contests are a great strategy to add life to your Facebook Page. What is great about this Pin to Win contest from the Gap is that it overlaps Facebook and Pinterest to give people a great way to browse merchandise on the Facebook Page and incorporates a Pinterest contest, which is so hot right now.

gap pin to win

You can use the Facebook app to pin and thereby enter the contest on Pinterest.

Key Takeaways: Cross-promote your social platforms creatively.

#8: The Ellen DeGeneres Show: In Your Facebook

This is another simple app, but it is all about the fans. The Ellen DeGeneres Show is crowdsourcing their content to involve the audience in finding funny posts.

ellen degeneres crowd sourcing

Ellen invites people to share funny posts.

Key Takeaway: Crowdsource your content.

#9: The Tooth Fairy Pillow: Find the Tooth Fairy

So far we’ve talked about large brands’ Facebook apps. Even if you are a smaller brand, you can get creative with your Facebook app. Think about what is going to be beneficial to your customer. The Tooth Fairy Pillow offers their fans something simple and easy to do, yet meaningful. The app itself doesn’t have to be overly complex.

tooth fairy pillow

Get a picture of the Tooth Fairy with your child in this simple app.

Key Takeaway: Make it meaningful.

Do you notice the trend in all of these apps? They are all designed to entertain, benefit or reward fans. That is what makes a good app. It’s not all about you; it’s about how you can help your fans. An app doesn’t have to be overly complex to achieve these goals.

How about you? Have you seen any interesting Facebook apps? Have your Facebook apps helped your business in some way? Let us know in the comments below!


Category: andrea vahl, dove, ellen degeneres, facebook, facebook app, facebook contest, facebook page, ford, gamification, Gap, grey poupon, pinterest contest, quiz, seasons 52, sierra mist, Tools, tooth fairy pillow, upack moving /

9 Businesses Using Pinterest Contests to Drive Traffic and Exposure

August 20, 2012 / Prafull Sharma / No comments

social media how toAre you using Pinterest to market your business?

Running contests on Pinterest is a great way to expose your brand to a large audience, attract new followers and engage with your existing follower base.

In this article, I’ll showcase nine businesses running successful Pinterest contests.

Why Pinterest Contests?

Here is why you should run a contest on Pinterest:

Using Pinterest contests, your brand can engage with consumers in a personal and cost-effective way.

Contests can also help you collect customer information, preferences and feedback. This valuable data can then be put into action to enhance your offerings and acquire more customers.

So in this post, I’ll show you different types of Pinterest contests and examples to get you inspired to craft a Pinterest contest for your business.

Sweepstakes

Users can enter a Pinterest sweepstake by following a brand, creating a pinboard or by repinning an image. Winners are drawn randomly from the pool of eligible entries.

Below are the three examples of how companies are creating sweepstakes.

#1: AMC Theatres

The second-largest movie theater chain in North America, AMC Theatres is generating a lot of engagement through Pinterest contests.

AMC has created an entire pinboard, AMC Giveaways, dedicated to contests and giveaways.

Now users can just follow the specific pinboard to stay updated with the latest giveaways from AMC. The visually attractive pins direct users to appropriate contest landing pages.

amc giveaways

AMC's giveaway pinboard with visually attractive pins.

Landing pages contain contest details and an entry form. The entry form is best utilized by AMC collecting basic customer information and customer preferences.

amc contest

Simple contest entry form collecting valuable customer information and preferences.

There are a lot of attractive giveaways offered by AMC from time to time on the pinboard to excite movie lovers. Prizes such as signed posters, free tickets, t-shirts and even a signed director’s chair are irresistible to the fans.

The most recent is a very special giveaway contest: The Dark Knight Rises custom Xbox 360 for The Dark Knight Rises. The interesting part is the user doesn’t even have to follow AMC on Pinterest or pin/repin an image to participate in the contest.

With contests, AMC is successfully promoting its brand, driving lots of engagement and collecting extremely valuable customer data.

Have a look at the number of social media shares and comments that the contest page has already received.

social sharing

Contest details page with social sharing elements to reach a bigger audience.

Here are the details of the contest:

  • Participants fill out an entry form at the AMC website before the deadline.
  • Winners are selected at random.

Prize: The Dark Knight Rises custom Xbox 360. Unlike any other 360 consoles, this one is unavailable for purchase.

#2: British Midland International (BMI)

The airline company BMI (acquired by International Airline Group recently), kicked off BMI Pinterest lottery, a game of chance, on March 6, 2012. Rather than just posting the destination pictures, BMI converted its pinboards into a fun competition.

bmi airlines

Creative use of pinboards and pins by BMI.

Different boards were created for different destinations, each containing nine pins, with a unique number on each image.

Additionally, the contest also included Tumblr. Each pin was linked to the brand’s Tumblr presence, BMIsocialplanet, where BMI showcased content for different BMI destinations from around the web.

Participants repin six images and at the end of the week, a winning number is drawn, with one random user winning the competition. Notice how BMI has incorporated the details of participation and relevant information in the pin description.

pin description

Great use of pin description with contest details in the copy.

This highly creative campaign, which ran for 7 weeks, resulted in 500k+ social media impressions in the first week alone, and generated lots of positive social media sentiment. More than 3000 entries were received for the contest in the first two weeks alone.

 

 

Here are the details of the contest:

  • Repin favorite images from any of BMI’s destination pinboards.
  • Each week, BMI picks a number at random. Everyone who has repinned the image that corresponds to that number is in the draw.
  • Winner is chosen at random.

Prize: One pair of BMI return flight tickets from any BMI destination.

#3: HuHot

HuHot is the fastest-growing Mongolian grill concept in the United States. HuHot launched a Pin It to Win It contest during the month of June, 2012. The participants had to create a HuHot recipe and pin it on one of their own pinboards in order to enter the contest.

HuHot created a landing page on their website describing the contest details. A pinboard grill meal contest was also created where all the entries were repinned.

repinned recipe

Repinned recipe to grill meal contest pinboard created by HuHot.

An attractive contest teaser was displayed prominently at the HuHot website homepage and shared at their Pinterest account linking to the landing page.

well designed teaser

Well-designed teaser for the HuHot Grill Meal contest.

The contest had no complex set of rules and could be executed with ease. The contest helped HuHot gain new followers, collect a variety of recipe and food styling ideas, and generate brand awareness.

Here are the details of the contest:

  • Participants pin a photo of a HuHot grill meal.
  • Participants write the recipe of their creation in the description and include the word “HuHot” so that HuHot can repin it.

Prize: Five winners are chosen. The grand prize is a $100 gift card, and each of the other four winners receives a $25 gift card.

Best Pinboard Contest

In this type of contest, contestants create a pinboard under the contest rules, and the company selects the best entry.

Let’s see some examples of how brands are utilizing this type of contest.

#4: Peugeot Panamá

Pinterest is an excellent way to expose a brand to a large audience, given the viral nature of the images on Pinterest and a highly engaged Pinterest audience.

Peugeot is a brand that has grabbed this opportunity with both hands. Their brand has created a very clever Pinterest challenge, Peugeot Puzzle Contest, to increase followers, boost engagement and direct traffic to both their website and Facebook fan page.

It’s a puzzle where contestants find the four missing pieces of a Peugeot photo on the Peugeot website and Facebook fan pages and complete the board.

peugeot puzzle

Peugeot Panamá puzzle pinboard with missing pieces.

To submit their entry, participants have to share the pinboard by adding Peugeot as a contributor. For this, participants need to follow Peugeot or one of its pinboards—which means more followers for Peugeot.

Also, Peugeot has not stopped at repins and sharing only, but is also driving engagement. Peugeot moderators engage the users, encouraging them to participate in the contest. Moderators also promptly respond to questions/comments about the game or any issues faced by participants. This improves a brand’s reputation and overall image.

moderators

Peugeot Panamá moderators encouraging participation and assisting participants.

Here are the details of the contest:

  • Follow Peugeot on Pinterest and choose a puzzle.
  • Look for four missing pieces on Peugeot.com.pa or Peugeot Panamá’s Facebook fan page.
  • Create a pinboard titled “Peugeot Puzzle Contest / (your name),” pin the images and share it with Peugeot. Voilà!
  • First five people to complete the board win.

Prize: The winner gets a Peugeot kit.

#5: Homes

Homes is a website for searching properties for sale or rent. The company partnered with some of the industry’s top bloggers to launch a Spring into the Dream Pinterest contest during May 2012.

Bloggers were asked to create a blog post and Pinterest board detailing their “Spring into the Dream” ideas to their readers/followers. The contest went on to engage the readers of these blogs as well, allowing blog readers to participate in the contest and win a prize as well.

The winning blogger is selected by Homes. The winning blogger then selects one of his or her readers as a winner as well.

To enter the contest, participants had to repin at least two items from the Homes pinboard and pin at least two items from the Homes website or blog. This resulted in increased traffic to the Homes blog and website through pins and repins.

The contest helped Homes by tapping into the Pinterest followers of the bloggers, in addition to their blog readers.

winning entry

Winning entry with more than 6000+ followers.

With this innovative contest, Homes increased its brand footprint and also successfully engaged their target audience on Pinterest and top industry blogs.

The example below shows blog readers engaged by the contest.

blog readers engaging

Blog readers engaging and participating in the contest.

Here are the steps for the blog readers:

Prize: The winning blogger receives $500 and an additional $500 to award to one of his/her readers who created a Pinterest board and shared the link on their blog post.

#6: Threadless

Threadless is a community-based t-shirt company. During February 2012, Threadless came up with a Valentine’s-themed Threadless Loves Pinning challenge on Pinterest. The contest went from February 6 through February 12, 2012. The best board was selected and the winner was announced on Valentine’s Day.

Users had to create a pinboard, pinning 10 images depicting gift ideas for their special loved one. Threadless created a landing page on their blog describing the contest. The objective was to engage the audience and receive likes/repins.

Below is a sample of comments received on the contest landing page, which shows that participants were engaged positively with the brand.

participants engaging

Participants engaging with the brand through a contest.

During the week, Threadless received a whopping 366 submissions, filled with thoughtful and funny descriptions, showing the participants’ feelings for their loved ones.

Below is the winning pinboard.

threadless winning entry

Winning entry for Threadless Valentine's Day challenge with creative gifting ideas.

Here are the details of the contest:

  • Create a board titled “Threadless Valentine’s Day Challenge” for the person you love. In the board’s description let Threadless know why that person is so amazing.
  • Pin 10 images to the board that would make great gifts for your special person. (At least five must be Threadless products).
  • To enter the contest, email the pinboard URL to Threadless.

Prize: The winner gets $100 in “Threadless cash” and a $100 Amazon gift card.

Most Repins/Votes Contest

In this type of contest, entrants create pinboards/pins based on contest rules. Users like/repin or vote on the entries, and as the name suggests, the entry with the most votes wins.

Let’s have a look at how companies are running this type of contest.

#7: Victoria’s Secret

World-famous brand of women’s wear Victoria’s Secret is making great use of Pinterest contests. After successfully running their Dreaming of a PINK Summer Pinterest contest and receiving thousands of entries, Victoria’s Secret launched another alluring Pinterest challenge: My Victoria’s Secret Summer, from July 6, 2012 to August 20, 2012.

To participate in the contest, users have to go to the contest details page at Victoria’s Secret Facebook page. Participants then pin at least three images from the Victoria’s Secret fan page or website and create a pinboard.

victoria secret pinterest challenge

Victoria's Secret attractive contest landing page on Facebook.

The six best pinboards are selected, and the one that receives most votes wins the grand prize. Victoria’s Secret has also created a detailed set of terms and conditions for the contest, which is a great thing in order to protect the company in case of any disputes.

The best thing is, Victoria’s Secret is not only promoting their products, but also is increasing traffic to their Facebook fan page and website through the contest. This is an excellent strategy to maximize the returns on your contest, while also making the contest more interesting for participants.

Here are the details of the contest:

  • Create a Pinterest board and name it “My Victoria’s Secret Summer.”
  • Pin the entry image from Victoria’s Secret Facebook page, at least three images from VictoriasSecret.com, and summer-inspired pics to your pinboard.
  • Once done, submit email-id and the board’s URL on Victoria’s Secret Facebook page.
  • A panel of judges, including Victoria’s Secret model Candice Swanepoel, will select six finalists from all eligible entries.
  • The finalist entries will be displayed on the Victoria’s Secret Facebook page and visitors will vote for the grand-prize winner.

Prize: One grand-prize winner will receive a $1,000 Victoria’s Secret gift card. Five first-prize winners will each receive a $200 Victoria’s Secret gift card.

#8: High Point Market

High Point Market organizes trade shows for the furniture industry. High Point is running an engaging Pinterest contest. It’s entitled Style Spotters and has an objective to gain repins and likes.

Home fashion trendsetters, called Style Spotters (recruited by High Point Market), pin attractive images of their favorite looks and trending products. Users vote for the images through likes and repins, and the pinboard with the most votes wins.

Style Spotters pin their images to the High Point Market pinboards, driving engagement through likes, repins and comments.

traci zeller pinboard

Pinboard of one of the Style Spotters with more than 2000 followers.

The contest has helped High Point Market gain 3000+ Pinterest followers for their Style Spotter April 2012 contest.

high point market pinboard

High Point Market pinboards where Style Spotters pin their favorite images.

The best part of this contest is that it’s simple, easy to participate in and doesn’t have a bunch of complex rules.

Here are the details of the contest:

  • Style Spotters pin their favorite images to High Point Market’s Pinterest boards, listing the exhibitor’s name and showroom number.
  • Spotters also present the exhibitor with a sign that highlights the Style Spotter’s name with a QR code and URL for the Pinterest board.
  • People vote for the Style Spotters by “liking” or “repinning” the pins. The most popular pinboard wins.

Prize: The Style Spotter wins a free trip to the High Point Market.

#9: Emailvision

This company provides “software as a service” (SaaS) marketing solutions to deliver and automate email marketing.

Emailvision came up with a unique Pinterest campaign targeting email marketers. The “Pin Your Inbox” contest, which ended on May 31,2012, was designed to promote Emailvision and give recognition to email marketers.

Below, examples show the attractive contest page created by the company, where users share their email creative.

emailvision pinterest campaign

Landing page for Emailvision's Pinterest campaign.

With this contest, the brand got the email marketers engaged, asking them to pin their favorite email campaign.

email campaigns

Marketers pinned beautiful email campaigns to enter the contest.

Some prominent features of this contest were: It was created for a select audience (email marketers) in mind; it gave away a prize that attracted the targeted audience; and it has very short and simple participation guidelines.

Here are the details of the contest:

  • Pin your favorite email creative to Pin Your Inbox.
  • Emailvision community and Pinterest users view and “like” the showcased email campaigns.
  • The creative with most likes wins.

Prize: The winner gets an email creative designed by Emailvision studio.

Pinterest Contest Best Practices

So now you know about different types of Pinterest contests and how companies are utilizing them.A great next step would be to create your own innovative contests and experiment with them on Pinterest.

Here are some key takeaways to help you create and run Pinterest contests for your business.

  • Review Pinterest’s terms and conditions before creating your contest.
  • Set goals and objectives you want to achieve with your Pinterest campaign.
  • Create a contest with your target audience and goals in mind.
  • Choose a prize that will excite and engage your audience.
  • Have clear and simple participation rules.
  • Create an attractive landing page, clearly describing your contest, including terms and conditions. Encourage social sharing of the contest.
  • Utilize your existing audience to promote the contest, blast out the contest to your email lists, blog, Facebook/Twitter or other social media presence.
  • Make sure that images are repinnable and linked to the correct landing pages.
  • Utilize pin descriptions to include clear copy. This will help you reach a wider audience—beyond the first repin.

What do you think? What are some of the cool Pinterest contests you have come across? Which contests did you like most? Share it all in the comments section below.

 


Category: contest, How To, pinboard contest, pinterest, pinterest contest, pinterest for business, prafull sharma, repin, repin contest, sweepstake, Traffic /

5 Ways to Build a Pinterest Following With Facebook

August 7, 2012 / Melanie Duncan / No comments

social media how toAre you looking to build a strong Pinterest following?

Did you know that you can integrate your Facebook and Pinterest marketing?

Yes, there’s a way to get Facebook fans to create exposure for you on Pinterest.

Establishing a large audience of followers on Pinterest is one of the most important aspects of a successful Pinterest marketing campaign.

Here’s the skinny: Although during the setup process you can choose to link your Pinterest account to your Facebook personal page, there is currently no way to automatically hook up to your Facebook fan page.

So what’s a business to do?

The truth is most business owners have not figured out a solution. They are failing on Pinterest because they think that they have to build a new following from scratch. Well, that is patently untrue.

Here are five ways to use Facebook to build your Pinterest following.

#1: Get a Pinterest Tab for Your Facebook Fan Page

The easiest thing to do is just go to Woobox and create a Pinterest tab for your Facebook fan page.

woobox

Easily get a Pinterest tab for your Facebook fan page from Woobox.

It’s very simple to do and requires little to no technical skills. Within minutes, you can have your Pinterest account in front of thousands of your fans! This way, whenever people come to your Facebook page to either check out your latest posts or learn more about you, they can also see that you are on Pinterest.

The Pinterest tab allows fans to view all of your boards and even your pins while staying on the Facebook platform. They will not be transferred over to Pinterest until they try to repin or comment on one of your pins.

pinterest tab fb fan page

Within just a few clicks you can easily create a Pinterest tab for your Facebook fan page.

inside the pinterest tab

Inside the Pinterest tab as seen on the Facebook fan page.

#2: Post Pinterest Links as Updates on Your Facebook Page

There are a few different ways to use your Facebook status updates to promote your activity on Pinterest.

One way to build your follower base is to share the direct link to your Pinterest page as a status update and tell your fans WHY they should follow you on Pinterest.

What helpful information or cool contests will they have access to? Are there exclusive promotions? Why should they follow you on Pinterest AND Facebook?

facebook status update example

Example post of a Facebook status update promoting a Pinterest business account.

The more specific you can be about the type of value you are creating for your followers on Pinterest, the more likely your fans will join you there too.

#3: Promote Specific Boards on Your Facebook Page

On Pinterest, people can choose to either follow all, or just a few, of your boards.

Because of that feature, you may find success promoting specific Pinterest boards on your Facebook fan page.

I recommend you promote a few different boards throughout the week.

That way, you have the opportunity to showcase your Pinterest account to a wider audience on Facebook, and you can introduce them to the diverse areas of value shared on your Pinterest page.

There are two ways you can promote a specific Pinterest board on Facebook.

  • Update your status by uploading an image of a pin to Facebook. Add a description and include a link to the board on which that pin is featured.
facebook pinterest board example

Example Facebook post promoting a particular Pinterest board.

This works well if you have a really compelling image, because it will be granted more space on the Facebook newsfeed than a link.

  • Post the link to your Pinterest board as part of a status update. An image of one of your pins on that board will be automatically generated.
full board view

Generate a full board preview (photo and all) by posting the board's direct URL .

Posting the link will also automatically include the text in your board description.

Make sure that you add proper descriptions of the content when setting up your boards. I’m always amazed by how few people take advantage of this opportunity.

Look how brilliantly realtor Raj Qsar utilizes this space for his branding purposes.

His board description reads:

“Raj Qsar & Premier Orange County Real Estate – is one of the most dominant Real Estate Teams in the Orange County Real Estate Market. For over 15 years Team Raj Qsar has held the philosophy to give the best service and most qualified advice to both buyers & sellers.

Implementing honesty and integrity at the highest level possible and to enjoy the entire process along the way. We are truly passionate about real estate.”

raj qsar team

Take advantage of the description area below your board titles for adding value to your brand and board.

To add a description to one of your boards, simply click Edit Board and fill in the Description field.

edit board

Add a description to your board by clicking the "Edit Board" button at the top of your Pinterest board page.

#4: How to Promote a Particular Pin

Sometimes the best way to really serve your Facebook community is to highlight the value that you are providing in one particular pin.

This is a great way to get maximum exposure when pinning your own original content. Remember these posts can and will be shared across Facebook by your fans.

The same two strategies apply here, as they do to promote a specific board above. You can either upload the image of the pin as a status update (or include a link in the image description), or you can just include the direct link to the pin in your status area.

promote a particular pin

Promote a particular pin by pasting the pin's direct URL into your Facebook status update.

When you post a direct link to a pin as a status on Facebook, the following information will be automatically added and visible:

  • The image of your pin
  • The name of the board that includes the pin
  • The caption that has been added to your pin

So make sure you have fully optimized both your board title and caption for maximum impact. Focus on creating intriguing board titles and including a further explanation of value in the caption.

#5: Promote Your Pinterest Contests on Facebook

Contests and promotions are becoming all the rage on Pinterest. They are a very effective way to quickly add a lot of new followers and drive a ton of traffic to your site.

Unlike Facebook, there are no real restrictions regarding the way contests are promoted and hosted on Pinterest. A great way to leverage both platforms is to promote your Pinterest contest on your Facebook fan page.

pinterest contest facebook fan page

Example of how Bergdorf Goodman promoted their Pinterest contest on their Facebook fan page.

Bergdorf Goodman recently promoted their Pinterest contest on their Facebook fan page by posting an image of one of the prizes with a brief explanation. They included a link to their blog within the description of the image where fans could find more details about how to enter.

Hopefully you’ve found these five ways to use Facebook to build your audience on Pinterest helpful. I know from personal experience that introducing your fan base to your presence on Pinterest is an effective way to get more followers.

Despite all the hype surrounding Pinterest, Facebook is still the largest social media network. Why not leverage the audience you have already built there and let them fast-track your success on Pinterest?

So what do you think? Can you see the benefits of using Facebook to get more followers on Pinterest? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.


Category: facebook fan page, How To, melanie duncan, pinterest, pinterest board, pinterest contest, pinterest marketing, pinterest pin, pinterest tab, woobox /

6 Tips for Using Pinterest for Business

May 14, 2012 / Mitt Ray / No comments

social media how toAre you wondering how Pinterest could help your business?

Pinterest is one of the hottest social media sites at the moment. Pinterest was the fastest stand alone site ever to reach 10 million monthly unique visitors.

One study shows how Pinterest has been bringing in more traffic to websites than LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube put together.

Brands are benefiting with Pinterest in generating traffic and sales.

So if you’d like to attract a lot of traffic to your website using Pinterest, check out these 6 tips.

#1: Use Original Pictures to Drive Traffic

If you visit the Popular Section of Pinterest, you’ll see that most of the popular pictures and images in this section are original and unique. The popular images are “repinned,” “liked” and commented on the most number of times.

popular page on pinterest

Screenshot of a popular page on Pinterest. The popular page consists of images that have been "repinned," "liked" and "commented" on the most.

Study the pictures here before you start creating your own pictures.

An example is Ana White’s Carpentry Blog. A recent post on Social Media Examiner shows how her blog receives more than 6,000 visitors a day from Pinterest. This is because she focuses on publishing original pictures of her carpentry work on Pinterest.

These include pictures she took of the cupboards, desks and other furniture she created and posted on her blog. Her blog readers then pin Ana’s pictures onto their own Pinterest boards where other Pinterest users see them, repin them and like them. The end result is a lot of traffic to her blog.

ana white pinterest page

Ana White's Pinterest profile.

You can check the images that are being repinned from any website by using the link http://pinterest.com/source/domainname.com/.  All you will need to do is replace “domainname” with the website’s name.

If you want to be successful in driving traffic from Pinterest to your blog, focus on creating unique pictures and/or images.

#2: Pin Other People’s Content to Build a Wider Following

Pinterest isn’t all about pinning your own pictures onto your boards. Just like on any other social medium, you need to share other people’s content too. So look for others’ pictures and content relating to your product or service and pin them onto your boards.

Make sure you stick to a specific topic on each pinboard. A pinboard is a set of pins. You can create different pinboards on different topics. You can add an unlimited number of pins to a pinboard. More definitions about the different components of a Pinterest profile can be found on the Pinterest Help page.

chobani pinterest profile

Chobani's Pinterest profile consists of pictures and images pinned from different websites.

Sticking to a specific topic on each pinboard allows people to follow the ones that interest them. Pinterest gives you the freedom to pin anything you want, but make sure you name a pinboard appropriately and pin pictures related to that topic.

An example of a company doing this well is Chobani, a yogurt company. If you visit their Pinterest profile, you’ll see that they not only pin pictures of their products, but also pictures from recipes in which yogurt is an ingredient.

They also have a pinboard where recipes of products that don’t have any yogurt in them are pinned. There’s also a pinboard on fitness. All of these help promote Chobani’s product and brand, as they show the various ways in which their yogurts can be used in recipes and reinforce that yogurt is a healthy food.

Pin other people’s content and carefully choose the topics of the pinboards you create to build the following you want for your brand.

#3: Create Catalogs to Bring in Sales

Another fantastic way to display your products on Pinterest is to create catalogs. You can create a pinboard and pin pictures based on one of your collections.

You can also add a price to these pictures. When you want the price to be displayed on the pinboard, all you have to do is add the $ sign followed by the price to the description and the price will be displayed.

Adding the price will make sure you only attract people to your website who are really interested in buying the pinned product.

For example, let’s say an image of a product like a gold chain that costs hundreds of dollars has been pinned without the price. If it’s an attractive image, lots of people are going to visit the site, but many of them will not buy it after they realize it’s price.

But if you add the price, there’s a greater possibility that people who visit your site from that image will buy it, as they will know the price before they visit your site.

A company using catalogs effectively is Nordstrom. If you visit their Pinterest profile, you’ll find pictures from several collections pinned onto many pinboards as catalogs.

nordstrom pinterest profile

Nordstrom's Pinterest profile has several pinboards. Many of these pinboards are catalogs of different products.

Another company that is making good use of pinboards to display their products on Pinterest is Feather Earrings. If you check out one of their pinboards called “Must Have Products,” you will find pins of their products displayed along with their prices.

feather earrings pinboard

Feather Earrings has a pinboard on their Pinterest profile where they pin their products and add the price of each product to its description.

Creating catalogs on Pinterest can be a very effective way to drive traffic to your website and increase sales.

#4: Host Competitions

You can create picture competitions on Pinterest. Let your fans know what the prize is and ask them to take a picture and share it to win the competition.

Ask your fans to pin that picture onto their pinboards. They can then either send you the link to their picture, or you could ask them to use a unique hashtag to enter the competition. Then you’ll have to search the hashtag on Pinterest and come up with a means of deciding the best picture.

A company that recently ran a competition was Lands’ End Canvas. They ran the “Pin It to Win It” contest. Here the participants needed to create pinboards with their favorite Lands’ End products and the person who created the pinboard with the best collection of products won. Details about this expired competition are available on the Lands’ End Facebook page.

lands end pinterest

Details about the Lands' End Canvas "Pin It to Win It Contest" were published on their Facebook page.

#5: Get Fans Involved to Help Spread the Word

Pinterest gives you the option to allow other contributors to your pinboards. The pinboards you create don’t have to contain only your pins—you can select other people and let them pin pictures onto your pinboards too.

Take advantage of this feature. Select some of your favorite or most active fans and ask them to pin pictures onto your pinboards. You could even run a competition where the prize is to be a regular contributor to the pinboard.

Get fans involved to help spread the word about your products.

add contributors

You can add contributors to your Pinterest pinboards by choosing the "+Contributors" option.

#6: Pin Offers

Create a unique image about your latest offer and pin it onto one of your pinboards on Pinterest. Create an exclusive pinboard to pin the latest offers for Pinterest users only.

These offers could be exclusively uploaded to your Pinterest pinboards, or they could be pinned from a website page.

When you pin free offers, your fans will definitely repin them and share them with their friends. Everybody loves offers. Make sure you don’t put a limit if you want many repins.

The Wall Street Journal is making good use of Pinterest to promote their latest offers. On their Pinterest profile, they have a pinboard where they pin images of daily deals from their promotional service WSJ select. Their pins contain a picture of the product and have a description of how much the deal is worth.

wsj offers board

The Wall Street Journal has a Pinterest pinboard called WSJ Select where they pin images of the latest details from their website WSJ Select.

More Possibilities on Pinterest

The above methods are just a few ways you can use Pinterest. If you spend some time and think about it, you can find scores of ways to use Pinterest to promote your business.

What do you think of Pinterest? Are there any other creative ways you have used Pinterest? How has it helped your business? Please leave your comments in the box below.


Category: How To, mitt ray, pin it, pin offer, pin picture, pinboard, pinterest, pinterest board, pinterest competition, pinterest contest, popular picture, repinned, share content, share picture /

5 Ways to Create Highly Shareable Pinterest Pictures for Your Business

April 23, 2012 / Kelly Lester / No comments

social media how toAre you looking for creative ideas to drive Pinterest traffic to your site?

If you’re wondering just how effective a great image can be in driving traffic to your website, read on…

Since the launch of Pinterest, bloggers and website owners have been amazed to see just how much traffic this social photo-sharing platform can generate for a site or particular post.

The power of Pinterest comes IF the image on the page or post is a real attention-grabber; in other words, “pinnable.”

So how do you create images that tell a story and intrigue the viewer, all in the split second they take to glance at it?

pic worth a thousand words

The better the image the greater the pins.

#1: Send a Clear Message

If you spend lots of time writing your blog posts and structuring them for maximum search engine optimization, don’t stop short of including one of the most important traffic generators: the images.

Now that there’s Pinterest, a picture may be the ONLY thing someone sees, using it to decide whether to visit your site or not.

At least one of your images should convey the whole message of your post or page.

Images with easy-to-read, bold text do that particularly well. There are lots of easy and free image editors you can use to modify or create custom and compelling graphics for your posts. Pixlr is my personal fave for quick online editing.

Below are some great examples of eye-catching pics from Kid’s Activities Blog, Rhonna Designs, Six Sisters’ Stuff and Instructables.

Don’t these images just make you want to click through and learn more?

pic with clear message

A clear message on your image will demand attention.

 #2: Make Sure Your Photos are the Right Format

When people visit your site and like what they see, they’ll want to pin it to one of their relevant boards. So it’s important to know what people are pinning from your home page, your product pages, etc. You can find out by using this URL: http://pinterest.com/source/YourWebsite.com/ (replace “YourWebsite.com” as appropriate).

Additionally, if you’ve installed the “Pin It” button in your browser, visit any page of your site and see what comes up when you use the Pin It button. Do all your pages have effective images, available for pinning?

pin it button

More images on a page will lead to more pinning of your content.

You may be as dismayed as I was when I realized that a flash slide show on the home page of my website featuring product images and selling points was NOT pinnable. (And I’ve seen countless other sites that have this problem too.)

Only images and videos (YouTube & Vimeo) are pinnable.

It’s ineffectual for your business (and frustrating for a reader) to love your site, go to pin it and find that nothing relevant comes up to save and share.

On my website, the only thing that was pinnable and even remotely interesting was my banner image, but it was much wider than the maximum width Pinterest will allow (554 pixels). People still pinned this banner image (resized by Pinterest and ultimately misshapen) but it looked awful, and therefore was not generating much traffic. So I quickly added a very clear and properly sized image to my home page. Here’s the difference:

before and after

Size your images to display without distortion.

In his very informative article and rich-with-tips infographic featured recently on Mashable, Jeremy Cablona points out, “A properly optimized pin can make all the difference between 50 repins or no repins.”

image optimization

Click this image for lots more great image optimizing tips.

#3: Reach Outside the Box

Not sure how to market yourself or your biz using images? If you think your business is not particularly “image-centric,” think again.

Just like everything in a successful social media campaign, it’s all about sharing things of value with your audience. You are selling to people. Even if your product only serves one particular niche, those people have lots of different interests outside of what you offer.

Think about them. What do they do in their spare time? Do they have families? Do they share common interests?

Find some of your customers’ pin boards and do some research. Get to know the things they like by looking at their boards. This will inspire you to create image boards that will have broad appeal to your market.

Just because you only sell blue widgets doesn’t mean you can only feature blue widgets on your pin boards. Two terrific articles with some creative, outside-the-box ideas for business pin boards can be found on Sprout Social and Copyblogger.

#4: Increase Traffic with Contest and Giveaway Entries

Lots of companies use contests and giveaways to increase traffic. Pinterest is a fabulous way to promote them! By creating a very clear image of the event and the prize, people can see at a glance what they can win.

If you do a search on Pinterest for “enter to win” or “giveaway,” you’ll come up with all kinds of images. Serious contest entrants are using Pinterest to search for contests to enter. Let them know you have one!

  • In the description field, be sure to include “contest,” “giveaway” and “enter to win.”
  • If you also include a dollar amount for your prize, Pinterest will add a banner in the upper left-hand corner of your pin with the prize amount. This can attract even more attention.

Below are a few examples of terrific contest graphics from Amy’s Daily Dose, Giveaway Bandit, Family Fresh Cooking and Kid’s Stuff World.

prizes

Pin your contests and don't forget to include the prize!

You can even have your entrants use Pinterest to enter your contest:

  • Ask your readers to create boards that include your keywords in the descriptions.
  • Have them repin your images to these boards.

Bold images promoting your giveaway will surely increase traffic. Fabulous, pin-worthy contest graphics, as well as other Pinterest marketing tips and ideas, can be found on Pin ‘n’ Tell:

call to action

These images include a strong call to action.

#5: Captivate Emotions

Though we may see things differently, all of us have emotional responses to the things around us, the things that touch us. A picture can tell a story. It can also convey intense emotion, or even a complete thought or feeling.

When you are searching for the right picture for your blog post, or creating images for your website, think of single words that convey the message you’re trying to get across.

For example, are you promoting opulence, professionalism or newness? Is your product yummy, affordable, hilarious, convenient, lifesaving, etc.? Use images that speak those words.

“When you think of a single word, your images will always be focused, and they’ll always convey a meaning that makes a real impact.” – Smashing Magazine.

emotinal image

Emotional and stirring will immediately draw a viewer in.

Pinterest is now the best social platform upon which to share “a picture worth a thousand words.”

With or without added text, if you use images that people can relate and respond to, you’ll increase the likelihood that they’ll find value in what you’re sharing. Growing your fan base via Pinterest can be fun, free and easier than you think.

What do you think? Is your business on board yet? A Pinterest board, that is… Share your biz pinning strategies in the comment box below.


Category: How To, image, kelly lester, picture, pin boards, pin it button, pinnable, pinterest, pinterest contest, pinterest marketing, pixlr, repin /