Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Lesley Warren, who blogs at Chaotically Creative and sells her Pinterest inspired product at Fix A Bra.

About a year and a half ago I had never heard of blogging, then I found Pinterest. Pinterest was love at first sight for me. The endless amount of images were candy to my eyes. Even more exciting for me were the blogs that I was introduced to. The concept of learning and sharing through other sites was exciting and endlessly fun for me. After my discovery I decided  I needed a way to keep track of all my projects so I thought a blog would be a great place to start doing that. One thing lead to another and the blog Chaotically Creative grew. And boy, did it grow quickly. How you ask? Well because of Pinterest of course.

We had several great features by other big bloggers which sent our blog traffic and legitimized our writing. However, the number one reason why we have had such a highly trafficked blog so quickly was due to our referrals from Pinterest. Several of our most popular pins went “viral” like the one that inspired our product, the Fix A Bra.

Our post Underwire Bra Repair in 10 Seconds or Less was such a simple idea. One day I noticed an annoying situation, one I had felt many times before in the middle of my chest. I realized yet again my underwire was protruding through my bra. For several reasons, one including the fact that I have anxiety when shopping, prevented me from going out to buy another bra. So I tried a quick fix. I patched the area with moleskin adhesive foot pads.

I told my Mom how well it worked and she convinced me to write about it. Although I thought it would be crazy to put pictures of my bra online I took the risk and did it.  We had many reactions to this post, and here are just a few of them:

People Love the Pin

Readers from around the world have written us and commented on our blog about how much they love our “ moleskin bra fix.” They have called us geniuses, said things like “why didn’t I think of that?” and the ever popular “I wish I would have known about this 30 bras ago!”

People Think the Pin is the Worst Pin Ever

I realize when something gets a lot of positive attention it is usually followed by some negative attention as well. But hey, “all press is good press,” right.  Our Pin was featured in an article titled, When Pinterest Goes Wrong: The Best Of The Worst Pins

The irony of that feature was the fact that the author’s followers were not impressed that my pin was featured on that list and jumped to “its defense” and mine as well.

We’ve also had a person de-face the pin and re-pin it to Pinterest with a comment stating “if you’re bra is breaking you’re wearing the wrong size.” Along came comments on our blog ranging from readers accusing women of ruining their bras due to being lazy non-hand washers and more. To this date the debate continues.

People Re-write the Pin

After writing our posts I have seen it featured on many sites, re-written and re-photographed on numerous blogs. Recently the writers on WIKI-How have now taken our blog post and re-written it as well with mention of our product as well as giving us full credit.

People Re-PIN the PIN

So are you dying to know how many times this little post has been re-pinned? Before I let you in on that number I want to explain that this is not the only pin that we have had that has been pinned thousands of times. We’ve also been able to get a lot of re-pins without a lot of followers. We only have a little over 3,000 followers. The images to Underwire Bra Repair in 10 Seconds or Less have been re-pinned over 325,581 times. Now that’s a big number I know, but keep in mind that the post was written on July 5, 2012.

People Come See The PIN

It feels so awesome that so many people re-pin our images but does any of that matter if they don’t even come to our site? I guess it really wouldn’t. But they do. Mom and I started blogging February 14, 2012. Since then 1,188,252 unique visitors have come to our site. 707,579 have come directly from Pinterest, our number 1 source of referrals. The underwire bra post has had 1,266,831 unique page views since the day it was written.

What did we do with this information?

It took 3 days to realize we had a really good pin. Even more we realized we had written about something that no one else had ever written about. After one week I decided that if so many women were having these issues with their underwires then this was a problem that needed to be solved with more than just a DIY fix. I immediately searched the internet to insure that I was not impeding on someone else’s patent or rights. When I saw that there was no one out there with my exact product idea I started contacting manufacturers and our product the Fix A Bra was in the works. That’s two weeks after we wrote the post and analyzed the data gained from Pinterest.

What Makes An Amazing Pin

Write With Something New and Original…. 

Mom’s post Washing Windows Like A Pro has pinned 56,000 times and has been viewed over 188,000 times. What was so original about this post you ask? Well although some people knew the secrets the Pro window washers were using no one had ever written about it to our knowledge or much less had ever pinned it. It’s easy. If you write about something that no one has ever seen before then people will come and read about it. New and ORIGINAL content is key.

Write About Something Relatable….

Readers want to read about things that relate to their lives. Either something that they can do, something that relates to them directly, or something that solves problems and solves them easily. The more relatable the better. The easier the better. The shorter the better. Get my point? My 3 most successful pins have 3 things in common; short, easy and relatable to the masses.

Let Go of the Fear

When I presented my Bra Fix to my Mom I did not intend on showing it to anyone else. I was very determined to keep our blog free of anything but home decor and decorating. I also didn’t know how readers would feel about seeing images of a bra on our “family” friendly sight. Was this going to take our blog a whole new direction?

I mention in the Underwire Bra Post that I didn’t want to go shopping with my kids and that’s what spurred the DIY fix. However part of the reason I did not want to go shopping was because of the anxiety I deal with on a daily basis. I decide to come clean and write a post about coping with anxiety. This was something I had always wanted to share but feared doing so. That post has been Pinned 13,000. Thank goodness I let go of the fear and wrote this post.

Great Pictures 

Without a doubt an amazing pin needs great pictures. I truly feel that if we wouldn’t have taken the extra time and thought to take great pictures and create captions on those pictures they would not have pinned as well.

The Story Continues….

At this point I feel my story is still writing itself and I can’t wait to see what more happens with my “Pin” and my “Product”.  Just a few weeks ago I was at the park talking to some other Moms I had just met. We were all telling each other about our businesses. Ironically, as I spoke about how I developed my product from my pin, one mom began to laugh. I asked her what was so funny. She said, “I am wearing your bra fix right now as we speak.”  She then went on to explain that she actually had an underwire breakthrough and used the Pinterest search feature to find a fix.

As you can see there is no doubt that Pinterest has made my blog what it is today. It has been the main source for analyzing what my readers want and how they want that information delivered. I’m excited to see what else I can Pin and how followers will respond to that content in the future.

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My passion has always been to create and design. I must confess that if you let me in your home I will be rearranging your furniture…. in my head of course. I always look for ways to make Chaotic spaces feel more calm and organized. With a background in Early Childhood Development and Self Taught DIY and Design, finding ways to calm everyday chaos is what I do.

Chaotically Creative is exactly what we are! Our life is like yours, full of chaos and we attempt to do whatever we can to make it a little bit more calm through DIY, Decor, and Design.

Should a writer care about Pinterest, or would pinning time be better invested in other social media sites?

I asked that question to four writing and publishing professionals recently, and I received the perfect answer: “It all depends.”

That, my friends, is often the wisest advice possible.

Here’s why:

When I was beating the street on Nashville’s Music Row, trying to get a publisher excited about my songs, the writer who was getting the most play time and attention was often referred to as “The flavor of the week.”

Nashville can be fickle.

Isn’t it the same on the internet? With so many social media sites competing for your attention, a writer must be choosy. And the “sure bet” last month can quickly become this month’s “has been.”

First, quotes from the experts

Jennifer Evans Cario

She is president of SugarSpun Marketing and she wrote the book on Pinterest. Her recently released Pinterest Marketing: An Hour a Day offers real life, down in the trenches marketing savvy.

The first step, says Jennifer, is to know exactly what you hope to accomplish:

What it boils down to is the need to be familiar with enough social media channels to make an intelligent decision about which ones are best suited to the goals you’ve set and to the tactics needed to reach those goals.

Ann Smarty

Ann Smarty wears more hats than a team of construction workers. She is community and brand manager at Internet Marketing Ninja, runs her own SEO consulting service, owns the My Blog Guest website for guest blogging, is co-founder of Viral Content Buzz, and her articles show up just about everywhere you look on the internet. Ann, simply put, is absolutely amazing.

For Ann, Pinterest is an excellent spot for interaction with readers – and Ann is all about the social part of social media:

People write content, people rank in search, and people acquire friends on social media. You don’t need to sell anything … selling is the least effective social media marketing strategy. Building an active following is accomplished by interacting with real people and by treating them like real people, not like numbers!

Demian Farnworth

Demian is one talented writer. He is on staff at Copyblogger, and he’s owner of The CopyBot site. Demian isn’t using Pinterest for his own work, right now, but sees how the site can be valuable for those writers who produce primarily visual content (a cartooner, for instance).

Says Demian,

Pinterest is just such a visual field that it attracts the DIYers, fashion, and photo people—who may not be your target audience.

Andrew Melchior

Andrew is the co-founder and vice president of AvaLaunch Media. He is a regular conference speaker, and he’s a guy with a well-rounded feel for internet marketing best practices. Andrew says Pinterest has become too big to ignore:

I think you really do need to consider Pinterest, given the amount of traffic Pinterest is currently sending. As a writer, though, you really need to adjust your tactics to include visual elements, if you wish to succeed with Pinterest.

What do the statistics say?

This discussion first came about in a conversation centered on how to get the word out about what has become the largest Independence Day fireworks display west of the Mississippi – the Melaleuca Freedom Celebration.

Could a fireworks show in little Idaho Falls, Idaho – no matter how spectacular – gain exposure on Pinterest?

Do the search. Pinterest loves fireworks.

How many people are using Pinterest, and what are the demographics? The most current (2012) stats I could find paint an interesting picture:

• There are now over 12 million Pinterest users in the United States alone
• Almost a third of those users have a household income of over $100,000 per year
• Pinterest visits increased 15-fold between September 2011 and September 2012
• Users in the USA spend almost an hour and a half on Pinterest each month
• About 69% of Pinterest users have purchased, or wanted to purchase, an item they found there

And even if you don’t happen to share age and gender with the majority of Pinterest users (females between the ages of 25 and 54), would you like to reach them with your message?

I thought so.

Expert tips on how a writer can benefit from Pinterest

Because a number of the suggestions overlapped and intertwined, I’m going to list the basic principles here without trying to attribute each tip to a specific contributor.

Here is the distillation – powerful advice about how to build a presence on Pinterest.

• Get active on community boards – a quick way to massive exposure. Search on “Pinterest community boards for writers,” however, and you won’t find many writer-focused communities built just yet. Hmmm …
• Women greatly outnumber men on Pinterest right now. If you’re a guy, you may not feel you can communicate well with the female gender. There’s no time better than the present to learn, though. After all, women aren’t a specialty market—women are the market in a big, big way.
• Writers put in plenty of research time. Why not archive your sources on Pinterest? Wouldn’t that make a cool add-on feature for your new book?
• Are you searching for ideas, or do you want to know more about a subject? Pinterest is not only a good place to store your research … it is an excellent resource for doing research.
• The more you pin and re-pin the work of others, the more you will find others sharing your pins. It’s a simple fact you don’t want to forget: Kindness begats kindness.
• Use Repinly to track and re-pin trending items of interest. It is a valuable tool.
• Determine your most successful pins and identify your champions by using analytics tools for Pinterest. Check this article for three options.
• Create boards to feature your own work, but don’t forget to acknowledge other authors as well. Don’t try to monopolize the community; join it.
• And remember: Pinterest is a visually-oriented society. Make sure your pins include a worthy photo or graphic. Show and tell.

That’s it, folks. Go forth and Pin … and should you run into trouble, leave a comment here for one of our experts. They know their success is largely due to the amount of help they have given others.

About the author:

Don Sturgill is interested in just about everything. He is a friend of entrepreneurs, an untamed believer, and author of The Roadmap To Freedom: Dream Into It.

We ran across this Pinterest infographic from Ties.com about the top male fashion pinners on Pinterest. Note that they are not all men (at least 4 are women) and the various types of niches they are in.

This week we’ll track pins from some of these influencers with PinAlerts to see which gets the most pins from their website – we’ll update this post with the information soon.

Last Tuesday I spoke at Connective Circle. I had an amazing time presenting to 80+ bloggers about how to effectively do Pinterest market. I actually wished we had recorded it, because the dialogue and questions of those attending, I felt, were better then the actual presentation!

However, there were several requests for my presentation, so I have posted it below. For those who didn’t attend the presentation you may need some clarification on this presentation. Mainly because I am the type of presenter who usually just shows an image and then builds a story around the image through my words. To overcome this issue you are  welcome to leave comments below and I will provide further clarification.

Here is the link on Prezi if you are unable to see the below flash display. ~Paul

This time last year we created an infographic around the concept of PIO or Pinterest Image Optimization that was picked up by Mashable. A lot has changed in a year, and so when Matt Siltala at AvaLaunch Media asked if there was anything I would change I sent him an email with my recommendations. He updated the graphic, but there were still a few left out. So I thought I would list my recommendations here:

• PIO #1: This was worded incorrectly on the last infographic. Uploading actually hurts your chances of going viral. Pinning from the web is what we meant.
• PIO #2: This doesn’t matter since Pinterest changes your image name when added to Pinterest. What does matter is the img title, since that is what is pulled as the pin description when someone pins from the web.
• PIO #7: We should talk about how Pinterest does not allow advertisements (even though people do get away with it — the for sale Cadillac pin I share in my presentations).
• PIO Bonus Tip #1: You can also pin Vimeo now.
• PIO Bonus Tip #2: This has changed you can pin as small as 85×85
• Pinterest Referall Traffic section could be updated.

Even though some of the changes didn’t make it into the update I still endorse Matt’s new design. Below is a small portion of the infographic, and for your viewing pleasure here’s the link t0 the full PIO infographic! Thanks agian Matt!

We’re impressed with ecommerce site Nashville Wraps and how they leverage Pinterest for marketing. The company sells eco-friendly gift and food packaging.

We asked Buffie Baril, Nashville’s Internet Advertising Manager what attracted them to Pinterest. We decided to broaden our social media marketing into Pinterest because our products are so visual and because we receive lots of images from customers who show our packaging beautifully. It is also a great place to pin our blog images.

Here’s the simple thing they did that made us click: on their Valentine’s Day landing page, they included a link that says: Valentine ideas we love on Pinterest. It takes you to a Valentines-themed board that has over 1,000 followers, almost as many as their entire account.

Most of the pins are from their own site, and they don’t have many repins on this board. Instead, there are many Valentine crafts and ideas they’ve pinned from around the web (original pins) that relate to gift packaging. Here’s what we thought was smart: in the pin description they briefly describe the image then link to a product on their site that could be used to make the craft.

Example: they repinned this pin of a Valentine’s Day gift bag with a free printable. In the description (tough to see, but we highlighted it below) it has a brief description of the pin and a link to the clear bags they sell on their site.

Instead of simply pinning their products, they’re showing ideas. It works because people are more likely to repin an idea than just an image of their product. Plus people often keep the description you write when they repin something. In all of the 8 repins we checked, the description was unaltered. That means their reach was significantly magnified.

Does Pinterest drive sales, traffic or both for Nashville Wraps?  Pinterest doesn’t drive a huge amount of sales yet, but it does drive a lot of traffic to our website. We are seeing those numbers increase every month, so we are encouraged by that. We also realize some people may come to our website and get our catalog and call in an order which doesn’t get tracked as an online sale. They noted another benefit: reaching their target market. We can reach a lot of designers and small businesses that we would not have otherwise.

One missed opportunity is to add a pin it button to each product on their site to encourage more pins. There are just a few pins from their website on Pinterest now. (Of course, rather than searching, we suggest signing up for PinAlerts to get an email alert.)

For now, Pinterest is a fun way for Nashville Wraps to market their brand.

The best part about Pinterest is that it’s free and very easy to use. You can create a beautiful set of boards in a very short amount of time. We try to sync our social media marketing together. Every Friday we publish a new blog. Once it’s published, we’ll post it on Twitter, Facebook and pin the images to Pinterest. This helps us get a big push all at once with all the major players in the social media world.

We think other brands can learn from their approach. How can you apply this to your Pinterest marketing strategy?

Christmas is close and while it might be getting late for this year, it’s not too early to think about next year.

Here are some of our favorite Christmas campaigns on Pinterest:

1. The Gap Pin to Win your Holiday Wish List Contest.
The Gap is giving out $50 gift cards to lucky pinners. The contest is being run from a Facebook app and promoted on their Facebook page. You can pin any of their clothes from the app and enter to win. The app tracks what’s being pinned and to announce each winner, Gap will comment on the winner’s pin.

Naughty: Restricting pins to what the brand wants rather than letting people pin anything they like from the site (but it makes it easier to track).

Nice: Pin it buttons right in the app (under each selection) make it super easy to enter and it’s why this one is a favorite.

2. Anthropologie’s It’s a Wrap
Many businesses create Christmas wish lists on their blog or website, why not take it another step and create a board out of it? This list of 13 things the tech tools marketers can’t live without would make a fun board.

Whatever you do, come up with a clever angle. Macy’s board, called Be Santa has a lot of followers but it’s all product and every description has the words: BUY NOW!!! Notice that there are almost no repins or likes. While we don’t know if this has led to sales, it’s too much of a hard sell for our tastes.

Don’t just pin your products, look for themes that your audience will respond to. Find a unique angle. Clothing retailer Anthropologie did that with their It’s a Wrap board. It’s full of ideas for wrapping presents and has hundreds of repins. They also have a Wish It, Win It contest and several Christmas-themed boards. They’re the first boards on the page right now (be sure to edit your boards to highlight the most relevant first).

Need more inspiration? Here you go.

3. 12 Days of Capitol One Christmas
This campaign is another twist on the Pin to Win and it’s from a credit card company. There is a new board created each day for 12 days. You click on the pin that has the day on it and are taken to their site to enter to win a gift card. With the thought and graphics that went into this one, it’s one of our favorites this year. They’ve carried the theme on their Facebook page (with a cover photo and updates about the contest).

Have you seen any outstanding Pinterset marketing campaigns centered around the holiday theme? Please share in the comments!

Toys R Us is using a lot of images to market their sales and toys on Facebook this Christmas season where the toy retailer has have over 3 million fans. However, they don’t seem to be as active on Pinterest (almost 3,000 fans).

While Toys R Us does get original pins, they don’t get as many as you’d expect for such a large retailer (you’d think moms would pin toys their kids want). Looking through the pins they do get, you’ll see almost every one is saved to a Christmas wish list type of board (take note marketers).

Our favorite marketing piece is perfect for Pinterest – it markets their brand without being pushy (see below). There are no logos or branding except their brand name. This image could be expanded to be an even better fit for Pinterest. To do that, they could make the image more vertical and make it longer with a larger font size and more images to go with each of their tips.

About 25,000 people liked this image.

Here are 5 missed opportunities:

1. Add a tip to pin your Christmas toy wish list to Pinterest.

2. Add Pinterest Pin It buttons to their page.

3. Add a Pinterest tab to Facebook.

4. Create a Pinfographic that shows their highest rated or most popular toys – both a Facebook and a Pinterest version.

5. Expand the image they already created for Facebook into an image for Pinterest, by making it more vertical and adding images within the text.

Now that it’s Christmas, we’re on the lookout for brands who really get it when marketing on Pinterest for the holidays. What’s your favorite toy retailer on Pinterest?

This article is for those responsible for creating a presence on Pinterest, but are still trying to figure it out. If you’re anything like us, you’ve scoured the internet reading articles, talked with those who you think “get” Pinterest and read every case study available. The research helped and you’ve learned a lot, but at the end of the day:

It’s difficult to see how your brand fits on Pinterest
It makes no sense for the Harlem Globetrotters to pin about weddings, recipes, fashion, hair styles, home decor or many of the more popular categories. We could try to tie into these topics but it wouldn’t be authentic to our brand.

You still want to reach Pinterest’s demographic but you’re not sure how
Despite your research, you’re asking yourself the same question: How can I create a successful Pinterest presence that fits my brand?

This is what we’re facing at the Harlem Globetrotters, but I think we’ve got a solid strategic plan. I can’t share results yet because we’re in the process of unfolding it, but I can give you some insight into how we got there, and hopefully spur some ideas of your own.

As we go, I’ll be sharing results and insights we learn along the way. We’d love feedback, and to hear your success or failure stories as well because at the end of the day, you learn just as much from what doesn’t work, as what does.

Harlem Globetrotters Background:

• The Globetrotters are a family entertainment basketball team

• We’ve been around since 1926 traveling the country and performing in front of millions of fans

• We are a family-friendly event that kids, parents and grandparents alike, will enjoy

• Families love coming to our shows and mothers tend to be the ones that purchase tickets

Due to these facts, the female-skewed Pinterest platform provides an amazing opportunity to directly connect with our female fans, including mothers.

Goal: Learn more about our target market
We’re a sports entertainment company, as opposed to a retailer, where a direct sales approach would make sense. Rather than direct sales, we view Pinterest as a tool to engage with and learn about our fans. We want to know: what are our fans interested in? If they like the Globetrotters, what else do they like?

Our goal is to study these engagements and interactions through driving traffic back to our website. Repins and clicks equate to traffic, and traffic lets us know what our fans on Pinterest are interested in.

Strategy: Use Pinterest as an extension of the Harlem Globetrotter’s Brand
In the words of Angela Leaney, EVP of Brand Marketing, the theme of our strategy is “Finding the intersection between what is interesting and shared amongst moms, and what we have credibility or expertise on.” Instead of the common approach: ‘How can I extend my brand into Pinterest’s platform?’; we ask, ‘How can we use Pinterest’s platform as an extension of our brand?’ Since we want to extend our brand, our strategy is guided by what’s popular on Pinterest, and we are looking on how to capitalize on that in the areas that make sense for our brand.

One of our stars, Dizzy Grant, got married last year. We could post pictures of Dizzy’s wedding because weddings are a popular category on Pinterest. Although the category is popular, our brand isn’t relevant, and aside from a picture, we have nothing to offer.

Here is a snapshot of what we’ve created so far on Pinterest:

Questions to Answers:
Now that we know the direction we’re headed we can ask:

• How can we use Pinterest’s platform as an extension of our brand?
• What does our brand stand for?
• What are our areas of expertise?
• Where do we have credibility amongst mothers?

For the Globetrotters, those include topics like giving back to the community, healthy lifestyles, character development and bringing families together. Essentially, we use a venn diagram approach consisting of identifying areas mothers find interesting, identifying areas where the Globetrotters are relevant, and pinning the common ground.

All the general tips involving descriptions, visually rich content and SEO are helpful, but won’t help you maximize Pinterest if your strategic approach is flawed.

Now we have some questions for you:

• Do you have any feedback on our strategy?
• Has your brand run into any problems with Pinterest?
• If your brand doesn’t seem to fit Pinterest’s mold, how do you create a successful presence?

Let us know what you think. In the meantime, you can follow our boards to see how our strategy plays out.

Dylan Richter is a former collegiate basketball player turned marketing man. He is the Digital Marketing Manager for the Harlem Globetrotters responsible for the execution of all digital campaigns including website, social, mobile and online marketing tactics. Connect with him on Linkedin .