We recently interviewed Carole Rains of Rustic Artistry about how she uses Pinterest to drive newsletter signups (see more in our interview on our recent press release). Carole sells artisan crafted furniture and home decor on her website www.RusticArtistry.com and is a former chef turned online business owner.

Her boards are full upscale rustic chic including home decor finds full of cowhide, turquoise, antlers, and deer mounts featured in gorgeous log homes and cabins.

We asked her what’s working for her on Pinterest and she shared the following stats with us:

• Her pin, “How to rock cowhide” has generated 112 email signups.

• The “Make Mine Rustic” board has a virality score of 16, which is total repins divided by total pins. She notes that she keeps breaking her 30-day high.

• Her engagement rate is 91%, which is the percent of pins with at least 1 repin.

• When she launched Rustic Artistry last summer, she had less than 200 followers on her personal account.  Since changing it to a business account and actively working it, her follower count has grown to more than 5,000.  Almost 2,000 of those have come in the last 3 months.

• 64% of her social channels traffic comes from Pinterest.  This beats out Facebook, which accounts for 34%.
• Visitors from Pinterest only have a 55% bounce rate compared to 70% for Facebook visitors.
• The ideal pin size for her is around 200×1000 pixels. It needs to be short enough so someone doesn’t have to click to see more but long enough to take up vertical space (and be more visible) on Pinterest’s feed.
• On her most successful board, “Make Mine Rustic,” only about 5% of the 2800+ pins are from her website. One mistake she has seen other businesses make is that they only pin their products. Not only will they eventually run out of things to pin, she said, it can prevent them from adding fresh content to their boards.

Carole has successfully promoted new boards and gotten email signups by adding a call to action to her pins. She often four pictures with one box in the center that has a call to action. She uses PicMonkey to make them.

This pin advertises a new board:

She promotes special sales on her account too:

On this pin she directs people to sign up for her newsletter:

She invites people to follow her on Facebook too.

Using a Pinterest tool called PinThemAll makes creating pins easier. It finds all the photos on a page. Then she selects the pins she wants, adds her comments, puts the images in the order she wants, and then it gets posted to Pinterest.

She encourages business owners to look for influencers in their niche with a lot of followers. Then follow and repin them. “Adding other’s perspectives will make your own boards more interesting,” she said. She makes sure to comment because then her logo will show up in the thread. “People who see your comment may go over and look at your board and become a new follower.”

Also, when someone comments on a pin, follow up with a like or comment to provide good customer service and let people know that you saw their comment, and that comments are appreciated.

When it comes to finding content to pin, Rains looks at publications and newsletters that feature rustic furniture. She subscribes to newsletters from log home companies, interior designers, and magazines such as Mountain Living.

When a pin does well she makes sure it’s being seen by her new followers by repinning it onto the same board a few months later, and shares the pin on popular group boards (such as Mountain, Lake, Campy Homes). She also shares the pin on Facebook, telling her followers that the pin is hot on Pinterest.

To see what is working, she looks at her Analytics tab on Pinterest to see the Most Recent, Most Repinned and Most Clicked sections. She could also use PinAlerts to find out what’s being pinned from her website. Then she engages with those followers, noting that It’s also a great way to find people and boards to follow back.

Thanks to Carole for sharing your Pinterest marketing tips and successes with us! We hope that your business continues to grow.

Pinterest recently announced something that makes it even more vital that anyone selling products on Pinterest use rich product pins. That is, if you use a rich product pin your product will be featured in the Gifts category. The gifts category is quite prominent and is arranged by price range. Getting your product there gives your pins more exposure outside of your own boards. Eventually the gifts category will only show rich Product Pins.

See in the screenshot below, the gifts category is right at the top:

Categories on Pinterest have gone visual. Note the gift category right at the top! After the popular, everything, video and gift categories, they are shown in alphabetical order.

Product pins are rich pins (basically one of 5 categories of pins such as recipe, article, movie or recipe pins, that automatically pull information from your website). Product pins show price, description, availability and a link to the product right on the pin.

Here’s a video with more information about rich pins:

Target is one retailer that really likes rich pins. You would too if you got these eye-popping results.  After implementing rich pins Target saw 70%+ more traffic from Pinterest.

The information for rich pins is automatically pulled from your site so you control what is written about the product. No one can alter the description in the section that is pulled from your website. If you want to see screenshots, and more data, check out this helpful post about rich pins.

You can tell a rich pin from a regular pin because it has the price and a direct link to the product page with a small logo beside it. If the price changes on your website then it will update the pin. Anyone can add a price to a regular pin, but it’s not dynamic. If the price changes then the retailer would have to manually update the price on the pin.

Example of a rich pin (note the small logo and link) – when you click you’ll see the price.

If you sell products through another retailer such as Etsy, or eBay they already have rich pins. If you have a store through Shopify you can set up rich pins for your store (directions in link). Everyone else has to set it up for their site. Just remember that you must have a business account on Pinterest to get rich pins.

Another benefit to using rich pins is that Pinterest sends an email to people who’ve pinned your product if the price drops. We can see this being a great strategy for promoting seasonal or sale priced items, lower the price and you can easily let your target market on Pinterest know.

Also, product pins get more clicks. Pinterest’s data shows, “Product Pins get higher click-through rates than regular Pins and make your brand more visible because of the logo on the Pin.” Unfortunately they haven’t released numbers, but we’ll take their word for it.

Also test pricing strategies because that determines which category within the gifts section your item will show up in. Here is the breakdown:

• $$$$ for items over $200
• $$$ for items priced $50-$200
• $$ for items priced $25- $50
• $ anything less than $50

To set up rich pins go to Pinterest’s developers site. You may need to hire a developer to help you. It’s not a simple process.

TLDR; Product pins give you higher visibility in the pin feed, more control over your descriptions, and an extra listing in the gifts category. You can change the price on your website and it automatically changes on your pins, saving you lot of headaches. As an additional bonus, if you drop your price, Pinterest sends people who’ve pinned your product an email alert.

This is a guest post from Cheryl Stinchcomb, creator of Profit Pinning, an online video Pinterest course and blogger at www.CherylStinchcomb.com

Everywhere you turn, social media sites are focusing more on visual storytelling. Do you believe it? Here are just a few examples:

• Facebook’s purchase of Instagram
• Twitter now allowing images in feeds
• Use of animated GIFs on Tumblr
• Increasing popularity of vibrant images on Pinterest

The popularity of using visuals to tell a story isn’t surprising.  We are attracted visually to things. In fact, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and visuals process 60,000 times faster in the brain than text does.  (Source: 3M Corporation)

Pinterest is the third most popular social media site, yet many business owners still don’t believe they should market on Pinterest.  They think if they aren’t pinning DIY crafts, wedding photos, fashion, or food recipes, that Pinterest cannot be successful for them.

This just isn’t true!  Pinterest isn’t just about pinning images of products; it is learning how to build relationships with your customers by showcasing your products and services in a creative, unique way.

9 Creative Ways to Visually Tell Your Brand’s Story

I have 9 creative ways to visually tell your brand’s story and broaden your customer reach by marketing your business on Pinterest.

Visual Storytelling Tip #1:  Community Involvement

People will jump behind a cause before they support a brand any day.  If your brand supports a cause, there are probably millions of other people who support it too.  Having this passion in common can help you reach a broader audience.  People need to know that you care about the things happening in the world and not just about building profits.

Create the community involvement board by using the name of the foundation or charity so it will get found in the Pinterest search engines.

Visual Storytelling Tip #2:  Create a Sense of Family

When the chips are down, the people who usually come through for us are family.  So celebrate special occasions with your Pinterest followers just as you would your family.  Southwest Airlines is having some fun with their board 41 Years of SWAwsome Holidays, and one of their pins includes Santa Claus safely leading in one of their SW planes (I hope safely).

Visual Storytelling Tip #3:  Lifestyle Improvement

Do you have a product that can improve someone’s lifestyle?  It can be as simple as how to get a grass stain out of a white shirt.  Hey, moms and dads are always looking for shortcuts.

[tbpquotable]Did you know, 68% of Pinterest users are women with half of those being mothers. -via @CherylWEBtv[/tbpquotable]

I am not a morning person, yet when I see this board from Starbucks, it makes me want to get up and enjoy the sunrise with a warm cup of coffee.  It actually motivates me.  Ask yourself, what does my brand do to help improve and simplify people’s lives?

Visual Storytelling Tip #4:  Customer’s Favorite Things

Sometimes the best story told about your brand is from your customers’ point of view.  You can use your customer’s reviews or testimonies and turn them in to quotes and pin them.  These can be linked to a testimonial page on your website.  Also, video is very powerful.  You can create a board dedicated to testimonials or you can pin them on a specific product board.

Visual Storytelling Tip #5:  Peek behind the Curtain

Everyone likes to be in the know and they want a peek of what they know they aren’t supposed to see.  Do you remember the show MTV Cribs?  People loved that show because they were able to see how their favorite celebrity lived.  They were able to enter a home that they would never have an invitation to visit in a million years. It is no different for fans with their favorite brands.  Here are a few examples from Petplan Pet Insurance.    

Visual Storytelling Tip #6:  A Look into the Past

Tell your customers how your company got started; include interviews and quotes from the founder or CEO.  I love old movies and that is probably why I love this Southwest Airlines board.  It is their vintage board that shows their old planes and uniforms.  This is an emotional connection for me because it takes me back to when I was younger.  As for the younger crowd, it could probably be pinned on a ‘humor’ board since they are probably laughing at the out-of-date hairdos and outfits.

Visual Storytelling Tip #7:  Company History

We are living in times where change is happening faster than ever.  Another way to show how your company has evolved is to include a board about the company history.  Here is a good example of McDonald’s sharing its original logo and mascot on their Golden Arches History board.  Where would McDonald’s be today without Ronald?  Luckily, we don’t have to find out.

Visual Storytelling Tip #8:  Invitation to Socialize

You can reach a different audience on Pinterest, but what if that isn’t their social media platform of choice?  What if they prefer Twitter or Facebook?  Encourage your Pinterest followers to connect with you on other social networks.  You can do this by creating a “Socialize with Us” or maybe a “Social Media Hangouts” board.  Then you pin the social media icon or other picture and link it to your account.

Here is my Social Media Hangouts Board from Pinterest.

Final Visual Storytelling Tip #9:  Be a Company that Cares

I believe this is the most important tip.  Don’t you get annoyed and avoid the brands that are always self-promoting, asking you to buy this and buy that? People want to feel cared about and appreciated.  Social media in many ways is no different from a dating relationship.  If you continue to take and never give, you will be spending many nights alone.  Look for ways that your brand can show how much you care about your customers by mastering the art of storytelling through your vibrant photos and entertaining videos!

Now it’s your turn!  What did I miss?  What special way do you tell your brand’s story visually?

About the Author

Cheryl Stinchcomb is a training program developer, speaker, and author of Pinterest Profits.  Cheryl also created Profit Pinning, an online video course that teaches business owners how to master Pinterest Marketing through a 25-day challenge. Cheryl’s biggest passion is inspiring women to be confident in their abilities and to live their life to its fullest.  Her motto is…Think Big and Be Happy.

You can find Cheryl at www.CherylStinchomb.com.

For new bloggers and businesses, marketing yourself is the most important thing you can do. The internet offers many resources for doing so, including the top social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. With these sites, promoting your blog or business is easy. The hard part is gaining the right attention, in order to get a following and start a viable business. With Pinterest, you can gain more traffic to your website almost instantly.

Tip #1: Alluring Teasers

If you want people to click on your Pinterest links, you need to create some intrigue. Think about movie teasers when you’re creating content. It’s not quite the full trailer, but it includes the important scenes and moments from the film. It shows just enough to get people excited about something, yet it doesn’t reveal too much. You can use pictures, short videos or a few lines of text to market to something behind a link to generate more clicks.

Tip #2: Leveraging Trends

Trending topics are a great way of knowing what people are talking about on social networking sites like Pinterest. Many people will peruse these trending topic tags to become more involved in whatever the conversation may be. To promote your business, you should use these trending topics liberally as well. However, be sure you know what the topic is truly about because more than enough businesses have been brought down by tasteless contributions to sensitive topics.

Tip #3: Unique Content

With original content on Pinterest, people are far more likely to click through the links to your blog or website. Most pins on the site are actually repinned, meaning that the original content is going to be passed around more often due to its rarity. If you create high quality visual content, your followers and other Pinterest users will do most of the work for you by re-pinning and passing your work around.

Tip #4: Helpful Tutorials

There’s no type of post with more clicks and re-pins than tutorials. Many Pinterest users go to the site specifically for the purpose of finding quality and easy-to-follow tutorials. If you want your posts to be clicked through and shared, create posts that are interesting, helpful and otherwise valuable to a wide audience.

Tip #5: Engaging Contests

There are many ways you can use Pinterest contests to your advantage. You can award a prize to one lucky person who pins your post. Or, you can have users create original visual content that is related to your blog or business. It’s extra advertising that gets people feeling involved with your business. However, remember to review Pinterest’s contest rules and guidelines before launching a contest. There’s nothing worse to spend time and money on a contest to have it pulled because you didn’t read the fine print.

Tip #6: Detailed Descriptions

When you are searching for content, it can be frustrating to not find what you’re looking for because of vague descriptions on posts. If you want your content to show up in as many searches as possible, you should add rich descriptions to your posts. That way, people can find your content with no issues.

Utilizing these tips for Pinterest marketing to your advantage you can expect to see more traffic to your blog and website. The followers you gain from Pinterest can become loyal readers or customers, so post wisely— it could be the key to your success.

About the Author

Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer and marketing professional in Southern California. She works with HostPapa to help businesses small and large to grow their company though effective web hosting, social media marketing, content development and SEO. She has a clear understanding of how to effectively utilize social media as a way to expand her business and helps others gain exposure as well.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Andreea Ayers, author of Pinterest Advantage and blogger at www.LaunchGrowJoy.com.

Infographics are extremely popular, especially on visually-rich sites like Pinterest, where they have the ability to go viral extremely quickly. In October 2012, I decided to experiment with infographics by creating one titled “30 ways to promote your blog posts” and posted it to my blog.

I could have easily made a list of 30 ways to promote a blog post and published that list to my blog as a regular blog entry, but after coming across Piktochart and seeing how easy it was to use, I decided to create my own infographic. Piktochart is a web-based program that allows you to create infographic without any design skills or knowledge. There are many other programs out there like it, but I personally love their templates, which is why I decided to use it over its competitors.

After about two hours and a little bit of research, I had created my first infographic! (Click to see the full graphic).

In less than six months, that infographic has received well over 30,000 repins and that number continues to climb daily. Pinterest is the #1 referrer of traffic to LaunchGrowJoy.com!

Here are the 8 steps I followed to get over 30,000 repins

1. After creating the infographic, I immediately created a blog post about the infographic and urged others to share it on their blog.
2. As soon as the post went live, I shared the infographic on Pinterest on a board titled “Marketing Tips” and encouraged my Pinterest followers to share it as well. At that time, I had about 2,500 followers to that board.
3. I followed my own advice from the infographic and sent a link to the blog post to my list, as well as shared it on social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.). A day later, I had over 400 people who re-pinned it on Pinterest and over 600 new visitors to my website.
4. A few days later I reached out to some top bloggers and websites and, by next Sunday the infographic was shared over 1,000 times on Pinterest and I received over 11,000 pageviews and over 6,000 visits to my website. It was picked up by influential marketing bloggers like Denise Wakeman and popular sites like Ragan.com. They shared my infograpic with their readers, which resulted in even more traffic to my site, more repins and more newsletter subscribers to my own list.
5. I also submitted it to infographic websites like Visual.ly and Infographis Archive and most of the sites that I submitted it to ended up publishing it.
6. In my next weekly email to my list, I encouraged them to pin the infographic to their Pinterest boards and that brought in even more re-pins. This taught me to never underestimate the power of my list and customers!
7. After I saw the success that my infographic was receiving, I decided to contact Piktochart so they can do a case study on my success with the infographic as well and they loved my story! They ended up publishing it a few weeks later on their blog.
8. To this day, I continue to share my infographic on a weekly basis on social media sites and each time I share it, the number of re-pins on Pinterest also goes up (not to mention the amount of traffic it continues to send to my website).

What is happening today

Even though I created that infographic over six months ago, it continues to drive more traffic to my website than any other factor, including Facebook.

The post with the infographic also got a lot of engagement. It has the most comments (over 170) of any post on my website. It also helps with SEO — when someone searches for “how to promote a blog,” my site is in the top three results on Google. This terms gets over 18,000 searches per month, so you can imagine the amount of traffic I’m getting just from this one post alone!

Overall, my infographic now appears on over 200,000 (yes, you read that right!) results in Google and it can be found on sites like Technorati, Bit Rebels,  Wordtracker, Marketing Land, Marketing Tech Blog, PR Daily, ePundit and The SITS Girls.

And, most importantly, it’s given me the credibility that I need to show my Pinterest Advantage clients and customers that you can get real results, get more traffic and increase your list (and sales) through Pinterest!

About the Author
Andreea works with entrepreneurs with a product line—jewelry, apparel, baby & kids products, home décor, stationery and paper goods, gifts, accessories, handmade and one-of-a-kind products, eco products and more and she helps them achieve their business dreams through her one-on-one and group coaching programs. She loves sharing everything she did to succeed in her businesses and to achieve six figure sales in TWO businesses within their first year! She is also the author and creator of Pinterest Advantage, the most comprehensive course out there on using Pinterest to grow your business. She currently blogs at www.LaunchGrowJoy.com

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 Feature the Pin

After writing our post I have seen it featured on many sites.  Recently the writers on WIKI-How have now legitimized our blog post with mention of our product as well.  Giving  full credit to the originality of the idea to Chaotically Creative.

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