Today’s blog post comes to us from Gillian Muessig, Founding President of SEOmoz
As an ecommerce entrepreneur, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, goody. Just what we needed… another Social Media platform.” But hear me out.
Pinterest Is Tailor-Made For Ecommerce Site Owners!
Really! Now, I’m not suggesting you throw out all your work on Facebook and Twitter. But I am suggesting you take a look at Pinterest and get in early. You’re going to love this one. It will feed Facebook’s constant need for content. It will give you something to Tweet about. It will actually make your life easier, not more complicated. And it will get photos of your wonderful products in front of a lot more eyeballs. Now how’s that for a springtime gift?
How Does It Work And What Do I Have To Do?
Pinterest is a corkboard… online. You pin pictures on it and share them with your friends. People may already pinning images of items from your website on Pinterest and sharing these photos with their friends right now. This is a really good thing. What you want to do is get some photos up yourself, thank the folks who are sharing your photos already, and connect with folks who seem to be interested in the things you sell who aren’t yet acquainted with your website.
Here’s How
- Add the Pin It button to your browser so you need only select any image from any url you happen to be on and click the Pin It button in order to add it to your Pinterest boards. Get the Pin It button and simple instructions here.
- Label Boards on your Pinterest account. Each Board is like a bulletin board. Keep them simple and well organized. Got shoes? Put casual shoes for men on one Board and evening shoes for women on another. Scarves? Put men’s scarves on one Board and women’s on another. In time, you’ll have boards with shoes that match your scarves, Best scarf being worn by movie stars, Most elegant use of a scarf, sexiest scarves, and surprising scarf applications boards… you get the idea. Start simple. Keep things organized as you go.
- Select some photos from your website to “pin” on your Boards.
That’s a good start! Check out this step by step instruction for getting started on Pinterest. It’s truly simple.
Now select items from other Pinterests that are somehow related to your subject. If you sell walking sticks, share photos from other Pinterests that either include walking sticks or perhaps are photos of amazing places around the world where you would want to see your walking sticks in use. The idea is to share on a BROADER LEVEL – don’t just put photos of your own stuff up there.
How Can You Increase Interest In Your Wares And Boost Your Bottom Line With Pinterest?
First, connect your customers to your Pinterest page. Send out an email that announces that you’ll be sharing new products, photos from customers using your products so everyone can great ideas (excellent if you sell wearables, home decor or craft items) and of course, special sale notices. Once you have a bit of a following…
Run A Contest
Ask your followers to send in their photos wearing your product, using your jigsaw or of the dollhouse they made with it, or of the home decor item that they purchased from you in place and looking great. Choose the best 1 or 3 or 5 and award prizes. Post their images on what you will call the ‘User Generated Board’. You’ll need to name it something wonderful for your readers of course. Something like: Live And In Action! for a sporting goods Pinterest page or Weddings Always Make Us Cry for a wedding gown shop.
The idea is to get engagement from your current customers who will send the photo to be pinned. Encourage them to share that photo with their friends via Twitter and Facebook because their photo is good enough to be selected to be on your Board. That goes double for the prize winners. And the prize winners get badges saying they had the best photo of the month, the year, or the variety… you choose whatever works for you. They get a badge from you as well saying they are a winner. Encourage them to post that badge on their Facebook page, tweet about it, and put it on their personal blog if they have one as well.
Note: no cash prizes for pinning your products or re-pinning your pins (pictures). Paying for pins is like buying links or buying Facebook fans. Just don’t do it.
Offer Deals
People like consistency. And when you get folks accustomed to seeing something or checking in on something on a regular basis, it becomes habit. Offer a deal of the week on the same day every week. Pinterest Mondays (or any other day) can be your day to make a special offer. You can keep all the offers on an Offer Board and you even re-run some offers that are particularly popular.
Play A Game With Prizes
Share some images of folks using your products. Give clues as to where it is and when folks find the photo; give them a discount or another prize. Spread the game via Twitter and Facebook. Tell people to RT (retweet) you and share the game with their friends, too.
Be imaginative. It’s easy and fun to play games and hold contests around taking photos related to your products and sharing them. It engages your customers and encourages them to stop by regularly to see what the newest game looks like and what the prizes and offers are.
When you pin something on Pinterest, tweet about the new image. Not every image; that’s just annoying. Tweet about the best, the funniest, the most amazing, outrageous, etc. When you find other pins related to your website, share those and give credit where it’s due. You can – and should – include a link to the originating website with your images. That’s how people browsing through the great photos on Pinterest get to the website where they can take action… like buy your product!
Have fun, everyone. Pinterest was BORN to be used by e-commerce website owners and marketers. And finally, you’ll have something to write about on Facecbook and Twitter without spending hours thinking up what to say.
Gillian Muessig
Founding President SEOmoz
CEO Coach at WebmasterRadio.fm
@SEOmoz & @SEOmom
Miva