Skip to content

Pinterest Dash- Strategies for Attracting Followers and Driving Traffic to Your Blog

Are you ready to level up with Pinterest? This is the question I asked the audience attending my recent presentation at New Media Expo in Las Vegas.

Pinterest Dash- Strategies for Attracting Followers and Driving Traffic to Your Blog

The sessions title was “Taking Your Pinterest Account to the Next Level: Strategies for Attracting Followers and Driving Traffic to Your Blog.” The title was created with podcasting pro Cliff Ravenscraft in mind who is always taking things “to the next level.”

I knew the crowd at New Media Expo isn’t the kind that stands for boring presentations I had to do something different. The presentation had to be more than just informational it had to be fun. Plus, this conference was in Las Vegas why not have a little fun with it, right?

Inspired by my video game loving family, I decided to make the presentation with a video game theme. The game I conjured up is called Pinterest Dash, a race to collect pins and drive traffic to your site. The slides for the presentation are the training module of the game. The entire slide deck can be seen at the end of this post but it was much more fun in person. There were animations and special effects, very Vegas!

The entire presentation is at the end of the post but here are a few slides with some of the major points of the presentation:

Slide 13 CARS

New Media Expo is jam packed with great speakers. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, gave one of the opening keynotes. During his presentation he shared 10 lessons he’s learned from 10 years of blogging. One of the lessons that really stuck out for me was that he learned to have empathy for the audience he was trying to reach with his blog. He reminded us that we are creating content not for ourselves, but for the people we are trying to serve and what they need. When we do that, our content will find success.

This same concept can be applied to our Pinterest boards. When creating them, keep in mind the needs, problems and interests of the people we are trying to reach and serve. Doe your boards follow the acronym C.A.R.S.?

C. Are the complete? Do they have at least 5 pins so that visitors to your account don’t see empty spaces?

A. Is your board cover image attractive? Does the image represent the contents of the board well? Does it fit well within the space or does it get cut off?

R. Though almost at the end, this is the most important part of the acronym. Is this board relevant? In keeping with Lee’s lesson of empathy, will the topic of this board matter to the people you’re trying to reach as they relate to your business?

S. Is your board searchable? Are you including keywords in your board’s title and description? Remember, Pinterest is a powerful search tool that also happens to be indexed by Google. Including keywords cannot only help your boards be found on Pinterest but on Google as well.

Building Boards on PInterest

 Slide 19: Use what you have

One of the questions I’m most frequently asked is how to build a following. The first place to start is to use what you already have. On the top right hand side of your Pinterest home page where you see the most recent pins of those you follow, you’ll see a box in the top left corner of the page. It gives you options to invite friends to Pinterest or to connect with friends already on Pinterest.

Go ahead and give the find friends button a try. It will pull up a page that shows your connections on Twitter and your friends from your personal Facebook profile that have a Pinterest account. Go ahead and follow them first and they could return the favor. Chances are that if they connected with you on one network, they’ll be likely to connect with you on another.

Grow Followers on Pinterest with other social networks

Slides 20 & 21 Strategically follow

As mentioned before, sometimes someone will follow you if you follow them first but, you want to resist following just anybody. You should have a strategy. If you’re looking to build a following and drive traffic with Pinterest you should follow strategically.

In the example given in the slides, I searched on Pinterest for “easy dinners” boards for a client’s account. The client in this example is a kid’s activities blog called My Kids’ Adventures. The first board was on an account owned by Emily Fenz. While Emily is probably a great person I wouldn’t follow her easy dinner board from my client’s account. Why? I took a look at her other boards and quickly realized that Emily is a single woman with no boards dedicated to kids. Though she had some great recipes pinned, she would probably have no interest in any of the kid-centric content of the client.

The account featured on slide 21 however, also has an easy dinner board but it also says “for the family” in there board’s title. They also have a kid’s crafts board and have a picture of 2 kids as their profile image. This is a much better fit for a board to follow for kid’s and family blog.

Choose accounts strategically to follow on Pinterest

Strategically follow on Pinterest

Slide 22: Only follow active pinners

Whether you come across accounts through a Pinterest search or by looking at your current connections on other social networks, only follow active accounts.

To see when an account was last pinned to, click on the number of pins underneath the account’s profile box. Then click on the pin that appears in the top left corner of the page. This is the most recent image pinned to the account. Just underneath the image and next to the account’s name, you’ll see how long it has been since the account was pinned to.

Follow active Pinners on Pinterest

 

Pinterest Dash!

Aside from the amazing experience of giving this presentation I had a great time with old friends and with making new ones.  Jared, Dan and Joe, the guys from the podcast Holiday Mashup and I kicked off NMX with a meetup. What a great time! Thank you to all who attended!

12 Comments

  1. Avatar

    Hi Cynthia,
    Hey, I’m already a follower on Pinterest! I had no idea I was a fan before I was a “fan” You were so kind to share this with me due to a late flight to NMX and missing your scheduled session! I’m sorry I missed it, and wish I could have said hello in person!! Lori

  2. Avatar

    Thank you so much for sharing your presentation Cynthia – especially for those of us not able to attend. I am sure the attendees found your session really interesting and that they left with ideas for their own Pinterest marketing plans.

    • Avatar

      My pleasure Krishna! It was a lot of fun giving the presentation. I wasn’t to sure about the whole video game theme but the audience seemed to enjoy it. Thanks for stopping by 🙂

  3. Avatar

    Thanks for posting this review of your most excellent #Pinterest presentation at #NMX. Now, I don’t have to simply rely on my notes.

  4. Avatar

    Thanks Cynthia for your great presentation. I love the tip about following only active accounts. I was wondering about that and it does make sense.

    Now, if I could only find out how to remove the right top box: Pins From. We added a couple pins from a couple people on a new board we created. I deleted the board, and unfollowed all from one of the people showing on Pins From: and that did not remove them from the Pins From box. I searched high and low online and could not find an answer. If you have any tips, would love to hear from you on your thoughts in a replay comment!

    • Avatar

      Hi Wayne,

      Thanks so much for you kind words about my presentation.

      As for removing the “Pins from” the only way to change that is to pin form other people. There really isn’t an easy way to remove them. Bummer, huh?

  5. Avatar

    I enjoyed your presentation, Cynthia. You definitely made it fun for everyone! It was great to meet you and your husband at the conference. I certainly came back with a lot of useful information.

    • Avatar

      Great to meet you too Angie! It’s so great to meet online friends in real life.

  6. […] conversions that are measured in terms of clicks. Cost per action (CPA) or clicks that result in driving traffic to a business&#8217. Website have a high probability of getting converted to revenue provided the […]

  7. Avatar

    The best way to drive traffic is using videos. They attract your visitors’ attention and facilitate analyse how long visitors stay on your site, which is almost impossible with only written content. Posting interesting videos on regular basis will help compel site guests to check your website for the newest updates on the industry. Do you know more effective strategies to drive traffic?


Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

shares