Your first steps with Pinterest have been made, congrats! Now you have entered the path to preparing the 3 big events coming up this year: Oktoberfest, Halloween and – of course – Christmas! People will start looking for presents soon, and you should inspire your followers with your gift ideas. Traffic is the word, traffic for your shop! You will attract attention by creating boards for each occasion while creating backlinks to your products. But be careful – it is important NOT to have your boards look like a plain billboard. It’s a good idea to have your pins concentrate on lively images that evoke emotions. Not all pins should bear relevance to your products, but always fit the occasion thematically. If you – for example – show terrible presents that nobody would possibly want, you can use this chance to refer to a better gift in a nonchalant way. And of course those ‘better presents’ can be found in your shop. Well-directed discount banners or a sweepstake (that you can think of?) work well when applied sparingly. Or you create a How-to-Guide for e.g. finding the ideal gift for parents who allegedly don’t want any gifts?!
When creating boards you should keep in mind that Pinterest users can follow both your account as well as your individual boards. You will receive notification that “Max started following 1 of your boards” or “Max started following you on Pinterest”. What that means for you? Presuming you create a board called “Oktoberfest” and this board has 100 followers after a week or so (NB – the board, not your account) then you will not be able to transfer those 100 followers to the Halloween board that you create for November. Only users following your account are able to automatically receive updates on newly established boards. But how can you keep the folks following your Oktoberfest board?
The easiest way to keep your followers 100% is to change the board name from “Oktoberfest” to “Halloween”. There is a disadvantage, though. The pins on your board can lead to thematic confusion unless you delete the old Oktoberfest pins irrevocably.
A ‘clean’ option for sustainable success with Pinterest is getting people enthusiastic about your account. There are other options to exploit – promote new boards on Facebook or Twitter, and drop a Pin or two on your Oktoberfest board leading to your new Halloween board. But you should yield temptation and not spray-paint all kinds of content all over Pinterest. Users are more likely to follow you if you find and establish your niche, and then they will also follow your other boards. Staying true to yourself and your message will definitely improve your chances since you convey a more genuine impression to potential customers.
Here for an example: “Sheep Halloween” could be a board aimed at promoting funny DIY ideas. You might come up with an idea of “how to turn a pumpkin to sheep” or “how to use old t-shirts for sheep costumes”. Maybe you can photoshop a sheep eating pumpkin pie. In a couple of weeks you create a new board called “Sheep Christmas”. Show a pic of a sheep in a crib or in a Christmas stocking hanging from the mantlepiece. Create a cartoon sheep thinking it is s reindeer etc. And of course you have the best gift ideas for followers of your sheep in your shop…
Activity, continuity and creativity are vital and essential to your success. It is also important to understand the Pinterest community and the mechanisms of the platform. This article of the American SEO agency SEOmoz will provide a deeper understanding. As a rule of thumb, you should not consider Pinterest a one-way street. Take a look to your left and right to see how others generate traffic, but stay true to yourself.
