AMY PORTERFIELD: Hello, hello, Amy Porterfield here, and thanks for tuning into another episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Let me tell you, it's been a CRAZY few weeks!
I got to tell you before we jump in, you might be able to relate to this, most people running a business can. I've had some website issues this last week. Not only did my website go down because I was getting so much traffic to it that my shared server actually shut down and didn't want me to allow any more traffic to it–quality problem, for sure–however, you never want your website to be down.
I did some research, I finally migrated over to a new server, one that is just me and I don't have to share it. However, during the migration I got hacked. So not only was my website down for about 48 hours, and THEN it was hacked, which is just a sick feeling when you go to your website, which is like your home, and you see this sinister image up on your website, and it actually said “You've been hacked!” which is just laughing in my face. That was not fun, so I used this great company, Synthesis. It's part of the Copyblogger brand, and they were amazing. So big shout out to Synthesis for helping me migrate my site over!
And they actually partnered with a company called Fantasktic–it's spelled funny so I'll link to it in my show notes. They also were fantastic in taking care of the migration.
I was in good hands for sure, but the site going down and then getting hacked, seriously I just wanted to crawl up in a ball and just cry for a few days. But I didn't do that. I actually just focused, got it done, my team was really helpful and I'm glad that is all over.
Let's jump into today's episode. I have invited a special guest, Melanie Duncan, to come on the show and talk about Pinterest. But we're not just talking about Pinterest in general, I'm going to get really specific.
Melanie is the creator of the extremely popular Online Training Program “Power of Pinning” and she is also the owner of Luxury Monograms and Custom Greek Threads, both online businesses for physical products. So she has a great mix of experience and knowledge with using Pinterest to promote an online training program, an info product, and also has experience with promoting physical products on Pinterest as well. So again, she's got this great mix.
For this show, I asked Melanie to come on and focus on using Pinterest for lead generation and increasing your web traffic. Specifically, I want to really focus on those online marketers that are looking to use Pinterest for their business.
Now, if you're a coach, consultant, author, speaker, service professional such as a local marketer or maybe a social media manager, then this episode will be extremely valuable for you. Let's go ahead and dive in.
Melanie, thanks so much for being here today! I really appreciate it!
Melanie: Amy, I am so excited to be here. You know you're one of my favorite people online, and we're going to have a lot of fun today discussing Pinterest.
Amy: We are! We always have a good time, so here we go. Before we actually get to the good stuff, you got to tell us a little bit about who you are and more about your businesses.
Melanie: Absolutely. Started my first online business in college, actually, with my husband. It was selling Greek Apparel. So t-shirts, sweatpants, tote bags for sorority and fraternity members, and we learned very quickly what doesn't work and what does work just through trial and error online.
Since then, we've started a couple other businesses, a home decor company, and have done some coaching and consulting businesses after mounting up a couple of years of experience.
Amy: And your signature online program is Power Of Pinning, and I have to say it's one of my favorites. I know that you've done some webinars for my audience and people are eating it up. Why do you think that program has done so well?
Melanie: I think the program has done really well and people have really responded to it in such a great way because it comes from personal experience. It comes from strategies that I have used in both my product and service businesses to drive traffic. So it's not a bunch of theories or things I've assembled from articles online, but it's really taking people behind the scenes of my business and showing them real strategies that will get real results.
Amy: And that's exactly why I wanted you to come on today, because you have this amazing mix of these physical products that you can sell and promote online, but then you also know the information marketing world. You have this online program that has done so very well, and you and your husband, Devon, have really mastered how to promote and sell the program online. And then how to deliver impeccable content as well.
So you’re the perfect mix for someone to talk about Pinterest because as you know, I wanted you on the show because many of my listeners are growing online businesses, businesses that don't necessarily have physical goods, but more so informational programs, online products and consulting services–those types of businesses. So many of them don't really understand what Pinterest can do for their business.
So for those that feel that Pinterest really only works for physical products, what words of wisdom do you have for us?
Melanie: Absolutely! And I think that's a really big misconception people have about Pinterest because they think “Oh, it only works for if I'm selling shoes or t-shirts or clothing” and the truth is, I actually think that service providers and personal brands have MORE exciting opportunities and more different strategies to apply on Pinterest than when you sell products, because when you sell products you can of course pin your products, make an online catalog, which is really cool on Pinterest, and you can create content that really demonstrates value–like, teach people how to use your products or give them ideas for how to use it.
But when it comes to selling services, or positioning a personal brand on Pinterest, you can do so much with content. Something I've chosen to do, and I have a couple different Pinterest accounts–which is one of the most common questions I get, is
people asking me “Can I only have one? How do I use it for business?” I actually say “Keep a personal one but then also set up additional ones for your business. And for my service-based page, I really focus on just delivering a ton of value.
I almost treat it like a really, really big blog, because I will pin videos to it that really add value, that teach, that help me build a relationship with my audience, that help me juxtaposition my expertise and my knowledge. And I also will pin things from my blog. I have a board on my page that is just blog posts, where I pull cool images and put a little teaser text over them that talks about whether I'm sharing my five favorite business books, or ten ways to make ideas happen. I will actually do a whole board that's almost an index, a visual index, of all the content on my blog.
As a service provider, I think you have an opportunity to really show what you got, to teach, do tutorials, to find a way to get your content out there, because Pinterest is a really, really viral platform, so there's a lot of sharing going on.
Amy: Okay, this is interesting–this is something I didn't know about. So for you, you have your own Pinterest page. Is that just your personal name?
Melanie: Yeah. If you go to pinterest.com/melanieduncan7–it's just my personal one. There's not a whole lot of strategy happening there, it's more like “Shoes I want to buy” and “Houses I want to live in.” It's the whole aspirational.
But then I have pinterest.com/luxurymonograms, which is my home decor, my eCommerce, just products, where you'll see it's mostly products, it's merchandising our products, and giving gift ideas–really just centered around that market.
But then–see, I do spend a lot of time on Pinterest! If you go to Pinterest.com/ Entrepreneuress, that's my service-based page, and that's where you'll see my blog post board, you'll see I have a whole press section where I'm kind of building my brand, I'm trying to show the different publications and places I've been featured, and I just share a lot of really cool tools, whether they're infographics or information, I also will promote my webinars on this page–there's a lot of cool things you can do as a service provider.
Amy: Okay, so for the Entrepreneuress Pinterest page–and I'll link to all of these in the show notes. Before I forget, amyporterfield.com/15, that's where you'll find all the links for everything that we talked about today. So if I went to the Entrepreneuress page, and–do they call them pages like they do for Facebook?
Melanie: Yes.
Amy: Okay, so if we went there, would you promote at all your online program, Power Of Pinning, would you be talking about it there?
Melanie: I do! Second row down. The first row is really the most important, the first two row, but the first row I really focus on content, but the second row I do. I have a board
that is just about The Power Of Pinning course. It has testimonials, it has really cool visual teasers of the content, but yeah. Just the same as you would do a product category board if you were selling pillows, you can do the same sort of thing if you have informational products or services or done-for-you types of things or templates. You can completely showcase those on Pinterest as well.
Amy: Oh, this is great! So your page will be a great example for those that are looking to build their brand, talk about their online programs, their services, their products. So that will be a great example. And I really actually didn't know those first two rows are the most important. It makes sense! But that's good to know for sure.
Melanie: Yeah. And something to be really careful about, when you DO create a new board, it gets put to the bottom. This is because Pinterest pushes it chronologically. So if you create a new board and you want it to get a lot of visual attention, you actually need to go to your page, you have to click and drag all the way up to the top. You can move the order of the boards around. But if you don't do that, people won't be as likely to see it because it's going to be stuck down on the bottom of your page.
Amy: Oh gotcha. Okay. I know it always sounds really hype-y when people say “Oh my god, I'm taking so much notes, I didn't even know all this stuff!” and I hate when I hear that, but it's TRUE. It kind of scares me how much I don't know about Pinterest, especially because I get to spend time with you and learn about it and I still don't know enough!
And that kind of leads me to my next thing, where I’ve read multiple studies that say Pinterest is driving traffic to websites at record speeds. And I’ve even had this experience where Pinterest is probably my #2 traffic source–second to Facebook, of course, because I spend so much time there–but I haven't even scratched the surface with the strategies that I can apply to Pinterest. Were you two hearing this, where
people aren't even optimizing their Pinterest platform yet but are still seeing a lot of traffic from it?
Melanie: Absolutely. And I think one of the most common reasons, or one of the reasons I think that Pinterest does refer so much traffic is because it is so visual based. I was reading an article on HubSpot the other day that shared that 90% of the information that's transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.
I think that's referring so much traffic because people are just glimpsing it, they're getting it and they're clicking. It's a much faster translation process, so it's really getting to take action and to move forward and visit new sites. But I do hear a lot about people who are using it, or not using it quite yet, and they are seeing results already.
I think that's because it is such a viral platform that when people are pinning something from your site–so hopefully you have “Pin It” buttons on there and you're encouraging and reminding people to pin your content, but even if you're NOT, people can still get that little Pin It button in their bookmarklet and they can pin any images off your site, and visuals.
So people are already going to your site, they're using Pinterest and they're finding what you have on your site inspiring or useful, they're pinning it to their boards, which is in turn showing to all their followers in the News Feed. So every time someone pins something from your site, even if you don't have a Pin It button on your site, it's going to show to all their followers, which can get you a lot of residual exposure.
Amy: Oh, see, that's where it's amazing to me where imagine if you DID apply some strategies to Pinterest–it's already working for so many people before that, imagine what it can do for you once you start applying.
Melanie: That's how I got started! It was so funny! I wasn't using Pinterest, and I was looking at my Google Analytics, and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, I'm getting traffic from Pinterest! I've got to figure out how to make this 10 times more effective!” and that's how I kind of got started with all of the strategies for the Power Pinning course.
Amy: Oh, that's so perfect! That's exactly what I was thinking. Gosh, if you're seeing that it's working for you now, what can you actually do? So I love that you actually did
that and that's how you got all into this. So a little trivia before we jump onto the next question–guess who lives in New York City, everybody? You could tell, right?
Melanie: [laughing] Did you hear the siren?
Amy: Yes! It actually sounded like it was in your back yard, which is cracking me up. I love it. And I–Melanie lives in the most AMAZING area, it's absolutely beautiful, but I always forget…living in Carlsbad, you just don't hear sirens because you're in the suburban area, but you're just in the action. I forgot about that.
Melanie: Yeah, it's a little noisy.
Amy: I like it! It adds a little…ambiance to our podcast today. Good stuff!
As you know, I like to make things as actionable as possible, so let's get down to some strategic ways online marketers can use Pinterest to drive more traffic to their websites AND also some strategies they can apply to attract quality leads. You know me, I love to
talk about list building and I know that you can use Pinterest to grow your email list. So why don't you throw out some strategies that people can try out right away in order to start seeing results with their Pinterest marketing?
Melanie: Sure. I think that one of the most effective ways that you can really generate traffic off of Pinterest is to create what I call Teaser Pins, which is basically some sort of an image, whether if it's a picture you took off Instagram or if you want to buy a royalty-free photo on iStockPhoto or ShutterStock or one of those–taking an image and then putting a little bit of text over it. You can use Photoshop, I use PicMonkey–I know Amy and I are both big fans of PicMonkey!
Amy: Thanks to you!
Melanie: [laugh] But basically just drawing out some sort of enticing, curiosity- provoking text. Maybe it's the headline of the blog post you're going to link to, maybe it's the most important thing that you're going to teach in a video that you're going to link to, but I create these teaser pins that I then use to link to my blog post articles, to my videos, for a webinar sign-up page, and that is what I use to draw traffic, and I also use that same strategy for building my list. Because what I do is, we all have some enticing offer, right? Some reason that people want to sign up for our list. Like I give away a free list of tools that I use as an online business owner.
What I did is I created all these cool graphics, cool images, where I really talked about “Hey, free list of the top ten tools for online business owners!” And I did a couple different ones, of course making them tall because the taller images they are the more real estate they get in the news feed, and I tested some different colors and adding borders around my pins, just like how we know adding colorful borders around Facebook ads tend to get more attention, I started adding borders around my tall pins in the news feed and seeing if they were getting more clicks.
And Linked those pins to an opt-in page. All I did was create pins that talked about what my free gift was, what my free training was going to be, and then I linked that to a page similar to what HubSpot–HubSpot does an AMAZING job of this on their Pinterest Page. They have a whole eBooks board where they have covers of all of their different eBooks–think about if you give away a report as your free gift for opting in. And each one of their Pins are these free eBooks on different topics and each pin links to a different opt-in page to get that free report about free eBooks.
Essentially just create visual content that links to content that's already on your site or opt-in pages that are already up on your website.
Amy: This is great! Most people listening have a blog site, already have their original content there, so you can actually go back and create these images for content that already exist.
Melanie: Exactly! As much as it's great to create really laser-focused visual content for Pinterest like tutorials or infographics, all of that is great, but just to get started, let's be realistic, there's so many people that know they should be on Pinterest by now, but they just don't want to put in the massive up front work to get started. I say just duplicate the content you already have, just create some sort of visual teasers and link to that. Use what you already have made.
Amy: OK, perfect. This is so doable for anyone listening now.
I've got to go back to a few things. Although most people I'm going to guess know about PicMonkey, there's going to be a handful of people that have never heard of it. Talk about it really fast just so people know that's such a great tool to get started with images.
Melanie: It's really fun, particularly if you're not a tech savvy person. Photoshop, of course, is going to be the most powerful, but PicMonkey you can drag and drop images into it, and what they really focus on is adding overlays or adding some sort of textual element. So they've got tons of different fonts, different colors you can resize and shape, put banners, but it's mostly meant for adding some sort of overlay to an existing photo.
It is free. They have an upcharge if you want to get the full font pack and all of that cool stuff. Depends on how much you use it. But the free element is just great to be adding very simplistic, basic text to photos or images you already have.
Amy: Perfect. And you mentioned the taller images, the better. That's something I've never really played with. Is there a certain spec you want to go for, for these taller images?
Melanie: You know, everyone does ask me that and I read tons of articles that say “Oh it should be 200 pixels by 800 pixels” and there are certain numbers, but really what I've found is that it's not the particular pixel dimensions, you just want it to be taller than it is wider. And you don't want it to be so tall that people are scrolling, and scrolling and scrolling. That's just kind of obnoxious. But I tend to make my pin at least 3 times as tall as it it's wide.
Amy: Okay, that's a great practice there. So that's something to play with, and the thing with PicMonkey–Melanie said this but I really want to hit home, people get a little confused.
It's basically used for you've got an image, whether you find it on iStockPhoto or wherever you find it. And you upload the image, then you overlay the text and the borders and all that cool stuff.
I use it every single day. I use it a lot for the images i put on Facebook as well. You can use it across the board.
Okay, that's good stuff. So we've got these teaser pins. Really actionable, people can take the content they already have and start creating some of these pins. Give me another.
Melanie: The other thing I would really focus on is increasing the amount that you get people that pin stuff off your site. Because as much as we love getting people to pin
things that you're pinning, so off of your account as your followers, there's also a tremendous amount of opportunity to get other people to pin off of your site, and then again like we talked about, that's residual exposure, where all of their followers will see what they're pinning.
I would do kind of a little bit of a site rehaul. Go to all of your pages, make sure that either you have a little Pin It button which you can get installed–you can literally just go into Google and type “how to install Pin It button on site.” There's lots of free little plugins and different templates depending on what type of site you have.
But I also will put in the text of my articles–people are reading one of my blog posts, I'll try to go in to certain posts, the newer ones, and actually put below the image “Hey, if you found this information cool, make sure that you click the button above and pin it so that you can have this stored to your page so you can share it with your audience.” So I try to do that, make sure it's on my product pages, make sure that it's written in my blog posts, even adding it in the text below YouTube videos.
Amy: Oh, that's really good! I love that because I do think there's a little bit of confusion sometimes about where you're adding this link, because–forgive me, because this is a little bit ignorant and I should know this and I probably do if I'm playing around with it, but right now I'm thinking if you upload an image, or you pin an image to Pinterest, one of yours. That image is clickable back to your website automatically, right?
Melanie: If it's pinned off of your site–so if I went to melanieduncan.com and I clicked Pin It and I pinned one of my images on my blog post, yes. It would automatically link back to my site. BUT what's important to know–and it's actually really great that you asked this question, Amy. You can upload things from your computer. so say you have a photo saved or some cool chart, and it's saved to your computer or your desktop, and you go to upload
it, Pinterest will make you go through an extra hoop to have that linked somewhere. Because when you upload it, you can add what boards you want it to, you type in your caption, but–and they'll say “Okay, go ahead and pin” and then it'll pin the image. It will not link anywhere. Which is a huge disadvantage for business owners. you have to go back in, click edit on that Pin–after it's already been pinned, it's not during the pinning process–you have to go back and edit and you'll see a source field right below the pin. And that's where you have to go in and put the website, because—
And this is–I normally, if I've got some content like that, I'll just link it to my home page or I'll link it to one of my opt-ins. It doesn't have to be especially catered to one particular page on your site, but you always want everything on your Pinterest page to be clickable. Because you want to train your audience, you don't want them to think “Eh, only half of her stuff links anywhere, so I'm not going to click on it.” You want everything to be consistent and so everything you pin should link somewhere.
Amy: Okay, that's great to know. Because I had this thought…and you've got to tell me, actually, be really candid if this is a good idea or not–but I've been teaching people a lot about lead pages, and I know you know lead pages as well. It's this tool that allows you to create opt-in pages really easily, literally a few clicks of the button, you've got an opt-in page up. So if you've got a free video series, an eBook, some kind of printable or giveaway, this is a great way to collect leads.
Let's say that i have this lead page, and there's nothing really good to pin on the lead page, I could actually create a custom image with maybe some words about my giveaway, upload it to Pinterest and then link it to that lead page. Is that right?
Melanie: 100%, absolutely.
Amy: And do you like that idea? Do you think that's a good idea?
Melanie: Absolutely! That's what I've done across multiple accounts, is I've created different–don't think you only have 1 pin that links to the same opt-in page. You could have 5 different pins highlighting different things. Maybe you're also on your newsletter, you give a free training, a free video training, or maybe you just give really cool weekly updates or information about your podcast.
You can draw out different elements of it, see which ones start to get the most repins, see which ones get the most clicks. Pinterest does have analytics now available if you have a business page, so if you go to business.pinterest.com, you can convert an existing account, a personal business, or you can just set up a whole new account as a business owner, but once you have an official business page an it's totally free right now at least, once you have an official business page you'll have access to analytics. You can actually see which of your pins are the most repinned. How many of them have gotten the most clicks. You can see which particular offer or which feature is really attracting attention.
Amy: Okay, love this. That's great. Anybody who has any kind of opt-in pages out there where you're collecting names and emails, definitely take some action right away and get some pins up there that are going directly to those opt-in pages. Those images are SO important because no one is going to want to repin them or click on them if they're not engaging enough, especially because you're sending them to get names and emails. So you want to make those images really, really good.
You've made a great point that I should've asked you earlier. The difference between a personal versus a business page–are they very different and do you suggest that people are doing these business pages? I know we've talked about different pages, but are all of yours personal vs. business?
Melanie: That's a great question. Actually it's a little confusing because they're basically the exact same. You would not be able to, as a Pinterest user, go onto someone's page and tell if it's personal or a business. On Facebook, it's pretty obvious, whether it's a like or you add a friend. They're the exact same thing except if you have a business page you have access to the analytics tool. So if you have a business page, if you go up to the top right in the drop down you'll see one of the features is analytics. If you don't see that, you don't have a business page.
Amy: Okay, perfect. That's good to know. The analytics–that's a big deal! It's really great to see what's working and what's not working.
Melanie: And in that top right also, it'll–you might not see analytics if you haven't switched to the new look. Always go to the top right, make sure you've switched to the new look, and make sure that you have analytics featured.
Amy: Okay, got it. So talking a little bit more about list building, driving traffic back to your website, what are your thoughts on video and Pinterest?
Melanie: I am all about it!
Amy: Oh, good!
Melanie: You know, it's a little different. I don't know your viewpoint, Amy, with Facebook. But my videos on Facebook, they're good for branding and for getting some really personalized content, but they're not–I don't have as high of engagement with them as I do images. The opposite is true on Pinterest actually. some of the videos I've pinned have the highest engagement.
And I think the reason is–actually, I don't know exactly whether this isn't true for Facebook, but there's not very many videos on Pinterest, so if you pin a video and someone sees it in their news feed, it has a big play button in the middle of it and it really pops off the page. It seems to attract a lot of attention.
You can also watch the video–similar to Facebook, right inside of Pinterest you can click play, it'll play right inside of there. But I have found my audiences LOVES videos. I know Birch Box, a cosmetics company, has a whole board, they call it Birch Box TV and they–it's all videos teaching them how to use the makeup they sell.
They teach you how to use it, they give you new ideas, and people love it! They have skyrocketed their fanbase because they're creating this really engaging, useful content. So I am all about videos on Pinterest.
Amy: Okay, good, because i wasn't sure how you felt about that and that's the one thing that I really love about a fairly new platform, is that not everybody IS using video on Pinterest! Most people don't even know you can play a video inside Pinterest automatically.
Melanie: Exactly!
Amy: Now, are you getting this video from YouTube?
Melanie: Yes. You have to pin a video either off of Vimeo or YouTube. Once you have the Pin It button in your bookmarklet, if you go to the Pinterest or the Goodies section you can drag it up there, you can pin from anywhere. So when you're on a particular YouTube page or Vimeo pages with your video on it, you just click Pin It, and it pulls the video. You don't have to embed anything or do anything super-tech-crazy stuff. It just pins directly from the page the video's playing on.
Amy: Oh, perfect. So that's easy enough. No uploading or anything like that.
Melanie: Nope.
Amy: You mentioned a few times this news feed, and I’m going to guess that the news feed on Facebook–and of course I compare everything to Facebook, that's just how my
mind works–but the news feed on Facebook is essential. If you're not getting out there and if people aren't seeing your stuff it's because you're not getting into the news feed.
Does the news feed work the same way on Pinterest? Is it that vital?
Melanie: It is very vital. I would say it's probably not AS viral as Facebook, because we do see a lot of people discovering these pages on Pinterest and they'll go onto a page and they'll go through the boards…and, you know, people normally won't go to Facebook Page and spend 20 minutes scrolling down the timeline.
But people will on Pinterest come to a new board and because of the way the content is categorized, each pin is on a particular board under a particular topic, we do see the content work a little bit more in a circular manner compared to just only the most recent content being featured.
But that being said, I've polled a lot of my audience and the majority do say that how they use Pinterest is they go onto the homepage, they log in, go onto Pinterest and they look through their news feed and they see what other people are pinning. so it's still really important to make sure that you're dripping your content over time, that you're pinning at different times of the day to see when the most amount of your followers are engaging with your content.
There's all these best practices, like they say Pinterest users, most of them are on early in the day or late at night, but I'd say everyone's audience is different, so you've got to test a few and then look and see where you're really seeing the difference in engagement.
Amy: Okay, cool. That's really helpful. I haven't spent much time in the news feed, but I could see, you know, my whole thing is–market research. I love to see what other people are doing, what's working for them, what my competitors are doing, so I'm going to check that out for sure.
I'm curious to know–there's some mistakes I know that we all make when it comes to social media, and there's got to be probably two or three mistakes you see often when it comes to Pinterest. And I'd love to hear what you have to say about that and specifically what are those mistakes as it relates to online marketers, those that have the online program or their coaches or consultants? What are you seeing that they're not doing so well and how can they fix that?
Melanie: Sure. Two main things–the first thing is not enough original content. So people who come in with the mindset that they're going to use Pinterest for business, but they end up using it just like a personal account. They follow a bunch of their friends from Facebook or people they know in their industry and they repin stuff. They're not really actively using it as a platform to share their content.
What happens is they get this great page with hundreds of pins and they'll reach out to me and go “Melanie doesn't work. It just doesn't work. I'm not increasing my traffic!” And I'll go take a look and there's three pins that actually link back to their site. And the only way that you're going to get more traffic, or the most effective way, is to have more of your content that actually links to your site, you know. Someone's not going to necessarily–if I repin something from your site, Amy, people are going to click through and go to your site, not to mine, even though I'm the one that repinned it.
Definitely focusing on original content is a great way to overcome a really common mistake.
Amy: Okay, great.
Melanie: And the second mistake I see is people not understanding how to grow their follower base. I'm sure this is a hot topic for your audience as well, but I have a lot of clients that they will put months into building their Pinterest page, and they've got just incredible–they've got custom-made infographics, they've really gone above and beyond.
And they got 3 followers.
And that's not doing them any favors, because without followers nobody is going to actually repin your stuff and share it in a big way, and that's really what we want we do is get your content more exposure.
Amy: And it's like Facebook in the sense–or tell me if it's like Facebook, where you have fans and then your content's getting out into the news feed of those fans. Works the same way.
Melanie: Exactly.
That's why you want people to follow you, is they actually see what you're pinning and they share it with their audience as well.
Amy: Okay, so we need some tips for more followers, because I could really use this as well.
Melanie: You'll love this. Probably one of the most effective tips is to start integrating your Facebook and Pinterest marketing together.
Amy: Oh, nice!
Melanie: Yeah! Most people that are on Pinterest are probably already on Facebook because even though Pinterest is my little darling, let's face facts. Facebook is a bigger social media platform and more people are on it, and most business owners already have a business page.
They've been using Facebook for a year, or two years, or three years. So why not leverage that audience you already have on your Facebook page? They've already raised their hand and said “Hey! I'm interested in what you do and the content you create!” So why not let them know that you're also doing some cool activity on Pinterest?
I tend to at least once a week, but you could amp this up more–I will put a link as a status update on my Facebook Page to a particular new pin I added or two a particular board. Like I have a books recommendation board, so different books that I like, and every once in a while I'll actually post a link to that board.
So you can post a link to your page on Pinterest, you can post a link to one of your boards in particular, or you can post a link to a specific pin. But when you post that link, Facebook will auto-generate it and will show the preview of the board or the preview of the pin, and it's just a really cool way to–it's good engagement on your Facebook Page, but it's also letting your audience know “Hey, come follow me on Pinterest” and give them a reason why.
Is it different content? Do you do exclusive offers or discounts on your Pinterest page? But most of the time you don't even need a reason. People who are on Pinterest are still trying to find new people to follow, and they'll follow you pretty easily.
Amy: That is so great! Because it's really easy to do, people already have these business pages and they can start building up their Pinterest following quickly. I love that.
I KNEW you were going to come to the table with some good stuff.
Melanie: Ha ha, I try, for you Amy!
Amy: You always do! And it's so fantastic because I'm always worried, and I told you this earlier, bringing someone on the show and going “Oh, are they going to be able to share really great content that people can take action with?” I had no worries whatsoever. So I really appreciate you taking the time here.
I want to ask you one more final question, and that is, just to kind of wrap things up–if you were to give us just one action to take in the next 24 hours in order for us to start seeing momentum on Pinterest, what would you suggest?
Melanie: I would definitely suggest to get Pin It buttons on your website, whether they are just a basic install and you're putting it below images on your blog posts, or you're making sure that you have it added to your social media share icons on your product pages, the best single action you can do is just to make sure that people have a way to pin things off of your site.
Amy: And the way to get those buttons, do you need to get them from Pinterest?
Melanie: Yeah. It depends on what type you want. There's just a basic, generic Pin It button that you can get by going to the Pinterest page under the About section, under Goodies, you can get the Pin It button. But you can also–like if you have a WordPress and you want a really cool pop-up one, there are tons of different free and paid Pin It buttons that have different looks and different little bonuses. So it depends on how fancy you want to get. But at least get something on there.
Amy: Perfect! I love that tip. I really encourage all of you to take that tip right away and do something with it. And then in the comments let us know that you did it! We'll keep you accountable. I know that I've already got the Pin It button on your website but I don't think I have it within the images so I'm going to play with that as well.
Again, Melanie thank you so much for being here! It was truly an honor to have you!
Melanie: Aw, thank you Amy! I had a lot of fun!
Amy: All right. Well, talk to you soon and take care.
Melanie: Bye!
Amy: There you have it! Some actionable Pinterest strategies for online marketing. I know I've got a LOT of work to do on my Pinterest pages in order to optimize them. But I'm kind of excited about it because I can see how there's a return on the investment of my time and energy. So how about you? Are you going to dive in and try a few new strategies? Take one action item at a time, be patient with yourself, commit to getting it done and you'll start to see some momentum.
All the links that we talked about in this show can be found at AmyPorterfield.com/15. Also, if you like this podcast, you know I always ask you to PLEASE help me share the love. If you go to amyporterfield.com/love you can tweet about it and help me spread the word.
One more thing–one of the things that gets more people to actually check out this show is if I got some great reviews out there. If you do like the show and you have, let's say, 5 minutes max, will you please take the opportunity to write a quick review? I would greatly appreciate it. I'll have the link to where you can get to that review in my show notes. Again, AmyPorterfield.com/15.
Again, thanks so much! Have a wonderful day, and I'll talk to you again soon. Take care!
