The simplicity of Pinterest makes it very popular too. Basically after signing up you add a little bookmark to your favourite’s bar which allows you to start “pinning”…

So, what is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a kind of online pin board that can be used in a number of ways.  It can be used just like a real pin board for things like organization, planning, and showing things off to the world. On Pinterest you can post your images, videos, and anything you find on the Internet onto a pin board for any number of reasons. You can post it so you don’t forget it, to keep things organized; you can use it to plan, and many other things.

But on top of these functions Pinterest uses what it finds out about you through what you post on your pin board to connect you with other people with the same interests, making it a social media network as well. Through meeting other people with your same interests Pinterest lets you learn more about what you like and discover completely new things that you would probably be interested in.

At the time of writing this it was invite only – but this is not a big deal as you can request an invite from the site. Once this part is done you can set up your account and get started. I would suggest making a few pin boards up with a few different categories – make sure to include a personal one too, maybe some holiday destinations, or dream destinations……

So how do I get traffic from Pinterest?

The great thing about pinning your images on your boards is that the image contains the original link, so if people click on the image they are directed to the site. You can also re-pin other people’s images and videos onto your boards doubling the link. Imagine the ripple effect of this for a second? You could effectively have an image that could be re-pinned over and over and over again……..each time with a link to your site. It allows followers too much like the other social media platforms so each follower you have will see your boards.

Twitter allows you to write a tweet of 140 characters, this tweet gets sent out on your twitter feed and your followers can read it. But they will only see it if they are on their timeline at that moment. The big advantage with the way Pinterest works is that it is designed with a form of endless scrolling, which means you can get lost for hours and never run out of things to find on the page.

There is a great set of analytics tools with Pinterest, these tools will allow you to see things like how much traffic you’re directing to your website from Pinterest, how much traffic is being directed to your Pinterest, and exactly where the traffic on your Pinterest is coming from. This allows you to find people promoting your business and reward them in some way, which of course leads to more promotion from that person.

Must Read: How to Use Pinterest in Your Marketing Strategy

Increase your Online Popularity with Pinterest

A common thing going on at the moment is running a competition; this could include a small prize, an eBook, or even a cash prize. This should also link to your site and people could have to sign up to your mailing list in order to get their prize. There are many ways Pinterest can be used. I have seen all manner of companies using Pinterest, from wedding dress makers, bathroom specialists, and even plain old boring Internet Marketers. The point is there is a place for everyone.

I have seen businesses use it to promote their company’s ‘human side’ a bit more by putting pictures of staff events on there to show off their friendly side for possible employees.

I have seen people promote their cupcake businesses by showing off their latest designs.

I have seen Internet Marketers promote themselves by pinning how-to videos and images of their guides and courses.

Another great feature is the ability to cross-pollinate with the other social media giants. For example if your company has a Facebook page, that account can be synced with the company’s new Pinterest channel and people from the Facebook page will see on your feed that you’ve started to pin things on Pinterest. They are then highly likely to go and check it out, further reinforcing their connection to your business.

These are just a few ways to use this emerging social media giant. The great thing about Pinterest is it allows people to be creative – a key aspect in any marketing plan.

Are you on the Pinterest train yet? If not, you should think about getting on board.

No matter what your business model, as long as you have a product or service to offer you will be able to do this. For this example I will use my free marketing guide (nothing like a bit of self promotion!) But throughout this post you should imagine your own product.

The first thing I would probably do I set up a squeeze page for this – but this is not promotion. Promotion is getting people to this page. Once this is set up I would go about my ways of driving traffic here. And there are many ways!

So, my free marketing guide is an eBook about yep you’ve guessed it Internet marketing, mainly for newbies. It is an 87-page 99% text based eBook – covering everything one needs to know about making money from Internet marketing and affiliate marketing. Let’s see how I could perform an integrated campaign to promote this.

Flickr

Flickr is a photo sharing platform powered by Yahoo. My eBook has a whole host of valuable information in it, so it would be very easy to break this down into images with little ‘thought provoking’ phrases from the book and share this on Flickr.

You should take an active role in the groups and share your photos with anyone, if people want to use them great – it all adds to your profile awareness. Another platform for this is Pinterest, which is growing rapidly at the moment but is still invite only. If you have an account then you should follow the same steps with this.

You get the idea?

Slideshare

So, once you have developed a few pictures with some nice little ‘thought provokers’ on them it would be easy now to add these together with some more info and make them into a PowerPoint presentation. It’s all about breaking the content down. This could then be shared on Slideshare. If you can solve people’s questions or problems then you are on a winner. Putting a little presentation together with some information from your product will be of great benefit to you and the customer. Let’s take my free marketing guide again as the example for this. There is a section on email marketing and how to set up your account. This would be very straight forward to break this chapter down into several slides, and I could easily incorporate a few links to the website at the end for example. This presentation would not only serve a purpose to the customer but also would provide great promotion for me.

YouTube

So now on to the video giant that is YouTube – I’m sure you are all aware of this, but how do you use it for promotion? More specifically how would I use it to promote a marketing guide? Well, again quite simple – I already have the information; I just need to break it down.

I could quite simply get some royalty free music and talk over the top of it explaining ‘How to incorporate Amazon Affiliate links into your blog’ for example.  This could literally be just some images, some royalty free music and me talking over the top and all of a sudden you have a promo video – trust me it works. I will reiterate, if you can solve people’s questions or problems then you are on a winner.

Twitter, FaceBook & LinkedIn

Naturally I would also point to my websites with the above social media platforms. Little snippets of my eBook could be used as my ‘tweets’ for twitter – just remember Twitter only allows 140 characters so choose wisely. I once read that someone was going to ‘tweet’ their entire book over Twitter, I am not saying do this! I think this is a bad idea and you will most likely end up getting more no-follows than follows.

FaceBook and LinkedIn are great; I think they are most powerful when you participate in the groups and communities. Again, I could post snippets as a little teaser from my eBook and then guide them to the website or blog. Or even better, look at what people have asked in the group pages and try to answer them.

For example in an SEO group there may be someone who asks “How do I do my own SEO?” your response could be “SEO changes all the time, but there are some golden rules that you must stick to…..I have written a book about this actually you can check out this chapter at my blog page……..www.you-get-the-idea??”

So, there we have it. If you have picked up on the message in this blog then well done! You have just received a huge, profiting making plan to promote your business. If you have not picked up any ideas then I urge you to read it again. You will be able to apply these techniques in your business no matter what it is you do.