For bloggers and business owners, Pinterest is a potential
plethora of traffic, growth in readership, potential customers and endless exposure. It’s easy to become
mesmerized by the shiny, pretty packages it contains and become complacent
about the things you pin and how you use Pinterest in correlation with your
blog or business…
But you really shouldn’t.
As a marketing professional, I see
four common {but huge} no-no’s that happen all too frequently, especially with
bloggers so today, I’m going to share my industry expertise to help you avoid
these common pitfalls of Pinterest.
Problem One :: Your Pin Graphics and Pictures Suck.
You may have the best advice for
getting your baby to sleep through the night. You may have the best idea for
how to refinish grandma’s old bookshelf and you may very well have all the
answers on how to get through potty training without pulling your hair out but
no one on Pinterest will ever get to your site to read your material or re-pin
your content.
Why?
Because the Pinterest graphic for your
material sucks or in a lot of cases, is completely non-existent.
The fix: The reality in using
Pinterest is that it’s a visual medium. The sheer existence of Pinterest relies
on pictures and graphics. Your potential users are drawn to pretty,
well-designed pins for content and in most cases like myself as a blog/business
owner, I will absolutely not share or re-pin content that doesn’t look clean or
professional.
Why?
Because what I pin is a reflection on
my brand and business. Everything I do with regards to Shiraz In My Sippy Cup
sends a message to my followers, but more importantly, potential customers and
business partners. So while you may have kick ass content, most people on
Pinterest won’t ever have the chance to read it because they won’t click
through your crappy graphics to get to your site.
Any blog or business should have a
monthly budget allotted for post graphics and here’s the good news – you don’t
have to invest a ton of money into software products to get pin-worthy posts.
What’s my secret? For about 99.9% of my Pinterest graphics, I use Canva.com. The
best part? The majority of my use is FREE. Canva is a robust graphics program that
allows anyone with any level of graphics knowledge, the ability to easily and
effectively create professional, pin-worthy posts. The program has pre-made
Pinterest templates that you can customize to your liking and if there is a
charge, the fee is usually only $1. In a month, I may spend $5 or less for all
of my posts and in my opinion, $5 is worth it. I would drop that on something
useless in a month so why wouldn’t I invest it into my business?
Problem Two :: You Don’t Make It Easy to Share Your Content
So there I am, reading your post, and
I LOVE it. You’ve got me hook, line and sinker. The only problem?
Nowhere on
your site do you give me the ability to pin your post. I hover over your
pictures hoping the “Pin Me” graphic pops up but alas, no dice. I look on your
sidebar and at the bottom of your post for your social media sharing icons but,
nope. You don’t have those installed either. What’s the deal?
The fix: The inability for me
to easily and conveniently share content is a huge pet peeve of mine in the
blogging world. I’m completely dumbfounded that so many bloggers still don’t
understand this one simple concept in sharing content: Your readers want
simplicity.
We don’t want to have to copy and paste and pull up links and
basically sign a mortgage through the Pinterest website to simply share your
content. You can fix this very easily by visiting Shareaholic.com and
installing your own social media sharing icons for your site. The whole process
from installation to completion took me around five minutes and the gains to my
blog have been invaluable as the app also includes stats and analytics. My readers can easily select the Pinterest icon to
share my posts and of course, I always have a pin-worthy picture to accompany
my post.
Boom. Done.
Problem Three :: You Love To Go on Pinning-Sprees
I have literally seen certain users
pin 50 – 100 images in a five minute period; everything from food, to sports,
to silly pictures, to well…crap. Nothing will tune me out more than spam and
yes, when you’re pinning like your life depends on it, I call that pin
spamming. It’s overwhelming but more, it’s downright annoying.
The fix: Set aside a few
specific times per day to pin and during those times, be focused on what you
want your content to be. Remember, what you choose to pin is a direct
reflection of your brand. Try to be specific in your goals and what you’re
trying to accomplish. If you know that you and the hubs are getting ready to do
a huge kitchen overhaul, consider setting up a private board.
Pinterest came up with this nifty
little idea a couple of years ago and it really doesn’t get used to its full
potential. These private boards are an excellent way of pinning a ton of stuff
without clogging up your fellow pinners’ stream.
Problem Four :: Your Pins Don’t Go to Permalinks or Are Broken
Links
So I’ve found your incredibly
well-designed Pinterest graphic and you’ve pulled me in with an interesting
title. I take the bait excited to read what you’ve got and click on your pin to
only find that you’ve either deleted the page on your site that it’s associated
with or the link doesn’t work. Annoying!!
The fix: It’s a good idea to
do some maintenance on your Pinterest boards from time to time. If you delete a
blog post, make sure you take down the pin on Pinterest so that it doesn’t keep
getting re-pinned. Before you pin content to your own boards, click through the
pin to make sure it works and that the information is correct or better, something
you would want your business or blog associated with. Many times I’ve found
that links don’t work or that I don’t really agree with the author’s viewpoint
in their post.
Bottom line, if you’ve got the time to
cruise Pinterest, take the extra couple of minutes to check and make sure the
pin works because if all I’m getting from you are constant issues, I’m out.
So there you have it. My professional
advice on how to avoid the top four common user mistakes I find most on
Pinterest. What issues do you run into that drive you crazy?
