6 Pinterest Screw-Ups You Don't Realize You're Making: A Beginner's Guide to Pinterest
Friday, March 23, 2012 at 5:08PM
1. Marketing to businesses instead of people
The people who use Pinterest are individuals, not businesses, so if you are a B2C company, you are in luck! But if you are B2B, you'll need to think harder about how to tailor your Pinterest strategy so that it appeals to individuals at the companies you want to reach, or reconsider investing resources in Pinterest altogether.
2. Failing to include buttons/follow me on your site
This is low-hanging fruit that so many people forget. Make it effortless for your customers to help you spread the word on Pinterest!
- Add the "Follow Button" for websites to your site next to your Facebook / Twitter buttons: http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/
- Add the "Pin It" button for websites to your product pages: http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/
- If you're on Wordpress, don't forget about this Pinterest widget: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pinterest-rss-widget/
3. Pinning all your products, even the boring ones
Pinterest is, above all, VISUAL, so put your best foot forward! Curate what you're posting--pick the most irresistible, delicious, luscious, colorful, slick, gorgeous, witty, quirky, funny, cute, fabulous, stylish or otherwise compelling items to show off. Skip any goods with poor-quality, blah, or boring product images. They're not for Pinterest.
4. Pinning everything at once
Think of your product catalog as a collection of precious gems you're dispensing one by one to the world. On Pinterest, your products are your assets. Don't give them away all at once! Plan a schedule or rhythm to pin periodically, so that you have a constant stream of activity to keep people engaged.
5. Marketing to the wrong audience
68% of all Pinterest users are female, and 97% of their fans on Facebook are female. 78% of all users are between the ages of 18-44. If this sounds like your customers, then great! If you sell collectible baseball cards, maybe not so much. We're not saying you can't use Pinterest if your business is guy-centric, but be aware you may have a tougher time than you think.
6. Forgetting to tell your current customers you're on Pinterest
This one is a no-brainer. If you already have a mailing list, Facebook fan group, or Twitter following, tell them about your newborn Pinterest presence! They're already your most engaged fans, so take advantage of that fact and tell them about the latest and greatest way for them to stay in touch.
Like what we have to say? We're passionate about helping small business ecommerce merchants succeed with online marketing. Learn more about our automated search marketing and free real-time visitor tracking tools at www.lexity.com, or contact us.
Reader Comments (2)
I'm a Musician/Media Producer and have several videos on youtube… can anyone can suggest a way to integrate the use of Pinterest and youtube?
Hi Vinny,
Thanks for your comment! You might be interested to know that you can indeed *pin YouTube videos on Pinterest*--more information here on the Pinterest blog:
Video Pins - Oh, How Pinteresting! http://lxty.us/H7QG5M
Hope that helps,
The Lexity Team