Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 Do you ever feel like you’re missing out? You’re active on Facebook and Twitter, and they are sending some nice traffic to your blog. But every now and then you hear a whisper. A whisper about a social network that is growing faster than any other, and taking all of your prospective readers with it. The whisper is getting louder and louder… Soon you won’t be able to ignore it. That nagging little whisper is Pinterest. And if you haven’t figured it out already, you may be missing a trick by not using the world’s most visual social network. Pinterest was founded in 2010 and has attracted lots of attention. Here are some things that you need to know about Pinterest: 88% of people purchase what they pin Pinterest has over 70 million users Those 70 millions users have sent a combined total of over 30 million pins 80% of pins are re-pins (Just like re-Tweets) Pinterest is a thriving social network that is here to stay, and can bring a surprising amount of traffic to your blog. Here are 5 ways to flood your blog with traffic using Pinterest. #1: Participate in group boards The problem with just starting out on Pinterest is that you don’t have an audience. It is possible to get thousands of Pinterest followers, but when you first start out – how do you put your blog posts in front of a large audience? The answer is participating in group boards. Many people who organize group boards want as many contributors as possible. Why? The more contributors a group board has, the more pins it gets. Group board organizers want their group boards to constantly get updated with more pins so they rank better on Pinterest’s search engine and generate more engagement. Many contributors will invite you to pin on their group boards regardless of how old or new your account is. All you have to do is polish your Pinterest account to make it appealing. Here are some tips for polishing up your account; Write an enticing bio Choose a good avatar Have a few boards with at least 10 pins to start Once you have your Pinterest account polished up, look for popular group boards in your niche with numerous contributors. Then, ask the owner of the group board to invite you as a contributor. Here are some ways you can ask a group board owner to invite you as a contributor: Comment on one of the owner’s pins asking if you can become a contributor Email the owner of the group board Send a private message to the owner on Pinterest There are plenty of group boards with over 10,000 followers that would all be great places for you to promote your blog posts. Once you become a contributor for a popular group board, look at how other people pin so you know what is expected. Then, send a pin of your blog post. While it is okay to pin your own blog posts on someone else’s board, you don’t want to over promote yourself because the owner of the group won’t be happy. As you would with any social network, promote other people’s content as well as your own. #2: Optimize your images to get more re-pins The image you put up on Pinterest has a big impact on how far your pin spreads. The more optimized your image, the more re-pins it will get – spreading your reach. Here are some facts from a Curalate infographic on optimizing your pins for more re-pins: Images that are reddish-orange get roughly twice as many re-pins than images that are blue Images with multiple dominant colors have 3.25 times more re-pins than single dominant color images Images with medium lightness are re-pinned 20 times more than very dark images Images that are 50% saturated have 10 times more re-pins than very desaturated images Vertical images with an aspect ratio between 2:3 and 4:5 get 60% more re-pins than very tall images Images with less than 10% background receive 2-4 times more re-pins than images with more than 40% background Images with a smooth texture are re-pinned 17 times more than images with a rough texture Brand images without faces receive 23% more re-pins than images with faces Not only can you optimize your existing images, but you can also create your own images and optimize them in the process. Out of all of the types of images that get put on Pinterest, cool infographics tend to get a massive amount of re-pins and likes. Take a look at this infographic’s engagement. You can create an infographic containing information from your one of your blog posts – or start from scratch. The choice is yours. #3: Include a call-to-action in the pin description Want more people to go straight to your blog from your pin? Tell them to click on the image. By including a call-to-action you will increase the number of clicks your image gets, and as a result, send more people to your blog. At the end of my pin descriptions, I include a short call-to-action that asks people to click on the image. Including the call-to-action has led to an increase in clicks and comments from other users, and it barely takes up any space in my pin’s description. All you have to do in your call-to-action is tell people to click on the image above and the benefit (for mine, the benefit is to learn how to can write 10,000 words every day). #4: Schedule your pins with ViralWoot One reason why businesses prefer to use Facebook and Twitter is because of the available tools – such as Hootsuite and SocialOomph. Pinterest was a different story – until ViralWoot emerged. ViralWoot makes it easy to schedule pins in advance and provides you with multiple options for more efficient scheduling, such as; Free bookmarklet—go to any website and click on this bookmarklet. You get to choose which picture you put in the pin. When clicked on, the picture will lead people to the website you were on when you used the Pin Scheduler bookmarklet. Upload files from your computer or Facebook – if have a unique image that you took and want to put it on Pinterest this feature makes it possible. Google Image Search—this feature makes it easy for you to get images from Google and schedule them. You don’t have to upload a Google image to your computer and then upload the file to ViralWoot, it skips that step for you. After you choose the image, you will come to the ViralWoot dashboard where you can schedule your pin. The final step is to choose the date and time that the pin will be published and then click “Schedule Now.” ViralWoot lets you schedule up to 100 pins for free every month, if you want more you’ll have to pay. Scheduling pins at different times gives you the power to promote your blog posts on Pinterest even when you’re not at your computer. As you build your audience on Pinterest, you should start to schedule 10-15 pins per day so you can reach your audience more often. #5: Grow a targeted audience Your audience is the most important determinant of whether Pinterest drives traffic to your blog or not. If your audience appreciates your content, they will visit your boards and engage with your pins regularly. All of this engagement will lead to more exposure for your blog. The secret to building an engaged audience on Pinterest is to target people who are active in your niche. There are two main ways to build a targeted audience on Pinterest; Look for successful people and brands in your niche and follow their followers Look for successful boards related to your niche and follow their followers For example, I look for successful Pinterest accounts in digital marketing with a high number of followers but also a good amount of engagement for their pins. For instance, I would follow some of Social Media Today’s followers – with over 80,000 followers and lots of engagement. If I wanted to get more specific, I could look for their top boards about digital marketing and exclusively follow the people who follow those boards. Following the followers of ideal accounts and boards is a key part of growing a targeted audience on Pinterest. What do you think? What tactics have you used to drive traffic to your blog from Pinterest? What tactic is your favorite? Please share your thoughts and advice in the comments below. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on Jeffbullas's Blog and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Author: Marc Guberti Follow @MarcGuberti Marc Guberti is an 18 year old digital marketing expert, blogger, and author. If you want to get more retweets and spread your message farther by using Twitter, you can grab Marc's free eBook, 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter.… View full profile ›More by this author:6 Ways To Make Your Tweets Shorter5 Ways To Get More SlideShare Followers7 Business Mistakes To Avoid