How to Use Pinterest as a Traffic Source

While Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networks right now, I believe it is still widely underused by brands as a referral source to their site. In fact, according to shareaholic, Pinterest edged out Yahoo! organic traffic as the fourth leading source of traffic for August. You should be asking yourself, “What am I doing to jump all over this opportunity?” Zappos certainly is.

If you’re an avid Pinterest user like me, you’ve probably noticed there is a core group of creators on the platform – the same people creating most (if not all) of the content under specific categories. The question becomes this – how do we, as brands, join this group and ensure our content is a) pin-able and b) shareable?

Let’s use Dunkin’ Donuts as our example. They are one of my favorite brands to follow socially. Without reposting the exact same content on each one of their social channels, they successfully integrate their digital strategy by using a uniform hashtag, #DDPumpkinEffect.

Next time you draft a blog or Facebook post, ask yourself, “How can I leverage this on Pinterest to drive traffic to my site?”

• Create or use beautiful imagery. The image above is not professionally shot, but it’s beautiful, clear and fun.
• Make sure the board you’re pinning to is properly categorized. This ensures your content can be found and in turn shared and repinned.

• Add text (if appropriate) to your image. Before I publish any post to my blog, I create a “Pinterest worthy” image using Picmonkey. They even have a Pinterest editing section! The text should be large and simple to read so users know exactly what your post is about. “How to’s” are widely popular on Pinterest, or use the text to add flair to your image.

• Pin from your site. This ensures the proper URL is attached to the pin driving the user to the correct section of your site. Depending on the platform you use, there are “Pin It” buttons you can install.
• Share other user’s content. Just as you would on other social channels, don’t broadcast to your followers. Engage with other brands by repining or commenting on their posts.
• Check your analytics. You should be doing this on a regular basis anyway, but start to pay close attention to referral sources, keywords and what type of content is attracting the most attention. This way, you can make informed content decisions based on data and research.

Are you on Pinterest? Join us!