4 Tips to Pinterest Etiquette

Courtesy of Bettina Smith

 

Want your business (whether small or large) to have a presence on Pinterest? Well, it can be a possibility. There is a way that you can do that without overdoing it.  

Pinterest is a great social network outlet to promote your business in a very visual and creative way, as in sharing images, infographics, etc. Unfortunately, there are some companies that pin only their content without attempting to follow anyone back (as in customers and potential customers) and even worse not responding to them. This is bad news for your company’s marketing strategy. Good news: this can be fixed, with these four tips on having manners on Pinterest:

1. Don’t self-promote every time. This is danger zone to promote your company with everything that you pin on your Pinterest board(s). You can promote your business on Pinterest by pinning your content--from time to time--as part of your marketing strategy. To avoid the self-promotional routine each time, pin images no less than thirty percent of the time. Pin different materials in addition to your company content. 
2. Please follow back(a must-do): When someone follows you on Pinterest (or any social network), it is best to follow them back--getting back into the manners thing. Some companies (large and small) get many followers but they do not follow back (or following very few). When you are marketing your company on Pinterest, you want to build relationships with your current and prospective customers. Bottom line: engage and interact with them. 
3. Be interactive: When you are pinning content on Pinterest, do not wait for people to interact with you. Sometimes you have to be the icebreaker. You can do this by re-pinning (sharing other users’ pins), like and/or commenting on other’s pins. 
4. Be aware of what you are pinning! In this case, you should use plain common sense--do not upload content that does not belong to you. Also, you should pin anything using the Google Search, or a website/blog’s home page. Instead, users should be able to click on the headline of the content piece on the board.  

After all, Pinterest is a great marketing tool for promoting your business and it can also be fun as well! Let your creative juices flow, as having a light side to your business (as well as being serious about your business). You can create a board dedicated to the fun stuff that can be connected to your business. 

Bottom line: just be human! We are all human, after all!