Viral marketing with Pinterest

The power of Pinterest

The best way to understand the power of Pinterest – compare it with the ex-king of viral traffic: Digg. Several years ago Digg was considered as an important moment in marketer's career. Content was created specifically for Digg. And when someone reached heights in ranking, it was a cause for celebration ... and panic because servers “couldn't work” because of the huge amount of traffic.

The best thing about Pinterest – if your content got in the top, it won't be stopped. Given the huge number of unique visitors and opportunity to share it, thousands of people will come to your website within 3-4 weeks.

So to get thousands of “repin" – create quality content.

How to understand Pinterest community

As in any social network Pinterest users like pictures with funny animals or interesting statements. But there are some differences. If you share an unusual, rare photos of celebrities, most likely you'll get a large number of “repin”, but not traffic to your site. The secret is this: Pinterest users are looking for and share creative ideas and tips.

Every day Pinterest “get” hundreds of loaded graphics. But those who have become really popular you can count on fingers. In viral marketing the basis for success – is quality content. Infographics – is not Pinterest users are looking for. This kind of content works effectively everywhere, but not here. It just doesn't fit the idea of this site.

Introduce you a new type of visual content – instructographics.

Instructographics for Pinterest

As the term “instructographic” has never been used, get definition. Instructographic – vertical representation of ideas or tutorials that help users to achieve a specific result. No matter it is – a recipe, hairstyle, own project or something else. Instructographics work almost on any level. Why do they work better than the infographics on Pinterest? Because they guide users through a series of instructions for a specific result in real life. It is not dry theory, so this type of content works.

So how to create such a material? Here are detailed instructions:

Step 1: Define the idea

It's difficult. You need to find something that will interest to the community. But don't use plagiarism.

Have a brilliant idea that has not yet spread through the Internet? Well, that's exactly what you need. Think scrupulously, how you'll reach the final result. The more details are instructographic, the better it is.

Step 2: Design

Once you decide content – start to design a vertical statement. Don't forget to focus on title, because is the first thing Pinterest users see.

Step 3: Download an image on your site

First you need to publish instructographic on your website.

Step 4: Select proper resolution

If you want to increase conversion up to 40,000 visitors on your website and not just 40, then you need to load an image height of more than 2500 pixels. Otherwise, it will be so beautifully displayed on Pinterest and users won't need to go to your website. If an image is higher than 5000 pixels, it is better to create a button 300x300 pixels with content description. Why it is necessary? Because the button «repin» is at the top of an image. And if users scroll down 5000 pixels, he won't back to click the button.

Step 5: Publish and make “pin”!

When your instructographic is ready, publish it.

For better understanding how to create infographics, look at the example, which received 14 000 "repin":

Pinterest popularity algorithm

As any social network, Pinterest has best practices that will improve the chances of your content become popular and appear on the boards of thousands of users.

Each newly published content is placed in the top of the list of a specific category. This page is as a springboard to achieve popularity. To get to the top you don't need to have age or an authoritative account. But there are some things that can prevent you. Each published content is placed in the top of its category, unless there is a contrary to these rules:

You can't post more than one material in an hour. In this way, Pinterest creators fight against spam.

You can't post own images on the image hosting Imgur. Any image posted on Imgur won't get the top of its category.

The time for publication

For each social network is a time of day publishing the material in which you have a great chance to get to the top page. Pinterest in this regard doesn't differ from them because users show varying degrees of activity during a day. Your goal – publish content at a time when the competition will be minimal, but at the same time, the maximum efficiency. For Pinterest this time is in between: 5-7 am and 5-7 pm. At this time users check their boards in the social network, or after awakening, or after working hours. To see your stuff, you need to publish it for some time before these periods.

Monitoring

If you published your nstructographic and it “hooked” users – follow the popular boards. This way you can find if other sites borrow your materials. If these sites have a button “Pin It”, then your content will get more times in Pinterest but the source is another site and you'll lose visitors. Get in touch with users, which confirmed your material from another site and ask them to change URL-address of the source. It seems time consuming and tedious but it will bring you thousands of extra visitors.

Conclusion

Pinterest come to stay. If you still don't use it in your marketing strategies, now it's time to do it. It should be noted that most Pinterest users – are women and not men because of the interface simplicity and creative content. And don't listen to those experts who predict Pinterest failure.