The Art of Social Media Marketing (Understanding Your Pinterest Analytics)

The Art of Social Media Marketing (Understanding your Pinterest Analytics!)

Is social media marketing an art? The word analytics kind of screams math to me, and as far as I'm concerned, math and art don't exactly go hand in hand.

Analytics can sometimes seem overwhelming.

Business owners know they should be measuring their data, but how do you know exactly what metrics to look at to get the best ROI? And what if it's not working they way you expected it to?

To gain some perspective, we need to address the state of digital marketing…and the paid traffic correction that we're currently in the midst of.

Let's start with the obvious. Unless you're using a very specific retargeting and custom audience strategy, don't expect Facebook ads to work the way they did in 2014. You can read more about that here, but in this article, I'm specifically talking about why the age of interruption is over and how you can leverage the power of Pinterest to help you implement a sustainable online business model.

You likely already know that Pinterest is a search and discovery platform…just like Google. Search engines are completely different from other social media channels, so you have to understand the nuances of SEO (search engine optimization) in order to leverage all that Pinterest has to offer.

Using Pinterest for business allows brands to reach consumers at a specific moment…the moment when they're visually attracted to whatever beautiful idea they see on Pinterest.

Banner ads and low quality content just won’t do well on these platforms, and that's what I love. No shitty looking clickbait sales pages, around here yo!

Vince Vaughn via Giphy

Remember when anyone with a sexy headline and a Clickfunnels account could turn a profit in their online business? Well folks, those days of money-hungry, funnel hacking, sleazy business are over (thank goodness!). I still use Clickfunnels, actually, but lets gain some context around the rest of the story and you'll see how that fit's into the big picture.

Russell Brunson, the founder of Clickfunnels created a truly amazing software tool that has made it very simple for millions of people all over the world to create online businesses using the funnel system. But the key is, to actually be successful, you first need to clearly understand how to make it all come together, and that begins with understanding the strategy first.

In order to really harness the power of Pinterest for business, you have to get deep inside the Pinterest user's mindset first, because the right combination of words and pictures can motivate action.

The Storytelling Approach to Attraction Marketing

Telling a relevant story at the right time to the right person in a way that allows that person to realize they need your product or service is the real art behind social media marketing…And telling that story in a picture is what Pinterest is all about.

It's not about posting a really long rant on Facebook, pushing it to cheap countries to bulk up your “likes” and posting aggressive ad copy.

Lets talk about the psychology of behavior.

People typically make a purchase decision based on whether they think you understand their problem, and whether they think you have the knowledge, resources and commitment to solve their problem.

Social media marketing is simply an extension of the age-old technique of getting to know your customer and then meeting their needs. Measuring brand awareness and harnessing the customer journey using attraction marketing is the real strategy.

Not funnel “hacking”.

Not “smashing” the funnel.

What most of this sub-culture of fake digital marketers neglect to tell you about successful digital marketing is that the online business model is still based on traditional sales, and you can't make it work using the same shitty, high pressure sales techniques that never worked before.

“Hello, Mr. McDigital…1999 is calling…you left your pitch-heavy, automated webinar that's disguised as a masterclass over there, next to your friend who's Facebook Ad looks exactly the same as yours.

If you don’t like sales and you want to start a blog or an online business, you better learn to like sales…you just have to figure out the right way to attract your audience. (Hint: It's not from any mentors who drank from the dirty pond.)

For businesses, marketing has entered a new era, the Age of the Consumer. It takes a focused and forward-thinking company to embrace the ever-changing media landscape without sacrificing strategy and measurable results.

So…you want to know how to make it all come together? Let's do this!

Pinterest is the best kept secret in online marketing.

Contrary to popular belief…it's not Instagram.

Why?

Well, lets talk about who your target audience is for a minute. If your business is targeting people outside of the US, you’re in luck because 80% of the people who use Instagram are from outside the US according to the 2019 State of Social Media Report by Buffer.

But here’s something else to consider…if your business targets upper middle class, college educated women from the US, guess where 80% of your audience hangs out?

Yeah, it’s Pinterest.

More specifically, lets think about what those female head of households are looking at and shopping for…

if your business has anything to do with home decor, jewelry and clothing, makeup and hairstyles, children, weddings, books, travel, or food, and you’re not leveraging the power of Pinterest, you might want to start thinking about it.

So how do you measure ROI (return on investment) and really make sense of Pinterest analytics?

Using Pinterest Analytics to Understand Your Target Audience

In terms of using social media to promote selling your product or service: don’t assume someone is ready to have a particular conversation with you just because you’re ready to have the conversation with them.

In other words, just because you put your business out there doesn't mean people will come flocking. The social media fairies don't work that way.

Consumers now have access to more information and have more control over the sales process than ever. With this change, a new way of selling has emerged. This method combines the power of Pinterest's search engine optimization with a business owner's expertise in both design and communication skills in a way that not only brings revenue to the business, but it deepens the value of the overall relationship.

Because social media marketing is an approach to the sales and marketing of your product that is relationship-focused instead of transaction-focused, the immediate goal isn’t necessarily to get a sale as quickly as possible; the immediate goal is to establish a relationship.

So if there is no sale…how do you understand what is working and what isn't working when it comes to your Pinterest analytics?

The key is to know exactly what Pinterest metrics to look at and where to find them.

Here's a quick snapshot.

If you look at Analytics directly from the Pinterest dashboard, be sure you change the drop down to “Link Clicks” as well as change the radio button to only your website to see which of your pins are getting clicked on the most. The default setting is “Impressions” which is a vanity metric that doesn't really give you any concrete information.

overview pins

Focus on the design of your pins

This may sound obvious, but if you're not a designer by trade, the creative, typography, and color combinations might not come naturally to you. Use quality stock art, and most importantly, do not use free stock. Use Google analytics to review which pins are producing the most traffic, and model your future designs off those pins. Buy a subscription to someplace like PixiStock, GirlBossStock, or IvoryMix.

Here's a example of two different pins that lead to the same blog post. Can you guess which one has more link clicks? It's the one with the prettier design.

The Age of Interruption is Over!

Understand the digital sales process. Instead of interrupting customers with a sales pitch, a product or service is marketed to a consumer when the opportunity presents itself. Aside from the obvious (answering questions and responding to inquiries on your own social channels, and using email nurturing the right way) how exactly can business owners join the social selling conversation?

First and foremost, if you are a small business and you don’t have a Marketing Director at your company, the first step is to spend some time to educate yourself about how to master the Pinterest platform. Trying to use Pinterest for business without a defined strategy will just suck up your time and get you nowhere.

Here is a short video to show you exactly what Pinterest Analytics to look at and where to find them.

A few other examples of ways to incorporate social selling in your online business:

A potential consumer asks a question that your product or service is uniquely able to handle. How do you find those asking questions? Solution: If you don’t have the budget to invest in monitoring apps (such as Cison.com) simply search an industry specific hashtag to see what thought leaders are conversing about. #DigitalMarketing

Example: A consumer expresses a concern or problem with a competitor’s product or service. Solution: Offer your solution in the comments. Be careful not to force your product or service down someone’s throat. Instead point them to an article your company has produced (such as a blog) or another educational piece that shows that you understand the problem they are faced with and how to resolve it.

Example: A consumer asks for your recommendation by email based on previous content you wrote about or expertise they know you have. Provide a direct link to a piece of content or an offer that provides the answer to what they are looking for.

You want to give people only what they will find valuable. If your business is a petstore and a potential consumer is interested in puppies, you don’t want to send them an email trying to sell them a fishtank. If you do, it’s likely they will opt-out of your list and you’ll never have the chance to sell anything puppy related to them again.

How does social media marketing work in the context of Pinterest?

Social selling isn’t a straightforward process; it is rather a collection of strategies designed to establish a relationship with your leads and customers.

Unlike traditional selling, social selling allows you to establish longer-lasting relationships with leads and clients by delivering only what your prospect is interested in. In order to do this, you need to understand the nuances of the Pinterest Platform in order to take full advantage of it for marketing your business.

Need some help with Pinteret? Check out my mini-course to learn how to start using the right tactics!

Here are 4 tips to help you take full advantage of your social channels to help you attract real, targeted leads that are stronger and better qualified:

1. Social Listening

Pay close attention to and respond to potential sales opportunities and clients through comments on your blog and on your social channels. Often this technique is overlooked by companies who don’t have a lot of time or recognize the value of customer service.

It’s important to realize that digital media is a powerful way to connect with your audience and if used properly, your brand’s voice will be amplified tenfold by interactions that can be seen and heard by people all over the digital world.

2. Brand Building

Establishing your brand as a subject matter expert and your business as a credible authority within a particular niche is very important in today’s online landscape.

People perform online research more than ever before, so a combination of search engine ranking and detailed content that is relevant to a particular search or need will help position you ahead of your competition. Post a thought leadership article on LinkedIn or a carefully crafted Tweet, but whatever you do, make sure it's thoughtfully aligned with your core values.

Learn more granular details about how to amplify your SEO for Pinterest by reading this article.

3. Content Marketing

Create blogs, videos, white papers, ebooks, or other educational information about your industry that offers insight and value for current and prospective clients. The key is to provide something valuable. Don't be cheap.

Make sure your content is informative and relevant. More content doesn’t necessarily equate to more visits…remember it's always quality over quantity.

Your Pinterest analytics will tell you exactly which pins are gaining the most traction. The best kind of content marketing doesn’t feel like marketing at all; instead it tells a story and appeals to your prospect’s emotions. Consider what problem your product or service solves, and then create content around delivering a compelling story.

4. CRM (Customer Relationship Management Software)

Remember when an Excel spreadsheet replaced the old-fashioned rolodex? These days even a smart spreadsheet isn’t going to amplify your prospecting. The gold mine of opportunity that exists with a CRM platform allows you to identify prospects for up-sell or cross-sell, convert existing customers to new products or services, target new marketing, or even track invoices.

Managing your interactions between customers and your business using an automation tool is the best way to monitor, analyze and follow-up upon the metrics delivered by your digital marketing efforts. Different platforms make sense for different size businesses and industries.

For businesses making over $250,000 per year, I highly recommend HubSpot. If your business is making from zero to $250,000, then your best option for marketing automation is ConvertKit.

Last but not least…

Keep in mind that the true art of social media marketing on Pinterest is knowing that it's not about you, your opinions, your point of view or your circumstances.

It’s about helping others by meeting their needs, understanding their concerns, and adding a valuable solution to their path forward. Are you ready to learn more about how to leverage the power of Pinterest? Get Started!

October 22, 2019/by Kate Murray

Online Marketing, Pinterest

What is a Marketing-KPI and why should you care?

Marketing KPI: What in the world does that mean?!

An excerpt of this article was printed in The Reading Eagle Newspaper, Print Edition

Having an effective marketing strategy isn’t only about creating brilliant and compelling visuals with educational and impactful data, it’s about understanding what numbers you should track to grow your business, or if you work for a business, how to effectively communicate those numbers to stakeholders in order to drive high level decision making.

Key Performance Indicators for Bloggers

Marketing strategists often use the acronym KPI, which stands for Key Performance Indicators.

In its most basic form, marketing KPIs are a series of numbers that are tied to a company’s overall goals. When KPIs are properly established, a company can measure its progress toward their goals by associating this number (a marketing metric) to the outcome of an intrinsically defined target.

Here's an example for a small business owner or blogger. Imagine you are selling a digital product such as an ebook or a digital course. You might decide to run an online ad in order to drive traffic to your offer. Perhaps you set your budget at $100 per day. Imagine your ad is seen by 2,000 people and you've got a 60% click rate, but only a 10% conversion rate.

What exactly does that mean?

First off, it means you'll make a profit because you are selling an average of 120 books per day, each for $10. It also means your ad is very good and your audience targeting is on point because it's driving a lot of clicks. But even though you are making $1,200 per day, how do you determine whether whether your Return on Investment (ROI) for this campaign is actually good?

The answer is that you need to assign a KPI that is important to you. Although you are quite profitable and it may seem like you have a high ROI, a 10% conversion rate is actually quite bad, which means something could be better optimized for conversions.

Perhaps it's your sales page, maybe it's the copy, the imagery, or even the advertisement. Understanding what metrics to look at can help you better determine what can be tweaked in order to get a higher Return on Investment.

Now imagine if you tweaked your sales page and it started producing a 40% conversion rate. In this example, you would not likely change the ad because 60% is a really good click rate. So with a good click rate and a good conversion rate, instead of making just $1,200 per day in revenue from this campaign, you're now making $4,800 per day. That is a significant difference. Knowing what to “tweak” is the key to optimizing for conversion, but you can only optimize if you establish the performance metrics that you plan to track.

Many leadership teams (as well as small business owners) monitor the performance of these numbers over time and use them to adjust their plans, their programs, and their products to support and improve their overall strategic goals.

It's always a good idea to start with one performance metric and split-test it. Split test means that you only change one thing, such as a Pin image, to determine which one is producing the best results. Then you can tweak other pieces such as the headline copy, the sales page, or the target audience. Each of these can be considered a KPI.

How to use KPIs to Plan Goals for the New Year

In the past, most people associated financial metrics with the classic example of measurable indicators, however using only past performance to forecast marketing results no longer yields a good prediction about whether to keep, reject, or try out a new marketing strategy.

Why?

Buyers have changed; today’s buyer is highly informed, and their journey from first hearing about a product or service until they actually buy it is not linear.

Today’s modern buyer researches products and services online at any time of the day or night, on any device, and consumes information from multiple sources. They compare and contrast reviews, seek out recommendations, and educate themselves more than ever before.

The good news for bloggers and small business owners is that we can measure these actions and behaviors in ways that we couldn’t measure before, and this is a captivating source of information when tied to a KPI.

1. Choose a KPI that is specifically tied to a metric that will ultimately grow your revenue

Bloggers often follow the classic online business model; they start their email list with an opt-in freebie, also called a Lead Magnet. But most people miss the most important part of the methodology: your opt-in needs to have a direct correlation to the product or service that you will ultimately offer…even if you're not offering it for sale yet!

Lets take a quick look at an example. If you're offering a subscription to your weekly newsletter, you need to give people a reason to opt-in, otherwise you won't gain much traction. Instead, if you plan to sell an ebook about gardening but the ebook isn't finished yet, perhaps your freebie is a checklist on how to get started composting. When you use this methodology, you measure you opt-ins and it logically leads to the next step of the journey…the offer of the book.

2. Invest in your audience up front, and pay for ads to your Free offer

I know it sounds crazy, but stay with me here. Most of the time, I actually pay for ads to my freebie instead of my offer, so that I can attract my ideal client on to my email list. This is called “attraction marketing” and it's such an important part of online marketing. The goal is to over-deliver on value.

For me, I first deliver what I promised (typically a free worksheet or checklist) and then I send a short email welcome series to introduce myself and my business. If all goes well and a person is still on my email list, I will then let them know that I typically send a video once a week on a topic that is helpful to anyone starting or growing an online business. They always have the option to unsubscribe if my content doesn't suit them any longer.

Ultimately, my emails will nurture them and provide so much value, that they will (hopefully) buy something from me at some point. The idea is not to do what most online marketers do…which is bombard them with en email a day (or…gasp…more than one email a day) because that is just going to make people unsubscribe instantly.

Don't.Do.It.

It just doesn't work.

No matter what anyone tells you, don't ever break the Golden Rule of Email Marketing…NO MORE than one email a day. In fact, you should never send your general list more than one email a week (unless you're doing a launch which is an entirely different topic.)

First an foremost, you need to serve your customer before you make an offer, otherwise you're just employing the sleezy techniques that don't work. The offer needs to logically follow the freebie and the nurturing, and become an extension of the buyer's journey.

Are you leveraging the power of Pinterest in your marketing campaigns? According to The State of Social Media Report for 2019 by Buffer, Pinterest is one of the most under-used social media platforms!

state of social media report by Buffer

3. Use the right social media platform for your business

Back in 2014, I created my first digital course. Although it was a total bust at the time, one of the modules was solely dedicated to how to choose the right social media platform for your business. Today that topic is even more important than it was back then. Nobody can do it all, not even a large company with an enormous marketing department and unlimited budget can dominate every platform.

Using KPIs to your advantage involves choosing the platform that resonates most with your exact target audience, and focusing on that platform first. If you try to grow your Facebook page, your Twitter feed, your YouTube channel and your Pinterest account all at one time, it's likely you won't have much success with any of them. (Trust me, I've made that mistake before!)

Focus on one platform at a time.

Choose the one where most of your audience is and start there. Don't be persuaded by people pushing out vanity metrics. Stay in your lane and focus on the numbers that matter to your business.

The remainder of this article focus' specifically on Pinterest marketing. Here are some metrics to help you decide if Pinterest is an ideal platform for you to market your business. If your ideal customer is interested in:

Animals and Pets
Architecture, Home Decor
Children and Childrearing
DIY, Home Improvement and Crafts
Design
Education (various subcategories)
Food and Drink
Gardening
Hair and Beauty
Health and Fitness
Holidays and Celebrations

The Opportunity to Leverage Pinterest for Business Marketing

Today, marketing metrics offer guidance that is literally black and white. In the past, leadership teams and small business owners could only make assumptions about the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Consider this: how do you accurately measure the ROI (return on investment) of a billboard or a magazine ad?

Online, however, the numbers measure real data which serves as an impressive way to make decisions about process and improvement.

For example, an increase in a measurable statistic, such as downloads of a Free Checklist, a comparison pricing guide or engagement with a cost calculator, is likely to forecast an improvement in a key indicator such as customer education.

This is just one particular phase in the buyer’s journey, yet understanding this KPI and the process that logically follows (retargeting those specific buyers with a carefully planned ad or funneling them into a specific nurturing sequence at an appropriate time) is what leads to high performing digital marketing campaigns, and ultimately, the conversions you're after.

If your business is in an industry with a target customer who uses Pinterest, you have a really big opportunity!

If you would like more information about using Pinterest for Business, you can get started with our Free Checklist!

Planning for marketing KPIs is a strategic process and involves the collaboration of either your top marketing executive or a seasoned Marketing Strategist. If a company’s key objectives are not clear, that can lead to an imbalanced and incomplete view of the overall strategy.

Modern marketing becomes a powerful way to help drive revenue when the right message is delivered to the right audience at the right time. One of the ways my clients leverage contextual marketing is by using HubSpot (Click here for a 30-Day Free Trial). Note that I only recommend this tool for business owners with annual revenue that is over $250,000 per year, otherwise, your best bet for marketing automation is ConvertKit.

We can help you gain a competitive edge on Pinterest and tie in your marketing automation by focusing on the importance of intelligent data and aligning your KPIs to implement strategic, data-driven decisions about your marketing ROI. Woo, that was a bit of a mouthful!

Click here to learn more about our Pinterest Marketing Services today! Or, watch this video to learn the difference between a Pinterest Strategist and a Pinterest Account Manager.

Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate partner links which allow readers to easily find and access the resources mentioned. There is no additional cost to you to use these links. For our full privacy policy, terms, and conditions of using this website click here.

October 15, 2019/by Kate Murray

Pinterest, Online Business

Using Pinterest for Business (+ How to do Pinterest SEO)

Pinterest for Business: Your Guide to Proper SEO + Keyword Research

Are you using Pinterest for business effectively? Pinterest is a search engine, in other words, it’s a place for research and discovery, just like Google. The difference is that Pinterest is visual…in fact Pinterest is the largest visual search engine in the world!

While most people tend to think Pinterest is a social media network, it's very different from other social networks in that by using proper SEO techniques, pins can be continuously discovered for years! My best performing pin is actually from 2014.

Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate partner links which allow readers to easily find and access the resources mentioned. There is no additional cost to you to use these links. For our full privacy policy, terms, and conditions of using this website click here.

A user of Pinterest could be actively searching for ideas like recipes, DIY, and home decor, or they could be passively searching for dreams, plans, and goals without even realizing it. Unlike other social networks like Facebook or Twitter, your content has the potential to show up in front of people who are not yet “following” you. But in order to get your content seen by the right target audience, you need to add very specific words and phrases in just the right places…and this is called SEO or search engine optimization.

Here’s an example:
If I type in a phrase such as “chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing” I would expect each different photo that appears in the search results to lead to a website with a recipe for chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing when I click on it. It doesn’t matter if the pin was posted in 2014 or yesterday, if the picture and the words match what I’m searching for, then Pinterest is smart enough to know that and return the results when someone is searching. Pinterest is so smart, in fact, that it can even discern what the picture is even if there isn’t any text to accompany the picture.

Smart and savvy businesses can use the power of Pinterest search to get discovered. Niche businesses with target customers who match the primary users of the platform tend to do quite well. The reason is because the nature of a search engine is to return the results with the closest match to what the user is searching for. It’s a great way to ensure the right people find your content. This translates into something called attraction marketing, in other words, hyper-qualified leads that are actually searching for what your business has to offer. When you are consciously specific and strategic with your choice of keywords and long tail keyword phrases, you have a good chance of attracting your target audience.

What is a keyword and a long tail keyword phrase in the context of Pinterest?

Lets look at the example of the chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. Think about what a user would search for when you would expect this to match their results. Perhaps they are searching for a recipe, so the keyword would be: “chocolate peanut butter cupcakes” while a long tail keyword phrase might be something like: “gluten-free chocolate peanut butter cupcakes recipe.” It’s better to be more specific.

If you only use the keyword “cupcakes” then the search engine isn’t sure what kinds of results to provide, but if you use that long tail keyword phrase, there is no question about what you’re looking for. As a business, the more specific you can be, the better. Notice how this Pin pulls in the keyword description directly from the blog post as well as a pin description with appropriate keywords and hashtags:

Pinterest for Business Keyword Example Cupcake

How to Ensure Your Pinterest Business Account is Set Up Properly

Every board, board description and pin description should be completely filled in with hyper relevant keywords and phrases that sound natural. Some people make it a practice to “keyword stuff” their descriptions, and this is definitely the wrong way to go about Pinterest optimization. An example of a description with “keyword stuffing” would be:

This board is about cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, peanut butter cupcakes and all things cupcake. Need a cupcake recipe? Here you’ll find cupcake recipes and gluten-free cupcake recipes. Are you hungry for cupcakes? Try one of our cupcake recipes.

As you can see, this paragraph isn’t easily “readable” because it’s too stuffed with the word cupcake. Instead a better board description would be:

This board contains recipes for the best gluten-free cupcakes. You’ll find recipes for all different flavors, each accompanied by a gluten-free recipe option.

The algorithm on Pinterest knows how to categorize your content and share it with those who may not follow you but are interested in the topic; however if you stuff a bunch of words that are either too broad or not hyper-relevant, the algorithm recognizes that and penalizes you by not showing your content to your intended target audience.

Want to learn more about how to get your Pinterest Business account set up for success? Download my FREE Pinterest for Business Getting Started Checklist!

Pinterest SEO for Business

The first step to proper Pinterest SEO is to make sure people are actually searching for what you think they’re searching for. Sometimes we tend to think people are searching for our product or services, but in reality they are using a completely different keyword phrase. For example, when I worked for a digital agency, I was optimizing a website for a client who sold a digital product that helped connect sales and marketing teams.

Initially, I made the assumption that potential customers were searching for the term “sales and marketing alignment” which has a search volume of almost 600 searches each month. In reality, only a fraction of the people searching for the product actually used those exact words. Instead, they used the words “sales enablement” which had 8,900 searches per month. So while proper SEO includes using simple words that fit into your niche, it’s important to research the words and phrases to ensure you are using words that are both relevant as well as highly searched for.

It’s best to keep your descriptions brief and straight to the point. You can use up to 500 characters in your pin description and that also includes hashtags. However, I would recommend keeping your hashtags limited to 3 hyper-relevant tags.

For example, #cupcakes is not super relevant and would be difficult to rank for unless you are a very large and well established account. Instead, you might use a hashtag like #chocolatepeanutbuttercupcakes

Keep in mind Pinterest users are mainly looking at the picture. Pins that are sized at 2 to 3 are the best performers. Most of the time, people won’t click on a rectangular pin because its much smaller and harder to see. If a picture gives someone all the information they need, they will either pin, scroll, or click. Most of the time, people overlook the title and description, but those are important so that Pinterest can properly find and categorize your pins properly. The titles and descriptions don’t need fancy, but they do need to be informative.

5 Places to Put Keywords on Pinterest

1. Your Website First
First and most importantly, optimize your website. When you write a blog post, you should include keywords and long tail keyword phrases into the title and meta-description of the Pinterest image that is attached to that blog post. Alt-text inside the image on your website is specifically meant to describe what the image is showing, it’s not the same as the image description. Alt-text is meant for the visually impaired.

There are two ways to accomplish this. One is by using the Tasty Pins plugin (if you have a WordPress site). The other way is to add the description manually by using the data-pin-description tag inside the code editor.

Why do SEO on your website first?

If your Pinterest account is connected to your website properly, it will pull the meta-data directly from the blog post. In other words, when someone pins your pin directly from your website, the specific information included inside your blog post optimization carries over to the pin.

2. Pin Descriptions
If you’ve already optimized your website, the Pinterest description will carry over and you won’t have to do anything when you pin. The best way to create a brand new pin on Pinterest is by pinning it directly from your website. When the pin image matches the blog post featured image and all the meta-data matches up, Pinterest recognized your pin as high quality. However, there are times when you will want to upload a pin image directly to the platform. The only time I upload a pin image directly is when I direct it to one of my YouTube videos. In that situation, I add a title and description to the pin, and then edit the URL to video or landing page.

3. Profile
Your profile is a great place to add keywords and it’s one that is often overlooked. There are two places you can add them. First, your business name. Include your business name and a brief description of what you do. Pinterest limits the amount of characters in your title, but you can add more inside the profile description.

Use this section to let prospective customers know how you’re going to serve them with the type of content or niche you are in. You can repeat keywords that you used in your business name.

4. Board Titles
In this section, it’s important to consider who your target customer is. Be specific in the types of titles you use. Use hyper-targeted and descriptive keywords and phrases. For example, it’s better to create a board called “cupcakes” and pin cupcake recipes to it rather than creating a more generic board such as “desserts”. While regular people (i.e.: your potential customers) use Pinterest for pleasure and may not care whether their pins get shown to other people, as a business, you want your pins to get shown to people when they are searching for “cupcakes” so your pins have a much better chance of being seen when they are pinned to a “cupcake” board rather than a “dessert” board.

5. Board Descriptions
This is the place where you will tell the user what you pin on the board. Write complete sentences in a natural way. Add a few hyper-relevant sentences about what kind of pins go on the board, and repeat the keyword and long tail keyword phrases.

Know Your Pinterest Audience

Last but not least, the goal with Pinterest SEO is to target your intended audience. Think about it this way: you want to attract the kind of people who will want to consume your content and share it with their friends. If you’re stuck on which keywords to use, my advice is to start with a simple list of 10-15 words or short phrases that you believe people would type into a search to find your content. In the world of marketing and advertising, we create something called a “persona” or an “avatar”. This is your “ideal” customer. Each pin (or piece of advertising) is intended to attract your ideal customer.

Once you get your target audience clicking on your pins and landing on your website or product page, make sure you are using something like the Milotree app to help convert them into Pinterest followers. If they find your content interesting enough to click over from Pinterest, it’s important to wow them with a reason to stick around and follow you for more!

Feeling overwhelmed? If you prefer to outsource your Pinterest Management and Marketing, click here to view our services! Or, if you're interested in learning more about how to become a Pinterest Manager, click here!

By the way — I have a private Facebook group where I love to chat all about Pinterest. Join me and connect with other bloggers, social media influencers, and online entrepreneurs, it's FREE!

October 7, 2019/23 Comments/by Kate Murray

Online Marketing, Pinterest

Secret Pinterest Marketing Strategy that Professional Bloggers Don’t Share!

Want to know the most efficient Pinning Strategy inside Tailwind to get all your pins scheduled for the week in 20 minutes or less?

Please note that some of the links included in this article are affiliate partner links. For more information, click here.

Here's the thing…if you're not using Tailwind in the right way, you can waste hours of time trying to make your way through tribe content to get your pins scheduled for the week.

If you landed on this blog post, you probably already know that using Tailwind can up your Pinterest marketing game and send heaps of targeted traffic to your website. But what most professional bloggers leave out is exactly how to accomplish this.

How to Up Your Pinterest Marketing Game

First things first, there are a few pre-requisites before you will completely understand some of the language used in this article because it’s hyper-relevant to Pinterest Marketing, but I’m not going to shame you with yet another affiliate link to someone else’s Pinterest Marketing Course that you have to pay for.

Instead, I’m going to do my best to give you some real, actionable tips that you can start using immediately.

I believe in transparency and authenticity in business, and my goal is to provide real value…always! Cracking the code to Pinterest marketing is like any new tactic, when you’re learning for the first time, you just want to become a sponge and soak up as much information as you can so that you can start making it work for you…as quick as possible!

Although I’m a veteran of digital marketing (I worked in agency and corporate for 14 years) in the grand scheme of things, Pinterest Marketing in particular was fairly new on my radar and to be honest, at the time most corporations who were hiring digital agencies to handle their online marketing campaigns were not looking to use Pinterest.

As I did research and read more about Tailwind, I kept coming across people who would have a killer headline on their pin and blog post (about pinning), and then I’d get to the article and they weren’t actually share any real tips.

Instead of offering value in the blog post, they would ramble on and on about a Pinterest Course they took, then they would share their affiliate link to the course. #ANNOYING

Using Pinterest for Business

If you are still rather new to Pinterest, then I would recommend checking out my Getting Started Checklist before you try to implement the suggestions inside this article.

The Checklist covers the basics of Pinterest for Business, such as making sure your business profile has a good description, creating beautiful and engaging pins, board covers and hyper-relevant descriptions that are loaded with long tail keyword phrases. In addition, joining Group Boards helps with the amplification tactics. If any of the above language sounds confusing, I do offer a comprehensive “mini-course” which will take you from newbie to Pinterest Marketing Expert in a matter of 2 hours or less.

When I first converted my Pinterest account over to a business account, I didn’t think I needed to use Tailwind to see the results. I wasn’t about to pay for yet another tool just because everyone was talking about it.

Without Tailwind, and with some vigorous manual pinning on a daily basis, I was able to get my Pinterest daily views to about 100,000 per month. To break that down, that translated to only about 50 blog page views per day from Pinterest, which isn’t much.

Nobody can make a passive income on 50 website page views a day. Just as a basic frame of reference, to actually start seeing some passive income (i.e.: affiliate commissions) coming in, your website views need to be at least 1,000 per day.

After about 2 months of killing myself, spending time in different Facebook Group threads and manually pinning for 2-3 hours per day (I’m including time to reciprocate in that as well) I was already getting burned out and frustrated with Pinterest. The strategy I keep hearing about wasn’t working, and I was starting to believe that all the digital agencies were right.

I was barely approaching those 50 website visitors per day, and when I wasn’t participating in a group thread, the views were down to 20. Not to mention, those visitors were likely just visiting to reciprocate with support and share my content, not actually because they were interested.

Enter Tailwind.

I gave in.

I was desperate to make it work. But two months into using Tailwind, I still wasn’t seeing the results I thought I would. What could I possibly be doing wrong?

I was sharing the Tribe content like crazy. I was spending time in the tribes reciprocating to make sure that I shared pins from everyone who shared mine.

It was taking hours.

What’s up with this 20-minute per week that everyone was talking about?

Finally…the revelation. After some experimenting, and digging deeper, I finally realized what I was missing. Although I was using Tribes, I was not pinning my own content in the right way, and I wasn’t using my Group Boards the right way either!

The Tailwind Secret

There are actually a few secrets:
1. Know exactly how to pin efficiently (view the video below)
2. Ensure that your beautiful pins are not using stock photos (because the algorithm reads the photo)
3. Pin your own content to group boards and other people's content to your own boards

Here’s a short video to illustrate the most efficient way to pin and leverage your Group boards using Tailwind.

So in a nutshell, the Tailwind process looks like this:

Join Relevant Group Boards
Create Board Lists inside Tailwind
Batch Scheduling: In other words, Pin with the Chrome Browser Extension to one hyper-relevant topic at a time (see above video for illustration of how to do this)
In the Draft section, schedule all pins to your Board Lists
Shuffle your queue

PRO-TIP: INTERVAL PINNING

If you don’t currently use a scheduling tool, it’s likely that when your blog post goes live, you pin it to every group board you are a part of. In theory, it seems like a good idea, but for your followers, it comes across as spammy and reduces the number of people who will actually see your pin.

Not only that, Pinterest will ban you for “spamming” even though you're not doing it intentionally.

Instead, click the interval button (it appears when you add more than one board inside the scheduler).

Interval Pinning

Now that you're using Tailwind to get more traffic to your website (if you're not using Tailwind, yet, CLICK HERE to grab a Free Trial), how are you going to turn those visitors into customers?

Learn more in my mini-course (because I hate reading blog articles with Clickbait headlines that catch your attention because they posted a vanity metric and then not write about the actual strategy…they just waste your time and direct you to someone elses course through their affiliate link.

Dear Bloggers: That is NOT how you give value to your audience. Unfortunately what the “big time blogger” forgot to tell those people is that promoting their affiliate link without any substance behind the blog post will not only provide mere nickels for your efforts…it will not help you build your audience because people are turned off by the fact that they didn't get any real value.

In any event, I'm not promoting any affiliates here (except Tailwind) which is just a necessary tool if you want to grow your blog.

There's enough room for all of us to thrive online without being stingy about it! My philosophy: GirlBosses Helping GirlBosses = #Vogue

Join my FREE Private Facebook Community where I post about the tactics and techniques that I've learned from working in Corporate and Agency Marketing for over 14 years. I also post share threads for the opportunity to grow your blog and connect with other Social Media Influencers and Online Entrepreneurs! What I don't do is follow the crowd. Join Now!!

July 1, 2019/16 Comments/by Kate Murray

Online Marketing, Pinterest

How to Control the Pin-No-Pin Meta-Tag on Pinterest

Hiding images in a blog post might seem like a strange topic to write a blog about, but I still see professional bloggers adding a big, giant pin inside their blog post.

Why might you want to control the pins from your blog?

Sometimes it doesn't make sense to start off your blog post with a gigantic vertical rectangle like this:

Pin no pin meta tag

Implementing the “pin-no-pin” meta-tag within your WordPress website is a great way to control what your readers can pin to their Pinterest boards, without having to sacrifice images that don't always enhance the way your post looks and reads.

Because Pinterest is so visual, most professional bloggers want to make sure their content both stands out above the competition and provides an exceptional experience for their audience.

This can be accomplished with the Tasty Pins plugin, however, it can also be done for free by knowing a few snippets of code that you can add into your website, thus, avoiding paying a fee for the plugin.

Vogue Media is an approved Pinterest Partner Marketing Agency, so I'm fortunate to get the inside scoop on all things Pinterest!

I recently had the opportunity to meet with my account manager, Charlie Padilla from Pinterest, who gave me some great insights about the platform and the recent changes. Optimizing your blog for Pinterest using the “pin-no-pin” meta-tag is a great way to ensure that you have complete control over what your content (pins) look like across the platform.

Optimizing Your Blog Images for Pinterest

Optimized pins are the best at 1000px by 1500px (these pins are also sometimes referred to as the “long” rectangle). They are both visually attractive and they take up a lot more vertical space than their square counterparts. In order to be eye-catching and impactful, be sure to put careful thought into both your design and your copy.

If you are designing these images yourself, a great tool to get started with is Canva.com. Canva is an easy and intuitive to use cloud-based app, and they already have pre-set sizes and templates that you can modify to match your own branding.

To further optimize your pins for the best visual impact, aim to use at least 2 different fonts and colors that compliment your logo and branding.

When you don’t use the pin-no-pin meta-tag, and a user pins from your blog post, they will get a choice of any image that is part of your blog, and that includes images on your sidebar, the featured image, as well as any embedded video thumbnail images.

A typical blog post that is not optimized for Pinterest pins will look something like this when a reader clicks to pin:

All the pins

This is not ideal, because the user can choose any of these images, and most of the time, a reader doesn’t really care which image they choose, they'll choose the first one, or wherever they happen to click; they just want to be able to come back to your website later.

The problem with this method is that anyone who follows their boards will then see a pin that is not as “optimized” as it could be, and it may even be a photo from your sidebar, an ad, or something that isn't even really related to that post.

You want to ensure that your blog reader can only pin what you want them to. After all, you've spent a lot of time creating Pins specifically to correlate to your post, you want them to Pin the right image!

To do this, you will use something called Inline CSS to wrap the images that you don’t want pinned in a specific meta-tag that tells your blog “hey, don't make this photo available to pin”.

The snippet of code to accomplish that looks like this:

data-pin-nopin=”true”

Now, when you add the code above to the images you don't want pinned, when the reader tries to pin, they get something like this instead:

example of the right pin

The above Inline CSS is used whenever you embed an image directly into your blog post. This is also called “manual” coding. It should be used when you embed a YouTube video as well, otherwise the rectangular YouTube Thumbnail will also show up as an option.

There are other meta-tags you can use as well, such as the data-pin-media as well as the data-pin-description.

While you may not need to do that if you have your Pinterest account enabled for Rich Pins, with recent changes to the Pinterest algorithm (in late 2019) even accounts which has Rich Pins enabled stopped pulling the description.

To remedy this situation, I've found that adding the manual code:

data-pin-description=”enter your description here”

works really well.

To enable your blog for business, follow the link to this article that explains how to do it on Pinterest.

The WordPress Sidebar

The next item of business is to take care of the sidebar. Since your sidebar likely changes often, I find that the most efficient way to take care of this is to add a snippet of code to your WordPress Theme’s Functions File. To see a quick demo, watch the video below.

Before you modify your website’s code, I highly recommend making a backup of your site just in case you accidentally change or delete something wrong. Code is very sensitive and even a space in the wrong place can throw it all off and take down your entire website. To make a backup of your site for Free, I recommend using the Free version of the WordPress plugin UpdraftPlus.

Adding a code snippet to your functions.php file looks like this:


[php]
/* added by Insert Your Name to exclude featured image and sidebar images from pinning  */

function modify_post_thumbnail_html($html, $post_id, $post_thumbnail_id, $size, $attr) {
    $id = get_post_thumbnail_id(); 
    $src = wp_get_attachment_image_src($id, $size); 
    $alt = get_the_title($id); 

    $html = '<img src="' . $src[0] . '" alt="' . $alt . '" data-pin-nopin="true" />';

    return $html;
}
add_filter('post_thumbnail_html', 'modify_post_thumbnail_html', 99, 5);


add_filter( 'generate_logo_attributes', function( $atts ) {
    $atts['data-pin-nopin'] = true;

    return $atts;
} );

[/php]

To hide an image from the post, here is the code you need to copy inside the text editor. Copy it exactly as is and replace with the URL to your pin and/or the description you want pulled in. NOTE: You will not be able to copy/paste this code, you will need to retype it in your text editor. With the most recent WordPress core update, they took away the option to add html code. It works above because the code is php, but does not work with example html, even using the pre tag.

Want to learn more about using Pinterest for Business? Download my FREE Getting Started Checklist!

Pinterest Management: Work from Home Jobs are Growing!

In 2018, 2.4% of U.S workers voluntarily quit their jobs. That number is absolutely staggering. (In case you’re wondering, that is millions of people). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there haven’t been rates this outstanding since 2001.

New media has made it a genuine reality for people across the globe to work for themselves. This is exciting for the global workforce, because it’s so different from what life was like when many of us first started our career.

Social networks not only enable connections for social reasons, if you know how to use them in the right way, they act as a vehicle for an infinite number of possibilities for growing your business.

If you spend a lot of time on Pinterest, you know the network is much more a search engine than it is a social network. Not all small business owner's have the budget to hire an agency to manage their Pinterest account (although if you are considering getting Pinterest off your plate you can view our Pinterest Account Services by clicking here).

Would you like to learn the in's and out's of using Pinterest for Business in step-by-step detail? Check out my Pinterest Mini-Course. It's designed especially for small business owners who want to DIY their own Pinterest Marketing, or, those who are seeking to learn how to become a Pinterest Account Manager so you can offer Pinterest Management Services to your clients.

February 19, 2019/18 Comments/by Kate Murray