You’ve probably seen and heard of Pinterest accounts with over one million followers, and you want in! Well, you may have missed the “early adopters” edge, because the chances you’ll accrue that many followers are dwindling each day you wait, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get in the game now!
While the number of followers can play a role in establishing social proof (and let’s face it, they make us feel good), it’s building up the right followers and focusing on building a loyal community on Pinterest that’s really important. How do you go about building more followers?
Here are five ways to help you gain more followers on Pinterest.
1) Cross Promote Pinterest To Your Other Online Communities
If you have an existing online community, whether it’s your e-mail list, your Facebook business page, or your own Twitter community, one of the easiest ways to grow your followers is to cross promote your pins from Pinterest to these networks.
Jeep put out a Facebook status update letting their fans know about their Pinterest page. Shortly after the status was posted on Facebook, Jeep received over 1000 new followers for their Pinterest account. In all fairness they do have over 1 million Facebook fans, so only a small percentage of them joined.
However, this was one thousand more followers they have, that they didn’t have previously. You have to admit, that’s a pretty easy way to get a thousand more followers!
Another way to promote your Pinterest account is to tweet the links of your pins to your Twitter followers. This way, when a follower on Twitter clicks on the link, he’s brought to your Pinterest page first before heading off to the website.
Here’s an example from OverGo Studio. They used a bit.ly link that goes back to one of their Pinterest pins. What I like about this particular tweet is that it makes it clear what the subject is about, and also adds the hashtag #Pinterest to give their followers a head’s up that it leads to a pin.
Social media tools such as Hootsuite, Buffer, IFTT, and Hubspot can assist you in scheduling your pins out as tweets.
2) Put A Pinterest Follow Button On Your Website
I’ve come across businesses that have a Pinterest page, but don’t have a Pinterest follow button on their website.
This is a major opportunity to gain more followers, especially among people who visit your website regularly.
People who love Pinterest and your business are likely to follow your Pinterest account. But they aren’t going to be aware of it unless you make it obvious to them on your website. Very few people will purposely search for your company’s Pinterest page on a search engine.
If you want a nice visible widget that allows people to follow your Pinterest account, or one of your specific boards, go check out Pinterest’s widget page.
3) Join The Right Group Board On Pinterest
One of the major advantages that Pinterest has over other social networks is its ability to allow multiple users to contribute to a board. This is often referred to as group board or a collaborative board on Pinterest.
There are many established group boards out there that range from focusing on wedding dresses to food packaging to social media marketing.
Group boards can have unlimited contributors and followers, and this makes them lucrative for new Pinterest users looking to get their pins exposed to a large audience very quickly.
When starting off, you may have only 100 followers, which doesn’t give you a lot of exposure. But if you find a group board that has 10,000 followers, all of sudden your pins are potentially exposed to all those people.
And if you consistently pin great content onto those group boards, some of the people who follow that group board will also follow some of your boards as well.
A great tool to find group boards is PinGroupie. Look for group boards that have a way for you to contact the founder of the group board in the board’s description.
Usually group board owners who welcome new people to join their group board will leave their e-mail address or a method for you to contact her.
4) Pin WOWZA Content
One of the best ways to gain more followers is to pin amazing and relevant content for your Pinterest audience. But it’s not just about pinning amazing content. It’s also about pinning original WOWZA content that shines.
One of my most popular podcast has been 5 Tips For Getting Your Pins Found in Search Results. The podcast image has over 550 repins to date.
This is because for many businesses get frustrated when they don’t see their pins show up in search results, and they want to know why. Producing powerful and helpful content helps it spread and can help you gain more followers.
Close to 80% of pins on Pinterest are repins, which means that only 20% is original content. That means 20% is making up a majority of what’s found on Pinterest.
This is why it’s important to pin your own original content as well as content from other bloggers whose content may not normally be exposed to your Pinterest community.
For me, I use Feedly, and scan through the different blog posts and articles that would be of interest to my Pinterest community.
By ensuring that you take the time to find online resources that are of help to your community and by taking the time to post content that others haven’t posted yet, you will slowly see a rise in followers for specific boards.
5) Pin Consistently
One of the ways to grow your followers is to ensure that you pin consistently. This will help you grow your following if you also follow tip #4.
But I’m not saying you should consistently pin your own stuff. In order to grab the attention of others on Pinterest you also need to pin other people’s content as well.
Pinning consistently means choosing times and dates that work best for your business. Jeff Sieh of the Manly Pinterest show pins in the morning and late at night, pretty much every day.
By having a Pinterest schedule, you allow yourself to create the habit of pinning. I know it’s hard to add another social network, but you also have to keep in mind that while your time is valuable, so is the exposure you’ll gain by being consistent on Pinterest.
There are some businesses that have reported dismal results from Facebook pages, but have had great success with Pinterest.
In order to find out if Pinterest is going to be a success for you, you have to try it out, and that means creating a schedule.
Those are five tips on getting more followers to your Pinterest account. If you have found a great way to increase your Pinterest community, please share it in the comments, and help out another fellow pinned.
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