10 Business Faux Pas To Avoid When Using Pinterest

Since 2004 social media has been booming and there is no indication of any lapse in its strength. If for some reason you are not yet taking advantage of the intense growth and popularity of social media for your business, now is the time to get started.

Over 72 million people use Pinterest and many of them can become your customers. Businesses make money from Pinterest users and you can too. But learning and building an effective social media network takes time and a lot of work. As much as you should learn what to do, you need to learn what NOT to do. Below are 12 mistakes you might be making on Pinterest.

1. Dead or Broken Links – Be sure to check all of your posts to make sure the links are working and actually lead to the intended information. Sending your followers to dead or non-existent pages is a good way to lose them.

2. Ineffective Images – Images are everything on Pinterest. Images without human faces get liked and repined much more than images with faces. You also want to have multiple colors in your images. Images with red, orange and brown get repined many more times than blue. You do not want a lot of background or whitespace in your image. The less background, the more repins. Less than 30% will get the most repins. Smooth texture gets repinned much more often than a rough texture. Medium lightness does the best as opposed to very light or very dark images. Details matter and paying attention to your image details could make all the difference.

3. Unorganized Boards – Pinterest has a very good format for organizing your pins and information. Take advantage of that. Separate your pins into categories and create more boards for easier navigation. But do try to keep the number of boards you have under control. If your boards are too specific and only have a few posts, consider merging them with similar categories to make fewer user-friendly boards. Place your most interesting sand intriguing boards on top to get more followers. You need to get their attention immediately especially if you have a lot of boards to scroll through.

4. Not Commenting on Other People’s Posts – Look for popular posts and share your thoughts, opinions or ideas. Get involved. Don’t just say “Nice pin” or “Love it”. Also, mention others in your comments, when it is appropriate. Be on guard on how much you comment, however, as Pinterest strict spam rules. Keep your commenting down to a few times a day.

5. Not Using Buttons – Pinterest has all kinds of buttons and widgets you can use to help get people to your boards. Use a Pin It button on your website to make it easy for people to share your pages. Use widgets that show your pins to get people to follow you. Sprinkle these tools all over your website and if you use WordPress, look over all the best widgets available to you. Show off your pins and get more followers.

6. Incomplete Profile – Make sure you have a completed profile with all needed information available. Be sure to add your business info as well. An incomplete profile might give people the impression you are trying to hide something, making you untrustworthy.

7. Not Customizing the Description –Although the image does most of the talking, you need a good description included with your post as well. Add searchable terms and keywords. Add your call to action. Like, share, comment, repin – what do you want them to do. Be clear, straightforward and appealing to the senses. You could also use quotes from testimonials or reviews you have. Adding prices when appropriate could increase the response to the pin. Link back to your website when possible. Be sure to use Rich Pins which will include extra information on the pin itself. Find out more about Rich Pins at Pinterest for Business.

8. Not Pinning Original Content – While cruising through your home feed and repinning all the useful pins can get you followers, you do need to pin original content as well. Use Pinterest’s Pin It button while you are surfing the net and be sure to pin information, content, resources and other helpful things you find. Visit Pinterest to find out how to install the Pin It button on your browser and make pinning original content easy.

9. Not Using Pinterest Analytics – Pinterest provides you with detailed information about your activity sot be sure to take advantage.

Their analytics can tell you:
Your most popular pin
Which of your pins were repined and how many times
Monthly viewers
People who engaged
Average daily views
Profile views
Most popular boards
Pin impressions, clicks, repins, etc
And mor e….

The information seems endless. As a business, you need to use that information to help improve your Pinterest marketing efforts.

10. Over Pinning – Once you start pinning and repining it can just take over and before you know it, you have pinned hundreds of pins and you don’t even know what you pinned. Control your pinning and make the pins more effective. Turning into a robot and pinning everything from recipes to how to paint your house will not do you much good. Think of your followers and how this might affect them. Were all those pins helpful in any way to them? What would you do if you got bombarded with 100 pins in less than an hour? For me, Pinterest is the one social media site I tend to get a little addicted to, so watching myself can be a challenge. Try to keep the number down to about 5 to 10 posts per day. As little as a few times a week can also be effective for business growth.

Extra Faux Pas: Not connecting to your other social accounts. Create a social web by connecting all your social accounts to enable people to easily find them all and hopefully follow all. Be sure to post different information to different accounts. If you post all the same stuff, people will have no reason to follow your additional accounts.

There are many facets of Pinterest that are not covered in this article so head on over there and start learning about all the tools and features they offer to help you build and expand your business.

Terri Seymour

Terri Seymour has almost 20 years of internet marketing experience and has helped many people start their own business. Now is the time to get started with your own exciting resell ebook business. Visit now to get three free gifts including The Big Book of Social Media Tips. http://www.ebooks.seymourproducts.com