Pinterest

Five Groovy New Pinterest Features

April 3, 2013 by Elaine Griffin Leave a Comment

Pinterest is still in the process of rolling out the new look to all users, and although I haven’t been using Pinterest much in these past few weeks, I have switched over and given it a good look around. Here are my five favorite new Pinterest features.

More Options

When you click on a pin, there are several options displayed at the top. In the previous version of Pinterest you had to hover over the pin to see these options. This is no longer the case with clicked on pins. Not only do these options show up without hovering, they are also sticky. That means this option bar travels with you as you scroll down through the pin, so you don’t have to scroll back up to use the options. In addition, when you hover over the image, a bar is revealed with the web address of the pin, and if you click it, the site opens in a new window. Awesome!

Here is what is on the options bar at the top of the pin:

There is a new, red “pin it” button that replaced the white “repin” button. To the right of that is the number of times a pin has been repined.
A “like” button, which also shows the number of likes for the pin.
A “website” button that takes you to the website of the original pin, which opens in a new window.
A “share” button , which allows you to share on Twitter or Facebook, email, or embed.

Even More Options

Pinterest is really stepping up the game as far as helping us with our marketing. For exampl, many of us who blog give our readers the opportunity to explore our own content and relevant content from other sites with “you may also like” type of options. Pinterest is now doing the same.

When you click on a pin to enlarge it, to the right you will now see the rest of the pins from the board the pin is on.
Below the board, you will see “more pins from,” which are pins from the original pin source.
If you scroll to the bottom of the pin and the pin comments, you will see “people who pinned this also pinned.”
To the right of that, you will see “related themes.” What a great way to explore Pinterest!

Pinterest is notorious for it’s horrible search feature, which hasn’t improved with this release, but I think making relevant content available in this way more than makes up for it.

Instant Access to Repins and Likes

Prior to the new release, you had to use http://pinterest.com/source/YourWebsite.com/ in order to see who has repined your pins. Now you can easily see who repins with the new “pin it” button. Remember that little number to the right of the button? Click it, and you will be directed to the details. Remember, you can do this to see your likes, too! Boom, now we have instant access to all of our Pinterest love.

Analytics

Oh, don’t we all just love analytics? So many businesses and bloggers are using Pinterest as part of their social media marketing plans. It is easy to see incoming traffic through your blog or site analytics, and it is great that Pinterest has finally jumped on board and started offering their own analytics. We are now able to monitor the following:

Pins, or average number of pins from your site.
Pinners, or average number of pinners from your site.
Repins, or average number of repins of your content on Pinterest.
Repinners, or average number of repinners of your content on Pinterest.
Impressions, or the average number of times your pins appear in your followers feed, in search results, or on another pinner’s board.
Reach, or the average number of times a pinner has seen your pin.
Clicks, or average number of clicks to your website from Pinterest.
Visitors, or average number of visitors to your website from Pinterest.

In addition to what you can monitor, Pinterest offers tips on how to increase your pins and engagement. How nice of them!

General Cleaned Up Look

Pinterest has done a lot of cleanup and made their look much more sleek. I love the new larger pin sizes, which is really in line with the web trends for 2013 and beyond. In addition to the larger pin sizes, they have cleaned up the header area, moving the “categories” as a drop-down next to the sidebar, and removing the “add” and “about” options to the admin dropdown.

There are several other subtle changes in the new Pinterest, but these are the changes I think are the best, i.e. make Pinterest better looking, more functional in general, or give us as business owners and bloggers more opportunity for marketing, engagement, and relationship building.

Have you changed over to the new look? Please share your thoughts about whether you have or not in the comments.

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: blogging, marketing, Pinterest, small business, Social Media

Verify Your Website on Pinterest Today!

November 6, 2012 by Elaine Griffin Leave a Comment

If you use Pinterest as a marketing tool, the website verification will make it a little easier for you to have your whole profile seen by people interacting with your content.

Slowly but surely Pinterest is rolling out this verification process, which will allow users to see your entire website URL in your profile and in search results. In other words, instead of seeing a little globe by your name, they get your full URL right there in their face!
Neat, right?!

FYI, for those with Etsy, Shopify, or Ebay accounts and no website, you are not able to verify at this time, although Pinterest is currently looking for other ways for those stores to participate.

Pinterest profile before:

Pinterest profile with globe

Pinterest profile with proposed verified URL

Pinterest profile with verified URL

Pinterest pinner search with verified URL

How to Verify Your Site with Pinterest

How to verify your site with Pinterest

Pinterest makes it fairly easy to verify your site if you have a little bit of working knowledge of file transfer protocol (FTP). If you don’t, don’t worry, you should be able to ask your web designer, or even your web hosting company to help you out. It should take them less than one minute to do it.
Step 1: Click on “verify your site”
Step 2: Click on “download the HTML verification file”
Step 3: Save it to your hard drive
Step 4: Upload it via FTP or through your web host
Step 5: Click “click here to complete the process”
You should be done! Just follow the directions and ask for help if you need it!

Pinterest profile with a completed URL verification

Pinterest profile with a verified URL

As usual, please do not hesitate to leave a comment or sent an email if you have any questions about how to verify your site with Pinterest!

Filed Under: Branding, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: marketing, Pinterest, Social Media, verification

Guide to Pinterest Apps for the Facebook Timeline

March 21, 2012 by Elaine Griffin 20 Comments

Editors note, August 12, 2012:

Please see the update post on apps for the Facebook Timeline.

Editors note, April 10, 2012:

After this blog post was published I realized that Pinterest is not supporting iFrames. This means when a viewer clicks on your board through your Facebook app, they are directed to a blank page, rather than being directed to your board, as was happening when I first tested the app. Using a Pinterest app on your Facebook page is still a great way to engage your fan base and give them a slice of what and who you are. Please read below to see how you can give alternate views to your Pinterest site, which will allow viewers to be directed to your profile and other boards.

Creating a Pinterest app for your Facebook Timeline is an effective way for your fans to connect with you on two platforms in one shot. There are a lot of steps, so it might seem tricky, but bear with me and you will not be disappointed!

Creating the App:

First, go to the Facebook Developers page, and at the top of the page, choose “Apps.”

Next, click, “create new app.”

Fill in the app name, and proceed through the developer verification process, if you are not already a verified developer. Don’t worry, it will only take a minute!

You will be brought to the app “settings” page, and here you will fill out the rest of the info.

Basic Info – What to Fill Out:

The “App Namespace” is a way for you to define your app and will be the name of your canvas page. One example would be yourname_pin. You don’t have to fill this in.

Also fill out your “Contact Email” if it is not filled out for you. And that is all you have to fill out for the basic info.

Next you will select how your app integrates with Facebook. Here you are going to choose “Website,” “App on Facebook,” and “Page Tab.”

Other Info – What to Fill Out:

Website:

The site URL will be your Pinterest ULR, for example, http://www.pinterest.com/example.

Edited to improve:

Instead of directing viewers to your Pinterest boards, you can direct them to all of your pins. Directing to pins allows viewers to click through directly to your Pinterest site. So, rather than directing to your Pinterest URL, direct them to your Pinterest *pins* URL. For example: http://www.pinterest.com/example/pins.

App on Facebook:

Here, in the “Canvas URL” space, you are going to enter the same URL you added above, but you are going to put a forward slash (/) at the end. For example, http://www.pinterest.com/example/. In the “Secure Canvas URL” space, you are going to add the same URL, but you are going to put an “s” in the http part (https://www.pinterest.com/example/).

Page Tab:

Your “Page Tab” name will be Pinterest. The “Tab URL” and “Secure Tab URL” will be the same as the Canvas and Secure Canvas URL’s listed above, but without the forward slashes.

Do not worry about the “Page Tab Edit URL.”

For “Page Tab Width,” you are going to choose 850 pixels. That is the largest you can choose at this point, and although there will still be a horizontal scroll on your app canvas page, which can be annoying to some users, I think it is still worth it to have the integration. I think the “cool” factor of it all is enough to win over annoyed users.

Now you are done with this part, so hit “save changes.”

Installing the App:

Next you are going to install the app on your Facebook page. Paste the following address into your address bar, but before you hit enter, there ARE changes to be made:

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL

NOW, you need to replace YOUR_APP_ID with your app ID, which can be found below your app name.

You will also need to replace YOUR_URL with your canvas URL (http://www.pinterest.com/example/.)

Hit enter and you will be taken to a page and prompted to add the page tab.

Now, when you add it, you might be directed to a page that looks like your Pinterest page – don’t get confused. Just go back to your Facebook account, go to your fan page, and you will see your app there, but you will have to edit it in order to use a custom app image.

Editing the App Image:

In order to edit your app, you need to expand your app space, so just go ahead and hit the little down arrow. Then hover over your app until the pencil appears, click it, and choose “Edit Settings.”

Next click “Change” next to “Custom App Image.” On the next page, hit “Change” again, and you will be prompted to upload your image.

And guess what? I’ve already re-sized a Pinterest logo image right here for you! Hooray! Just right click and save it to your computer for uploading.

And now you are done – go show all your friends and fans, and please share this tutorial with them!

I hope you found this tutorial helpful, and feel free to contact me with any questions! If you would like to see the app in action, visit my Facebook page!

Filed Under: Branding, News, Social Media Tagged With: custom tabs, Facebook, Pinterest

Marketing and Networking with Pinterest

March 16, 2012 by Elaine Griffin Leave a Comment

Pinterest. Love it because it’s an addictive-inspirational-time suck, or hate it because of their privacy policies, terms of use, and copyright issues. Either way, Pinterest is here, and it is a growing favorite social media tool.

According to AppData.com, Pinterest is gaining users at a breakneck speed since December 2011, and as of March 2012, is nearing 12 million worldwide users, making it one of the top and fastest growing social networks available. Although 12 million users doesn’t sound like much, growing to that number in about a year is nothing to shake a stick at. Pinterest is gaining so much momentum, that it is becoming a top referral source for brands, retail websites, bloggers, and Etsy shop owners. If you are interested in expanding your social media presence, while at the same time being inspired and having fun, you should really look into Pinterest.

How do I use Pinterest to market my blog or business?

There are many ways you can use Pinterest to benefit your blog or business. Remember, though, there is a fine line between engaging followers or customers, and spamming them. Sure, it’s great to showcase some of your greatest content, products, or services, but it should be a small part of your pinning. As always, good content and balance are key!

How to use Pinterest to market your blog or business:

Create an engaging and detailed profile and use your branding images as your profile picture.

Invite your blog/website visitors to join you on Pinterest. Use a Pinterest follow me button in your blog posts or social media area of your blog/website.

Ask your readers to pin your content to their Pinterest boards. You can ask readers directly to do this, “please pin this,” but you also need to offer a Pinterest pin it button above or below your content. You can create this yourself with the help of Pinterest, or, if you use WordPress, you can use a plugin such as the Pinterest “Pin It” Button.

Again, if you use WordPress, you can use Pinterest plugins such as Pretty Pinterest Pins and Pinterest Pinboard Widget in your sidebar to display your recent pins and drive readers to your Pinterest page.

Create Pinterest boards to post and highlight your own content – your blog posts, products, etc. Remember the “no spam” rule, though!

Create boards that offer some sort of discount or free download on your blog/website.

Create boards of other pinner’s content that you know would be interesting or useful to your readers or clientele.

Utilize search engine optimization. Everything you pin should have an accurate description of what it is. For example, if you are posting a recipe, instead of labeling it “yummy cake,” label it, “homemade yellow cake with chocolate fudge frosting.” Use keywords pinners might be using when utilizing the search option, and it would be helpful to also put your name, or your blog or business name in the description.

Integrate Pinterest with Facebook by creating a Pinterest tab for Facebook. LINK In coming weeks I will be posting a tutorial on how to create a Pinterest tab app for your Facebook page. Or, contact me, and I can create one for you or walk you through it!

Don’t afraid to be YOU! Pinterest is supposed to be fun, and having fun and highlighting who you are will ultimately make your customers or readers more endeared to you.

Protecting Your Content

If you are worried about protecting your content, using Pinterest as a marketing and networking tool might not be the right option for you. There are really not a lot of ways for you to protect the content you pin on Pinterest, other than including a watermark on your images. Another option might be to find a happy medium. Post interesting content that you don’t care as much about protecting, and do not post content you do want to protect. The copyright issue is one that is in it’s infancy, and will continue to play out over months. Ultimately, you should read the Terms of Use before you decide to start pinning your own content.

Tracking Pins and Traffic

In addition to the general tracking of your stats that you should already be doing, here are a couple of resources to help you analyze how Pinterest is working for you.

Thanks to MomComm, for teaching us how to see what has been pinned from your blog or website. Type in the URL below (replacing YOURWEBSITE with your domain name) and (hopefully) enjoy what you see. But remember, having your content pinned is the same as having it circulate around the internet. It takes time, so don’t obsess! http://www.pinterest.com/source/YOURWEBSITE.com

Other resources for tracking your stats is Pinerly and PinReach (formerly PinClout). Pinerly it is not open to the public and it feels as though you have to jump through hoops to get an account. Both are obviously in their infancy and it will be fun to watch and see how they grow.

The Breakdown

Using Pinterest as a marketing and networking tool for your blog or business has the potential to further your brand, build relationships with customers and readers, and drive traffic to your site. The disadvantage to using Pinterest is the copyright issues. It should take a lot of thought and consideration in deciding how to best use Pinterest.

Tell me, will you use Pinterest as part of your social media campaign?

Are you new to Elaine Griffin Designs? Visit me on Facebook to see how I have integrated a custom Pinterest app! You just might decide you want your own….

Filed Under: Branding, News, Social Media, WordPress Tagged With: Facebook, marketing, networking, Pinterest, plugins, Social Media, WordPress

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