Hilary Wehmeye

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Pinterest As A PR Tool

Where Do You Size up With Competitors? When developing a presence on Pinterest

for your business, it can be helpful to size up your competition and see how they are effectively or not effectively using the site.

Evaluating competition along with following the assessing where you stand according to the 10 commandments listed next can help your business flourish on Pintrest.com

Why Should Businesses Use Pinterest

Since launching 2 years ago, Pinterest has surpassed 10 million users, faster than any other stand-alone site in history. It outstripped the traffic of Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined, and it is now capable of driving more referral traffic than Twitter. (Ten Commandments of using Pinterest for Business, Amy Porterfield)

Helpful Tool from MDG Advertising

How Does it Work?(http://www.mdgadvertising.com/blog/a-marketers-guide-to-pinterest-video/)

A Local Company Active on Pinterest

Think Back to the Ten Commandments We Saw EarlierWhat do they do well

Create lots of “Pins” from their merchandise and keep them updated (original content).

Generate lots of repins.Re pin things pertinent to their buisness

(outfit ideas, décor ideas)Link Pinterest to other online sources and

drive traffic.Uses Pinterest to Promote. Uses keywords with most pins (Branson

Cowgirl Clad Company, Cowgirl Clad Company)

According to the 10 Commandments, How Could they Improve? Develop Boards to categorize content.Create price banners to drive sales of

content. Use calls to action in their pins Reply to comments on their pins and reply

to re pins and likes. Develop more tag phrases to drive more

traffic.Watermark photos

Lets Look at a Great Follower of the 10 Commandments (of using Pinterest that is)

Evaluation Great Variety of Boards. Original Content,

Celebs in their clothing,and even decoration and recipe boards.

Following over 1,000 pinners.Deals of the day.Awesome “Pin It 2 Win It” contest. Link their website to every post with their

content.Uses price banners.Watermark many pictures, not all.

Speaking of “Pin It 2 Win IT”Contests have proven very effective for some

businesses on Pinterest AMC TheatresThe second-largest movie theater chain in North

America generating a lot of engagement through Pinterest contests.

AMC has created an entire pinboard, AMC Giveaways, dedicated to contests and giveaways.

Now users can just follow the specific pinboard to stay updated with the latest giveaways from AMC. The visually attractive pins direct users to appropriate contest landing pages. (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/pinterest-contest/)

Cont. HuHot created their own Pin It to Win It

contest in June, 2012. The participants had to create a HuHot recipe and pin it on one of their own pinboards in order to enter the contest.

HuHot created a landing page on their website describing the contest details. A pinboard grill meal contest was also created where all the entries were repinned. (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/pinterest-contest/)

Coupons in ModerationHard to resist coupons can be a good way

to generate likes but adhere caution: “Social media marketing's mission should

always be to add real value to the social communities where customers and potential customers are engaged. Spamming pinterest with unwanted and uninteresting images of coupons is a great way to get folks upset” (http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3457-4-Pinterest-Marketing-Mistakes).

Other Mistakes2. Never Showing Off ProductsSome companies lack in showing off

products which in turn leads to way less traffic to their website from Pinterest.com.

Assessing followers pin boards can help your business find a balance between your products and other pins your followers will be interested in that could drive them to your boards, and in turn your website.

Good Resources Bibliography 10 Commandments of Using Pinterest for Business. (2012, June 5).

Retrieved from Amy Porterfield : http://www.amyporterfield.com/2012/06/the-10-commandments-of-using-pinterest-for-business/

MDG Advertising. (April , 23 2012). A Marketers Guide to Pinterest. Retrieved from MDG Advertising : http://www.mdgadvertising.com/

Roggio, A. (2012, April 2). 4 Pintrest Marketing Mistakes. Retrieved from Practical ECommerce : http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3457-4-Pinterest-Marketing-Mistakes

Sharma, P. (2012, Auguts 20). 9 Businesses Using Pinterest Contests to Drive Traffic and Exposure. Retrieved from Social Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/pinterest-contest/