We all love Pinterest.
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Finding a delicious recipe or interesting DIY project is always exciting when you visit this fast-growing, powerful social media platform. But, as a blogger you need to be using Pinterest a little differently than say, your mom, or your girlfriends. You need to have a strategy.
My favorite strategy for drawing in new followers is to create Pinterest board covers. It’s a generous gift you can give your readers to make their visit to your page inviting and easy. Those two elements will lead them to click the follow button, therefore, growing your audience.
In the past users would follow other users by following all of their boards and all of their pins. As Pinterest has grown this has changed.
Most users have numerous boards covering numerous subjects. It is now more common for users to follow individual boards than to follow other users hook, line, and sinker.
So, how do you implement this method in your Pinterest strategy?
A new strategy requires new thinking. New thinking requires new action. Pinterest board covers are the action you need to take for drawing in new followers.
Take me for example, I don’t follow whole accounts. Instead, I follow individual boards.
While I love the food, the recipes, the projects and the fashion I find on Pinterest, not all of those things fit my interests or my schedule. Can you relate?
We are a gluten-free, dairy-free, beef-free family. That cuts out a significant amount of recipes on Pinterest. I am also not interested in pregnancy boards, weddings, toddler crafts, or remodeling projects (I live in a rental and it keeps me from coveting.)
What I am interested in are Christmas boards, survival boards, homeschool boards, social media boards, bicycle boards, and the list goes on.
When a pinner uses board covers I am definitely interested.
Pinterest board covers will help you to strategically grow your audience.
The experts say have a great photo on each board cover so people will be drawn in. I say make a board cover that labels what the board is about.
When you use pinned pictures as your covers sometimes you’ll get a good result and sometimes you get a cut-off head. Not awesome. When you use a designed cover, you get a perfect product, every time.
The proof is in the boards. Would you rather pick boards from this:
or this:
How many places did you eyes have to go in the first example?
One.
How about the second? 2 maybe even 3. You have to look at the picture, then check the board title to see if it’s about what you think it’s about, then you may still have to look at the little example photos to see if you really want to go there. I don’t know about you, but that makes me tired.
If you have lots of time to read board titles and look at tiny little pictures, then the last choice is obviously for you.
But if you are looking for information, and want to find it quickly and easily, the first board is a much better choice. It tells you exactly what is in that board and it is large enough to scan easily.
You want info about color and font design? BAM! There you go.
Put yourself in the shoes of your potential follower. If they are busy and have just a few minutes to peruse Pinterest, your organized board covers will make a huge difference in their life. A busy mom is going to choose option 1 every time.
Remember, you don’t have to make a cover for every single board in your account. But if you blog about a particular topic regularly, or in a niche or even a couple of niches, it’s nice to have covers so your readers can find what they are looking for quickly.
Think of Pinterest board covers like blog categories. You divide your posts up by different topics. On Pinterest you can do this as well, but it is much more difficult to see how it’s being done without board covers.
Here’s my recipe for arranging your Pinterest boards. It’s a bit like a delicious layer cake. Pinterest board covers are the icing.
1. Put your blog boards at the top of your page, in alphabetical order
These should correlate with your blog categories. Don’t just make one board that says – blog. Make a board for each category you blog about. (Remember, you should have 5-8 categories for your blog.) Make a cover that matches your site colors and is easy to read. Add your posts to these boards. You should be making great pinnable graphics for each post, so this is a perfect place to pin your work.
2. Next, add boards that support your blog
This tier should be boards that compliment your categories but are not your own work. If you write about crafts, your board, housing your posts, should be at the top and in the next level down you can have boards about glitter, ribbon, paint, and yarn. These are boards you populate with pins about those topics that you like and recommend to your readers for further reading.
3. Group boards that you manage come next
The third tier should be any group boards that you manage. Make a nice cover for them and add them alphabetically. Make it easy for the eye to follow them and easy to join. Put the info right in the description with an email they can use to request membership. This will help you draw in a whole new audience. It’s easy to host your own group boards.
Pinterest board covers are a generous gift you can give to your readers.
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4. Now, Personal Boards
The fourth tier is your personal boards. These are the recipes you like, the idea boards for your kids, outfits and furniture you adore, and funny stuff. You don’t need covers for these but if you want to add them, even better.
5. Group boards where you are a member should be last
Finally, you want to add the group boards of which you are a member. Add these to your final tier, at the bottom.
Now you have a lovely layer cake of Pinterest goodness that showcases you first and moves down. Pinterest board covers are ideal for levels 1, 2, and 3.
Make the covers match your site’s color scheme, make the font easy to read and give your readers a great gift by making it easy for them to follow the boards they are interested in.
TIPS:
- Your number one goal with Pinterest board covers is to make them readable.
- Use 1 or 2 background colors and 1 font color
- Make your font large and easy to read
- Design your covers in PicMonkey
- Use the right size to make it fit
- Pinterest boards covers are 217 x 147 px – I make my covers 651 x 441 px – they they shrink to an ideal size
- Remember to leave blank space in the bottom right corner – that is where the pin count will be, so don’t put any info down there.
- Be sure to fill out the board description for each board – when a user hovers over the cover they will see more of what the board is about
- Most board covers don’t get pinned, but some do, so be sure to fill out the pin description and URL properly – I link my covers back to my Pinterest account so readers can find more goodies.
Here’s an example:
See, it’s not hard. It will take some concentrated effort, but that effort will pay off when you gain new followers who can find exactly what they are looking for on your Pinterest site.
Go give it a try. You’ll be glad you did.
#YouCanDoThis
photo credit: ash-s via photopin cc
The post Give Your Followers The Gift Of Pinterest Board Covers appeared first on Debi Stangeland.
