How to Get Viral Traffic to Your Blog
It all starts with the“Perfect Pin.”Interest is very different than Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
It took a few months of trial and error, but finally realized I needed a marketing plan specific to Pinterest and its unique set of users.
Pinterest users have a different psychology when pinning than
when they are posting on the other social media platforms. You have to tell your story differently than you would on Facebook or Twitter.
In my first experiments I set out to design pins that would generate the most interest, and we focused on how to push/promote it across the Pinterest landscape to drive massive amounts of traffic back to
our target websites.
Is the top converting social media site, with 50% higher conversion rates
Drives more traffic to your website
Has more than 2.5 billion page views a month
Has 70 million users and is gaining international
momentum
In 2013, studies showed that Pinterest interest Marketing” has become something of a buzzword in the industry.
The Perfect, Traffic-Driving Pin
There had to be some kind of theory or technique behind the perfect pin—something that made one pin a total success, while another would be lost minutes after hitting the boards.
My strategy
Meaning: you can use these secrets yourself to help your pins stand out in the Pinterest feed, get tons of repins, and send thousands of new visitors to your site.
Only things that are “remarkable” in some way
will be spread to others.
Do you think your pins are falling into this category?
There are two main takeaways from this concept:
First, present the content of your pin as a Hot pink aligator. Make it
something that people don’t see every day—something that makes
them stop and say: “Look at that! I must tell all my friends!”
Don’t let fear stop you from posting things that are only mostly
unique. Your goal should be to make content that is remarkable.
This may seem like one of the hardest elements to master when you’re working on creating the perfect pin, but it is extremely important.
Try this experiment for yourself: open up any category on Pinterest
and note which image you find most interesting without scrolling
down at all. Ask yourself why this image piqued your interest. Was it because it was something you had never seen before?
People pin things to their boards for a couple of reasons:
They want their followers/friends to see the awesome thing
they discovered.
They want to remember/buy/do what they see in there later, so
they pin it on their own board as a method of filing it away.
Whatever their reason, your goal is to create the kinds of pins they
will want to share on their own boards so their followers will have a
chance to see it too.
Now you may be asking, “That’s great and all, but people pinning my images does me no good. How do I get them to my site?”
Mystery is an important part of The Perfect Pin Formula because
your goal is to do more than increase the number of repins. You want people to engage with your pins and actually click on your content.
Put some mystery in your image instead of revealing everything. You need to encourage people to click through to your site if they want to find out more. There are a few ways you can accomplish this with certain types of content.
Of course, getting involved with a useful and valuable board will
require some planning and effort. In general, there are three
different ways to get involved.
There are people and agencies with Pinterest accounts that are on
several group boards. If you work with them they can help by either
getting you an invite to the boards they’re on or they can simply pin
your content to their group boards.
Get invites from the group board owners
Start your own group board(s)
This can be an involved process that requires a lot of effort to contact and build relationships with board owners. It starts with you following the board you want to join and doesn't end until you can show the owner that you have something of value to offer.
There is one other way to identify a group board.
On the account profile page, where their entire list of boards is presented (http://www.pinterest.com/username/), there is an icon that appears next to the board’s name that shows you it is a group board.
It is a simple image of three heads clustered together:
Where can You Find Group Boards?
group boards can be hard to find. It’s even harder to find boards
that consistently host quality content and are relevant to your
industry. Pinterest simply doesn’t have a way to let you search
for specific group boards. You can relax though, because once you do
find them, your work will get a lot easier.
Simply scan the board profile page and spot the icons on the different
boards, like so:
group board icon
Method 1: Manually (we still use this method)
1.
Look for pinners in your industry/category with tens of
thousands of followers.
2.
Once you have a list of potentials, look through their
boards page and see if any of them are relevant to your
content and have the group board icon.
3.
Record the board’s name and URL so you can come back
later and request an invite.
4.
Click on the +[number] icon next to the seven
contributor profile images to see the complete list of
contributors.
5.
Open each contributor’s profile and see if they are
members of any other group boards. (People who
are already a contributor on one group board often
contribute to several more.)
6.
Record any group boards you find and then look into the
contributor profiles in the new group boards you found.
Here is 1 of my many group boards that I created
SCIENCE
Also search Pinterest by keyword for me jmhhacker. Results are thousands of pins sourcing back to jmhhacker
As you can see I am shown results and can see which pins did well.
Use Board Deck (this is a free directory)
Go to
http://boarddeckhq.com and sign up for free. Board Deck
is simply a directory of Pinterest group boards by category that
you can sort through quickly.
Are there 1,000 or more pins on the board?
(This shows that the contributors are actively pinning.)
Are there more than 30 contributors on the board?
(This gives you an idea of your chances of getting an invite.)
Are the pins on the board being repinned 10+ times each?
(This tells you that the followers of the board are active.)
Getting an Invite to Contribute to a Group Board
Once you have built a list of possible boards, it’s time to request
invites to become a contributor. There’s a simple and effective
way to go about it, and it involves respecting the board’s creator
and showing that you can offer something very valuable.
With that in mind, be sure you read the board description before you
send any requests. This is where the owners will often explain how
they would like to receive requests.
Remember that you have to become a follower of the board first and the owner has to follow at least one of your boards, or they can’t add you as a contributor. Of course, following them is important, because it is a good way to show you are truly interested in what they’re already offering.
Using these methods here a a couple examples
These 3 pins below brought in over 25,000 views to my blog.
These 3 pins below brought in over 25,000 views to my blog.
Here is the original blog POST
That led to 20,000 views from 1 pin.
See the power now?
What are your pinterest methods? Have they worked?
