Lowell Brown, Author at Going Social

How to Get Your Business Noticed on Instagram

Posted on Sep 29, 2015Feb 13, 2018 by Lowell Brown

Are you using Instagram as a marketing tool for your business?

Do you want to improve on your Instagram marketing techniques?

Instagram is a great way for businesses to tell a visual story about their brand. As it’s quickly becoming a social media power tool, more and more businesses are using Instagram to grow their business in an online setting.

There are over 130 million active users on Instagram each month and there are approximately 1 billion photos being liked every day (wishpond). The potential to reach millions should not be ignored.

Follow these 5 Instagram marketing tips below and your business could be on its way to viral marketing success.

1. Build Your Community with Hashtags
Hashtags are a major component of Instagram. It’s a key strategy to increase your brand visibility on Instagram. Be sure to include brand specific hashtags (with your business name), general hashtags related to your business, and trending hashtags (by using Instagram’s Explore feature to find posts related to trending hashtags). Remember that trending hashtags are time-sensitive, so be sure to include trending tags that are relevant to your business to aid discovery.

2. Relate to Your Followers Interests
You’ll want to always consider your target audience’s mindset. Think about why your target audience is on Instagram. Spend some time reviewing your Activity “Following” tab to see what your followers are “liking.” For example, let’s say you sell financial consulting services and you’ve established that your customers are a fan of travel. So why not post some vacation photos in the Caribbean with a catchy description reading “Wouldn’t you love to take a family vacation down South? You can if you start making better financial decisions! Call us today for a free consultation.” Keep in mind you always want stay relevant to what you’re selling.

3. Post Frequently, But Don’t Overdo It
Over posting on Instagram is frowned upon and may result in lost followers. Nobody wants their newsfeeds overpowered by one Instagram user. You don’t need to post multiple times a day on Instagram. We suggest posting at most once per day. Test out different posting times to discover the most effective time of day to post.

4. Share High Quality Photos
If you’re a professional business then any image you share on Instagram should be of the highest quality. As all photos shared on Instagram must be square in dimension, a big time saver it to shoot square photos. Look at your settings on your digital camera and/or smartphone and size to square. This will save time on cropping the image and will ensure that essential elements will not be cropped out of the image when it’s time to post.

5. Engage With Users
The more active you are on Instagram, the more exposure your business will receive. Start by searching for relevant hashtags, liking posts, and leaving comments. You can also #regram images and give post credit to the original user. Always remember that engagement is a two-way street: if you expect people to engage with your business, then people will expect you to engage with them as well.

Tell us your best Instagram marketing tips in the comments below.

4 Recent Changes To Instagram – What You Need To Know

Posted on Sep 22, 2015Feb 13, 2018 by Lowell Brown

Our favourite social media platform, Instagram, has been aggressively releasing new features and tools the past few months. In this blog post I’ll explain four recent changes to Instagram that you need to know about.

Think of the creative ways you can put these changes to work for your business. How will these creative features help you build your brand’s awareness, increase engagement with clients and bring more leads to your business?

1) Instagram Now Allows Landscape Images and Video

Square dimensions does not have to be the norm anymore. Whether you have a great landscape picture you want to share without having to crop or you have some amazing widescreen video, you now have the ability to share it in it’s original form directly to Instagram.   Note: to get this new feature you have to update your Instagram app – so do that first.

Now, when choosing a photo or video, you can tap the format icon to adjust the orientation to portrait or landscape instead of square. Once you share the photo, the full-sized version of it will appear in your feed.

2) Threaded Messages and Improvements to Instagram Direct

About a year ago Instagram added a feature called Instagram Direct which enabled users to send photo or video messages to contacts privately. Instagram has launched improvements to Instagram Direct including threaded messages and sending content from your feed as a Direct message.

Threaded messages make it easier to go back and forth with the people you talk to the most. Similar to how your text messages work in a thread, now your direct posts follow a threaded format.

The other change to Instagram Direct is that you will now find an arrow next to the like and comment icons under every post. Tap it to send that post to a friend or group as a message using Instagram Direct. It will appear as part of your conversation, and you can tap the photo or video to see and like the original post. You can also send hashtag pages and location pages by tapping the arrow icon in the top right-hand corner. This feature is similar to the common @username way of sending a direct message to your friends and contacts, but with Instagram Direct, it’s sent privately – just between you and those you send to.

3) Look Out For Instagram Ads

Instagram has officially launched ads management via the Facebook Power Editor. It’s not yet available to everyone.  To see whether or not you have access to Instagram ads:

1. Go to Power Editor and click the Manage Ads tab at the top of the page.

2. Click on the left side of the page and click Create Campaign.

3. Click on the dropdown next to Objective and hover over Clicks to Website. If you see New Create ads for Instagram, then you should be able to start creating Instagram ads in Power Editor. If you don’t see this option, know that they’re rolling out Instagram ads slowly.

4) Instagram Allows Scheduled Posts with Third Party Apps

You can now use third party apps such as Hootsuite and Latergram to schedule your Instagram posts. These tools are not fully automated solutions like with other platforms, however, it makes it convenient to have your posts pre-scheduled and ready to go when it’s time to publish.

With Hootsuite, for example, you must use push notifications to publish your scheduled posts. You have the option to Send Now, Schedule, or Autoschedule your Instagram posts via Hootsuite. At the time you chose to publish, you’ll receive a push notification via Hootsuite. Once you’re ready to publish, you will tap Open in Instagram, paste your caption (that’s automatically copied in Hootsuite), and tap to share the image.

Have you tried scheduling your Instagram posts with a third party app?

Again, if you haven’t yet, you will need to update your Instagram App to take advantage of most of the updates mentioned in this article.

Let me know what you think of these features. Have you put these tools to use for your brand? Has scheduling saved you time and headaches? Are you ready to advertise within Instagram?

5 Reasons Why Buying Facebook Fans Is A Bad Idea

Posted on Jan 27, 2015Feb 13, 2018 by Lowell Brown

When starting social media marketing initiatives, many business owners focus on ROI (Return on Investment). That’s a good thing, but sometimes hard for many to do accurately.

It’s easy to focus on the obvious metrics: growth of fans, followers, likes, shares, recommendations, views, comments etc. Many people seem hung up on overall numbers and lose sight of the overall point of social media marketing. Where many fail is that they don’t focus on the right numbers.

Here’s the big bold statement I want you to remember. Social media marketing is NOT a popularity contest.

Having more likes or followers than your competitor does not mean you are doing a better job than they are.

For example, you could get 10,000 new followers within a week but those followers are located out of your target geographic area, do not speak the same language you do and do not have any interest in doing any sort of business or desire to engage with you in any way. Would that matter?

Yes. That serves zero benefit to you.

What I want to warn business owners of is that focusing on fan/follower numbers is not an accurate way to measure social media success. There are many companies claiming to sell followers, likes, shares, etc for some pretty low rates. It sounds like a great opportunity to gain some headway on your competitors but it’s a disaster waiting to happen and often a complete waste of money.

Here are 5 reasons buying Facebook fans is a bad idea:

1. Buying Facebook followers is inauthentic and unethical

Bottom line: if you buy followers you are creating an inauthentic culture within Facebook. You’re creating a deceptive appearance to future fans. The number 1 rule of social media is to be authentic. Be real. Be true to what you stand for and what your brand represents. While I understand the argument that “having few fans on a page can give you a less than positive appearance”, I believe everyone starts somewhere and working hard to find and build fans who are interested in your brand, want to learn more from you, plan to purchase from you and will support you will benefit much more in the long run.

In addition, it is possible for users to see who your fans are based on where they are located. This means that people can actually discover where most of your fans are based. If they notice that you are a Canadian or US based company and most of your fans are from India, Russia or Philippines (as an example) they will know something is up. And don’t put it past the general population to rebel against a brand that is using social media inauthentically. It happens all the time.

2. Purchased fans are often not in your geographic area

As mentioned above, when you get into the business of paying for Facebook fans you’ll end up with a fan base that is commonly from other areas of the world – not local. I’ve even seen sites that claim to promise that fans are “local”. I’ve also heard that what you end up with is not what you paid for so as the saying goes, “buyer beware” and “you pay for what you get.”

Will it help you in any way to have fans that are not interested in ever buying from you, not interested in your brand or messaging and will never engage with you? The answer is no.

This is the part that drives me crazy. If you are buying fans, you’re just wasting money. Even if you think it’s going to make you look better that you have many fans, users will likely still look at how often you are posting on Facebook. Plus if you have 10,000 Facebook fans but your posts get 1 or 2 likes, comments or shares, people will know something is up.

3. Purchased fans are often not real people (real accounts)

When you pay for fans, in most cases you are supporting a company that is paying people to sit in front of a computer and click “like” hundreds of times a day…and they are likely getting paid pennies to do this. I’ve read a few articles on this subject referencing these companies as creating an environment that has been compared to a high-tech sweat shop. While there are real people behind the computers most of these “accounts” that are liking pages are fake Facebook profiles. So not only do you have fans out of your geographic area, in most cases these are not “real” Facebook profiles. Facebook recently sited that there are likely over 1.4 million of these fake accounts and they are working hard to find and delete these accounts. In some cases these companies have created “bots” which are computer scripts that are created to automatically go around liking pages, posts and more.

4. It hurts Facebook ad reach and ends up costing you more

Facebook is continually changing its post reach and rank algorithm and many have noticed that it is becoming increasingly harder to ensure your posts are seen by your page’s fans. In most cases only 12 – 18% of your fans (this figure has been cited most recently around 6%) will see any given page post. That’s pretty low reach and many businesses are growing concerned with this reality. You’re working really hard to build a big fan base but Facebook is making it hard for you to reach everyone. Why? They want to make sure that their users are seeing the most relevant information and in most cases every post you share is not going to be of interest to every fan.

The new reality is that Facebook is not becoming a “pay-to-play” environment. They are pushing businesses to pay to expand reach. This means they want businesses to pay to expand the reach of targeted posts. Yes, that’s right – they want you to pony up and pay to be able to get your posts to reach more of your fans. That’s just the new reality we have to accept.

That said, consider now that you have potentially thousands of fans who are not “real”, not in your local area and are not interested in engaging with you. Now that you have to pay to expand reach, this means it’s actually going to cost you more to reach your real fans.

5. In the end it creates more work for you and costs you more money

So let’s assume one of the reasons you decided to pay for fans was to give the appearance that your page is popular and you hoped that it would help you attract more likes from people who have checked out your page. Now let’s assume you now have a larger fan base. Let’s also assume you have started to pay to expand your post reach (even if on occasion) and that you realize that having these fake fans is costing you more money in ad spend. What’s the next thing you’ll want to do? Get rid of those fake fans.

It is possible to “unlike” or “block” fans of your page. But it’s a slow process and will therefore take you lots of time. Time is money. Again, in the end having these fake fans is going to cost you lots of money! I’ve even heard of businesses whose sole purpose is to help businesses find and delete theses fake fans/accounts from their page.

In summary, paying for Facebook fans is bad for business, unethical and will end up costing you more money and more aggravation than it’s worth. I recommend you put your time and energy into building up an authentic audience. It may take a bit of time but in the end your hard work will pay off.

So I’m sure you’re asking yourself now “what else can I do to attract more fans to my page?” Check out these links from past blog posts we’ve written or feel free to contact us today to find out more about the strategies we use with our clients.

http://goingsocial.ca/2014-social-media-marketing-tips/

http://goingsocial.ca/5-tips-to-stand-out-on-facebook/

http://goingsocial.ca/5-tips-to-grow-engagement-on-facebook/

Also check out this video of an interview I had on Canada AM on February 16, 2014 on this very subject http://canadaam.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=292888&playlistId=1.1689819&binId=1.811572&playlistPageNum=1&binPageNum=1

If you have had some experiences (good or bad) from paying for Facebook fans, we’d love to hear about it below.

Ask The Expert – How To Use Hashtags And @Mentions

Posted on Nov 25, 2014 by Lowell Brown

A client of mine, Fulcher Model & Talent Agency recently posed a question to me about how to use a hashtag (#) vs. using mentions (@) on Twitter.

Specifically their question was:

I know about hashtags and “@” mentions, but when, for example our actors book a commercial or other work and want to talk/brag about it, is it better that they say,

“I just booked a Cheerios commercial @fulcheragency”

“I just booked a Cheerios commercial #fulcheragency”

Which is better and what’s the difference between the two posts?

Should we also add a hashtag like #fulcheractor or #fulchermodel or is using just the company name better?

I’m sure a lot of people are a bit confused about the most effective use of each. This blog post will serve as our first monthly “ask the expert” feature.

If you too are not sure which is best to use and when, then read on.

Each platform uses functions like the @ and hashtags a bit different. The other big thing to note is that @ references don’t work cross platform.

The @ function, in most cases is used to reply to or post to a specific user. So if you are posting on Twitter with an @ mention, for example @fulcheragency, and you have your settings set to duplicate or share posts that you make on Twitter or Facebook, the @ mention won’t work on Facebook. Why is this? Because many people have a different company or username on Facebook so it won’t properly link to them. This ends up looking a bit strange. I recommend to not republish posts across platforms if at all possible. Write these functions on each individual platform.

In the case of the question above, my response is based on Twitter.

If someone writes:

“I just booked a Cheerios commercial @fulcheragency”, what they are doing is providing a way to give a reference to the company PLUS a notification will be sent to your account. Also, if you have email notifications enabled, when a user @ mentions you, you get an email.

The use of the @ mention by others is good as you can reply to them with another message such as “@lowell thanks”. This is a way you can start to engage with others in what many refer to as mini conversations. These conversations are between one or more people but on Twitter remember that unless it’s a direct message (DM), it’s public. The other reason @ mentions are good is that people who follow this actor can then find YOU and check you out. This can lead to more followers.

The use of hashtags is a bit different. #fulcheragency would be a bit less effective in this case as a hashtag is commonly used to reference a post with a “topic” or “theme” of a conversation. An example is #ActingAudition, #Actor, #SuperExcited #Toronto. On Twitter by clicking a specific #, users can see others who have used that same hashtag in their posts. It is a way people can find new companies or people to follow, however it’s not as easy for other people to then comment to you directly. Also, you don’t get a notification like you would with an @ mention. You’d have to regularly follow that # for all posts in a feed format.

So in the case of Fulcher, my recommendation was to use each but in a different way. Getting actors to use the @ mention with their name will help build brand awareness and can lead to attracting more followers. But I did recommend they also search for #’s that apply to their business such as #actor, #acting, #auditing etc. so they can try to see conversations that they can jump into. This will also lead to building more engagement with users and attracting followers.

I hope this blog post has been helpful to how you can make effective use of hashtags and @ mentions on the different social media platforms.

If you have a question you’d like to ask, please share it in the comments below. We’d be happy to answer your question(s) and may use your question(s) in a future post.

5 Tips For Better Performing Facebook Ads

Posted on Oct 24, 2014 by Lowell Brown

If there is any place to advertise today, it’s on Facebook. It is the single largest online market place in the world today. Costing as little as $5.00 a day, you’re able to effectively market your business offerings to a global audience.

The key to advertising on Facebook is to understand the different performance parameters and how you must design your ads for best results.

Here are five tips to increase the performance of your Facebook ads:

1. Attention Grabbing Graphics:

This is the most important connect with your target audience. You must use images that are bright and attractive to ensure you catch the attention of your target audience. Try to include your brand logo within your images to increase one’s ‘brand recall’.

2. CTR (Click-Through-Rate)

The click-through-rate (CTR) of your advertisement is a metric you will need to measure closely. It is an indicator of your advertisement’s performance. The CTR is a percentage of people who click on your ad. Although it varies across different industries, a successful CTR could be measured at 2%. So experiment with different images and brightly colored graphics to get the best results.

3. Call-to-Action

Get people to click on your ad by simply asking them to do so. You can include text within your graphic or ad text such as ‘click now’ or ‘buy now’. A call-to-action will likely increase the CTR and improve the overall performance of your campaign.

4. Cover Photo & Content

If you are running Facebook advertisements to build your fan base, you must ensure your page sports an attractive cover photo and is filled with solid content. When people land on your Facebook page they will be more likely to “like” your page if it’s complete, up-to-date, and is visually appealing, in terms of graphics and content.

5. Ad Targeting

Facebook advertising allows you to target specific niche audience groups. You can target people by occupation, gender, age, and specific interests, for example. For instance, if you are a Social Media Marketing Agency, you can create one campaign (based on your advertising goal) and within that campaign you can create several ad sets, based on different audience segments. We suggest keeping your ad targeting numbers close to 100,000 people for maximum effectiveness. If you target too narrow of an audience group you’ll likely not have a large enough reach; however, if you are target too large of an audience group – for example – 1,000,000 people, your ad will likely not be geared towards the people who will really benefit from seeing your ad. It’s always best to stick to smaller niche audience groups when completing your ad targeting specs.

These above tips can help you dramatically increase the performance of your Facebook ads. Remember to monitor your ads closely using Facebook’s built-in analytics tool to measure results and optimize accordingly.

Social Media Facts Every Marketer Should Know

Posted on Sep 26, 2014 by Lowell Brown

As social media marketing is continuously evolving, the way people are using social media is constantly changing. If you’re a social media manager for your business, it’s important to know key statistics such:

where does your target audience spend most of their time online?;

how much time are they spending on these platforms?;

and what social media marketing trends can we expect to see this year?

We’ve put together the latest social media marketing statistics of 2014. Let’s start by looking at the who and where of social media users:

72% of all internet users are now active on social media.
18-29 year olds have an 89% usage.
The 30-49 bracket sits at 72%.
60 percent of 50 to 60 year olds are active on social media.
In the 65 plus bracket, 43% are using social media.
Time spent on Facebook per hour spent online by country. Here are the top three. USA citizens get the top gong at 16% followed by the Aussies at 14 minutes and the Brits at 13 minutes.
71% of users access social media from a mobile device.

Facebook

1.28 billion monthly active Facebook users – a 15% increase year over year.
802 million login to Facebook daily – a 21% increase year over year.
1.01 billion mobile active users – a 34% increase year over year.
66% of 15 – 34 year olds use Facebook.
45% of Internet users 65 years and older use Facebook.
114 billion minutes spent on Facebook a month in the U.S. alone on desktop PCs and smartphones.
Average time spent per Facebook visit is 20 minutes.

42% of marketers report that Facebook is critical or important to their business. (Source: State of Inbound Marketing 2012. Does Facebook play a big role in your social media marketing strategy?

Twitter

1 billion registered Twitter users; however 44% have never sent a tweet
255 million monthly active users.
500 million Tweets are sent per day.
78% of Twitter active users are on mobile.
On average, users spend 170 minutes per month on Twitter.
45% between ages 18 – 29 years old.
29% of users check Twitter multiple times a day.

Facebook is still the pack leader when it comes to monthly active users.

Google+

Google+ has 1.6 billion total users.
540 million monthly active users.
Users spend an average of 7 minutes per month on Google+.
70% of brands have a presence on Google+.
53% of interaction between Google+ user and a brand is positive.

If you’re not on Google+, now is the time to create a Google+ page for your business! Google+ is expected to surpass Facebook in social shares by 2016, according to a study by SearchMetrics.

Pinterest

70 million total users (and counting!)
40 million monthly active users.
80% of Pinterest users are female –why do you think this is?
84% of women and 50% of men stay active on Pinterest.
92% of Pinterest pins are done by women.
23% of Pinterest users use it at least once in a day.

Although Facebook and Twitter represent roughly 75% of all content sharing, Pinterest is considered the fastest growing platform for online content sharing.

Instagram

200 million monthly active users.
23% of teens consider Instagram as their favourite social network.
13% of Internet users use Instagram.
Instagram’s mobile app usage has grown by 25% from December 2013 to May 2014.

Surprisingly, Instagram grew its user base to 150 million monthly active users in half the time that it took Twitter and in two years less than Facebook, according to research by the think-tank L2 Intelligence.

Do you think Instagram will continue on this impressive growth path in 2014?

Did you know we help business owners drive business results through effective social media marketing strategies? Contact us today to find out how we can help you stand out from the crowd.

How to Stay Up-to-Date With Social Media Changes

Posted on Sep 12, 2014 by Lowell Brown

Social media is an incredibly fast moving industry. It is literally impossible to stay on top of every relevant story in the industry. So how do you stay up-to-speed with the most important social media news?

We’ll let you in on our go-to resources for the latest social media changes.

Social Media News Sites

We suggest bookmarking these top 3 social media sites in your web browser:

Mashable covers the top social media news on topics like Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Twitter, Amazon, Pinterest and more.

The Next Web publishes international news on technology, business, and culture. You can choose to see only social media updates by selecting the channel “Social Media” in the column on the top left of the page.

Social Media Examiner is the world’s largest online social media magazine. You can subscribe to their newsletter so automatic updates sent directly to your inbox.

Subscribe to Social Media E-Newsletters

Don’t have the time to surf the web for the latest social media news? Well you don’t have to! Subscribe to these leading e-newsletters so you can have the news delivered directly to you.

SocialFresh.com delivers weekly social media insights from around the web on the business of social media directly to your mailbox.

SmartBrief on Social Business takes leading social media sources from around the web and compiles into one daily newsletter.

Social Times is a popular social media source providing daily social media news.

Follow Social Media Enthusiasts

Take to Twitter to follow social media leaders to stay up-to-date on social media. Social media experts are essentially doing all the work for you so you don’t have to. Some people to consider following are:

Jay Baer – @jaybaer is is an American marketing consultant, speaker, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Youtility.

Brian Solis – @briansolis is a world-renowned digital analyst and futurist.

Jeff Bullas – @jeffbullas is a social media marketing blogger, expert, and speaker.

Mari Smith – @MariSmith is one of the world’s leading social media strategists and widely recognized as the top Facebook marketing expert in the world.

Andrea Vahl – @AndreaVahl is an internally recognized social media consultant and speaker.

How are you staying in the social media loop? Feel free to share your favourite social media resources below.

What Are The Most Effective Social Media Platforms For Your Business?

Posted on Sep 5, 2014 by Lowell Brown

Match Your Social Media Objective With The Most Effective Social Media Platform

Objective: Improve SEO

Google+ and YouTube are two social media platforms that can improve your SEO results. Google+ is by far the most popular search engine in the world [searchengineland]. The content within your Google+ profile will be indexed by Google and searchable on the web. Your content can gain page rank and appear in search results indefinitely.

YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world with over 2 billion searches per day [seoinc]. Since Google acquired YouTube, users can search for YouTube videos in Google search which makes it all the more favorable for search engine optimization. Uploading quality, relevant videos to your YouTube page is a great way to stand out from the competition and improve your search results.

Objective: Increase Traffic to Your Website

You should focus your social media marketing efforts on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Integrating these social networks into your company webpage will contribute to an overall increase in website traffic. In a recent study by Shareaholic, Facebook drove the most traffic to publishers (a whopping 10.4%). Pinterest came in second at 3.7%, followed by Twitter at 1.2%.

With the share-friendly nature and strong community aspect of these three social media platforms, it’s no surprise that they are the top social media traffic drivers.

Objective: Increase Brand Visibility

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram could all increase your brand’s visibility. However, managing all of these social media platforms effectively is near impossible. Consider focusing your efforts on the platform with the largest population: Facebook.

Do not forget about LinkedIn – this platform is a great way to reach professionals if you’re a B2B company. The majority of users on LinkedIn are middle aged to older adults with a college education or higher.

*Focus on gaining quality “Likes” and followers, rather than building high numbers.

Objective: Improve Customer Engagement

The best way to improve customer engagement is by focusing on high engaging platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Facebook is a great platform to host contests and giveaways for your fans. Twitter allows you to engage with your customers by hosting your own real-time chats. Uploading interesting, useful, and time-worthy videos on your YouTube page encourages users to comment and share.

Objective: Increase Market Reach

With 1.19 million monthly active users on Facebook, it is easier than ever to reach your target market [Facebook 2013]. Facebook is no longer just for younger users. There has been an increase in the 45-65 age bracket, growing 46% since 2012. The market is there – you just have to know how to effectively reach them.

You can target your appropriate market by investing in Facebook advertising. With Facebook’s recent algorithm change, it is more difficult for brands to get seen. By spending a little bit of money on Facebook ads, you can expand your market reach.

Infographic Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/brianna5mith/1648356/how-choose-most-effective-social-media-platform-your-brand

Available Resources

What are the resources needed to effectively manage each platform?

Copywriting [Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+]

Graphic Design [Pinterest, Facebook, Google+]

Trend Spotting [Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram]

Videography [YouTube]

Photography [Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest]

5 Strategies to Grow Your Pinterest Audience

Posted on Aug 15, 2014 by Lowell Brown

You might already have a good grasp of how to best grow your audience on Facebook and Twitter. After all, these dominant social media channels have existed for around a decade. But what about newer social media websites like Pinterest? What are some strategies to attract the right people to your Pinterest page?

Pinterest is only four years young which means users, current and new are still learning the most effective Pinterest marketing strategies for their business. We’ve created a list of 6 tips to follow to grow your Pinterest following.

1. Promote, promote, promote!

Every time you pin content you should be sharing it on Twitter as well. In order to do so, you must first connect your Twitter page to your Pinterest account by going into your Settings and Social Networks section. You use hashtags on Pinterest the same way you do on Twitter so make sure to include at least 3 hashtags (but no more than 5 – it can look spammy).

You know the saying “nothing good in life is free?” Well it’s true! Pinterest has recently announced a self-serve dashboard for promoted pins. The promoted pins will show up in people’s search and category feeds. Tap Pinterest’s 70 million + users by testing this self-serve promotional tool ads.pinterest.com.

2. Add “Pin It” and “Follow” button to your website

Encourage people to pin things from your website by adding the “Pin It” button to your company webpage. You can build your own here (http://business.pinterest.com/en/widget-builder#do_pin_it_button).

To get the word out about your Pinterest business page, add the “Follow” button to your webpage. Keep in mind that you should have social plugins for each of your social media pages including Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. (Ask us for help on how to build your own social plugins for your website!)

3. Verify your website

Verifying your website on Pinterest tells users that you own it. Once verified, a checkmark will appear beside your brand’s URL on your profile and in search results. You can now display your full website URL on your Pinterest profile. You’ll also be granted access to Pinterest Analytics, where you can find out important information about your follower such as when they’re online.

4. Original content > repins

Did you know 80% of content on Pinterest are repins which translates into only 20% of original content? Yes, it will take more time to create your own compelling content but it will also get the word out about your board. I suggest checking out Canva.com, a free, easy-to-use graphic design tool that pretty much does the work for you. This design tool already has plenty of designer layouts to choose from. Browse and choose your layout then edit the text/images accordingly.

When you’re designing your graphics keep in mind that red, orange, and brown images have 2x more repins than blue images.

5. Engage, Follow, Engage

Let’s face it, if you create a complete Pinterest page and add compelling content on a daily basis, sure your page probably looks good but is your following growing at the rate you want it to? Probably not. And that’s because engagement is key to expanding your Pinterest fan base.

Go to the “Popular” section of your Pinterest feed and start liking, commenting, and repinning interesting content. Never leave a comment on another user’s pin trying to sell your products/services. This is a big no-no! You first need to establish trust with the user by showing them you know and care about their pin.

Try searching for influential followers in the “Find Friends” tab and add 5-10 new followers on a weekly basis. If you’re following people who share the same interests as you, they’ll likely follow you back.

What other tips can you share to attract more followers to your Pinterest page?