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Social media strategy for Pinterest: Increase your followersinstantly

Pin-what?

For those of you not familiar with this social media platform, Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that allows users todiscover, share and save things that interests them. Similarly, this platform is also used by individuals and businesseswith the intention of showcasing products or services that tie in with their brand, as well as things surrounding theheart of their cause. Users create boards dedicated to different aspects of a central theme or simply what they likeand use it to collect pins from websites or from other like minded pinners!

Pinterest is a social media platform that is very much on the rise and is a great way for businesses to show the storybehind their company in a way that is most appealing to us, which is visually! If you are new to Pinterest check out ourcompany account and see what it's about. Read on to find out a surefire way to increase your followers in a flash!

Some are born to lead, the rest will follow...

Getting new followers to flock to your brand is certainly a critical part of gaining momentum on any social mediaplatform, and Pinterest is no different. The great thing with Pinterest and getting new followers is that it is really easy!Here I will run you through the process step by step (right from signing up) of a social media strategy for Pinterest soyou too can amass a following that will hopefully lead to more sales and increased interaction with your customers

online! For those already 'on board' skip to step 4:)

Step 1-Open a Pinterest account

Creating an account on Pinterest is really easy and shouldn't take you more than a few minutes. Just fill out all of yourcompany's details, include an image of your logo and a valid web address and you will be good to move onto the nextstep! Here is an image of our user profile for you to get an idea of what is should look like.

Step 2-Create boards related to your product or service

Once you have set up an account you need to create boards that relate to your product or service. Oxygen 2.0 is aninbound marketing agency and as such we have created boards of many of the different components of inbound suchas blogging, SEO, social media, infographics etc. When creating boards it's best to think about the different elementssurrounding your product or service and add anything else that is close to your company's heart! Here is an exampleof our boards.

Step 3-Start pinning

Now for the fun part, time to start pinning images to your boards and telling your story! When you upload new contentonto your website you click on the upload button as shown below and upload an image with a description and a linkback to your website. You can also upload images from other sites of things that interest you and pin them on yourboards for a more varied viewing experience for your visitors. It's important to pin a few images (at least) on each ofyour boards as you want to have something for your potential followers to be able to look at when you engage in thenext step, which is getting more followers instantly and increasing your exposure on Pinterest!

Upload icon located at the bottom right hand corner ofyour screen

Select upload pin

Choose an image from your computer

Pick the corresponding board you would like to pin the picture to, write a short description about the image or whatit is you are linking to and don't forget to add the link to your website! When this is done simply click the pin iticon and your pin will show up on your board you pinned it to, easy!

Step 4-Time to start following

Now for the easiest part of the whole process, increasing your Pinterest followers! The trick behind this is a simpleone and it just requires a search for a niche or category on Pinterest that relates to your product or service. To showyou how easy this whole process is I've taken the liberty of using images to guide you through. Here we go!

Start by searching for a niche or category relative to your product, service or industry in the search bar at he top. Onceyou've done that click on the pinners icon below the search bar to be taken to boards of other pinners that have

boards related to your search. When you get to the next screen you will be met with pinners (in your niche) that havealready amassed followers. Click on the pinner's name that has many followers, much like the first one- 'ScalableSocial Media'.

On the next screen you simply click on the followers icon (12, 545) and you start following everyone that is currentlyfollowing thepinner you have selected, which in this case is'Scalable Social Media'. As these people are followingsomething that is in your niche they are more likely to follow you once they see that you have followed them becauseyour boards are something that is of interest to them. You can follow up to 300 people a day so in order for this towork you just need to spend a few minutes each day adding followers in niches related to your product or service andyou'll have hundreds of followers in no time!

Step 5-Keep on pinning

Keep pinning everyday and growing your boards so you have more to offer your visitors when the land on your profile.Do this in tandem with adding more followers each day and once your followers start repinning your images yourwebsite will receive more back links and more traffic will be directed to your site and you'll gain more followersorganically! Add a Pin It button on your site to make it easier for pinners to pin your images and get you even moreback links and followers!

At the start of this process we had 167 followers

A few days later we had added 100 more followers

Pinterest is a great social tool for any company looking to showcase what they are about! Like with any other of thesocial media platforms out there for businesses, increasing your following and getting your brand recognized will takesome time and perseverance but it can be done!

Want more on online marketing? Follow us on Pinterest for everything inbound as well as tips and tricks to boostyour online marketing efforts today!

Oxygen 2.0 is a full service inbound marketing, branding and web development agency based in Shenzhen, China.We are also Hubspot’s first partner in China and are uniquely placed to deliver inbound marketing solutions that turnour customers’ leads into qualified leads, and turn those leads into paying customers. Need help with yourmarketing? Speak to one of our consultants today and get your FREE Inbound Marketing Assessment!

Posted by Dewet Boshoff on Fri 24 Oct,2014

Dewet is originally from South Africa andhas been living in Asia for almost 10 years.He found his calling in China, becoming afluent Mandarin speaker whilst studyingBusiness & Chinese at Shenzhen University,and was among the first cohort of foreignstudents to graduate with honours there. Heis an inbound marketing scholar and socialmedia enthusiast. Dewet delights in usinghis language skills to promote inbound inChina and to educate the West on Chinesesocial media. When Dewet isn't on the job heenjoys outdoor activities, traveling to exoticlocations and socialising with his friends-online and in the real world!

Topics: Social Media • Business English