Pinfluence: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business with Pinterest [Paperback]

Beth Hayden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2012

How to effectively use Pinterest to market your business, product, or service

Pinterest, the rapidly growing social networking site that allows users to post and share images and videos on "pinboards" (a collection of “pins,” usually with a common theme), is providing businesses and savvy entrepreneurs with a new platform to market their products and services. And, as with any new platform, learning what works best and what doesn’t when it comes to marketing can be a challenge. Pinfluence is a complete guide to Pinterest marketing that will teach you how to effectively raise awareness for your brand, product, or service, drive traffic from Pinterest to your website, and connect with current and potential customers.

You will learn:

• How to create a powerful Pinterest profile, your Pinterest brand strategy, set up boards, pin and repin images, and get into conversations in the Pinterest user interface.
• Pinterest marketing techniques, including great content creation, how to optimize websites and blogs for pinning, and how to start growing your followers.
• How to integrate Pinterest with other social media tools (including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs) and how to track trends and monitor conversation on Pinterest.
• Advanced Pinterest marketing techniques, including how to grow your audience, how to use the Pinterest iPhone app, advice for special types of businesses (B2B companies and nonprofits), and how to make your pins and boards “sticky” so they capture public attention and influence people to change their behavior.
• Pinterest copyright issues

Pinfluence is for anyone who wants to join the likes of companies like Whole Foods, Gilt, West Elm and others, and harness the marketing power of Pinterest to grow their business.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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From the Author: Guidelines for Great Pinning

In Pinfluence, I'll give you the tools and tips you need to create visual content that is so compelling that you may not even need to distribute it yourself; your readers, fans, and followers will do it for you! Here are some quick guidelines for great pinning:

• Your images should be beautiful, remarkable, and interesting.
• You want to post pictures that are attractive and well lit. If you plan to upload or pin a lot of your own photography, this is good time to invest in a great quality digital SLR camera. Remember that good-quality photography will get more attention on Pinterest.
• Don't make your images too tall and skinny, or pin anything that is over 5,000 pixels tall. This is crucial because the "Repin" and "Like" buttons are at the top of each pin. If a user has to scroll a long way just to see the entire image, then it's very unlikely they will scroll back up to repin your image.
• Remember to caption the great images you create with keyword-rich captions so that people can easily find them when they search. Keyword-rich means that you want to use terms that are specific and meaningful to your potential customers. For example, instead of a caption saying, "Our lovely spring bouquet," use some specific words and say something like, "Our lovely spring bouquet of white hydrangea and pink roses."

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Review

'Pinfluence covers everything from the basics of setting up an account to dealing with tricky copyright issues.' (B2B Marketing, October 2012)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (July 3, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1118393775
• ISBN-13: 978-1118393772
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,070 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #67 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Retailing
  • #90 in Books > Computers & Technology > Web Development & Design > Web 2.0

More About the Author

I'm Beth Hayden, and I help entrepreneurs make money and get out of social media overwhelm by helping them create online marketing systems that really work.

I'm a nationally known speaker and social media expert, and I regularly contribute to the web's top social media blogs, including Copyblogger.com and Problogger.com. My guest post on Pinterest marketing for Copyblogger.com is one of the site's most-shared posts. I frequently speak about blogging, content marketing and Pinterest at conferences and events across the country.

For information about booking me as a speaking for your upcoming event, write to me via my website: http://bethhayden.com/contact

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this with a notebook and pen close by June 28, 2012

By Betsy Talbot

Format:Kindle Edition

I have to confess I originally thought Pinterest was just for brides, foodies, and crafters. Boy, was I wrong!

This is the first business book I've read in a long time that required a notebook and pen. I could not stop the ideas from flowing! The book is not only a primer on using Pinterest for business, but also a great tool on using social media in general (and I'm not new to this).

What I really loved about this book is its wide range of focus on who could use Pinterest and why. I'm not a brick-and-mortar business or a nonprofit, but I still gleaned ideas from those sections as well. Specifically, it gave me great ideas as an author for promoting my own books, and I've already seen a financial return on my time investment.

It is a well-researched book with practical, doable solutions for your business without a heavy time commitment. Beth knows you still have a business to run, and Pinterest is simply a great way to drive more people to it.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Do NOT Open A Pinterest Account Without Beth's Book! July 1, 2012

By Deb Baker

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I purchased this book 3 short days ago and have literally ripped through it. If you are doing any sort of online business, whether it's selling your products or services or just recommending other people's stuff...then you NEED this book. I kid not.

I've been online since 1999 with my health site (y2khealthanddetox.com ) to complement my practise of now 34 years and have spent a minor fortune in mentoring, courses, software, etc. I've written articles for ezine, Tumblr, Squidoo, Hubpages, etc., done the Digg thing, Facebook personal and pages and Twitter, etc. All have helped to some degree establish a presence for me.

Oh, yes and I've ridden the waves of Google's histrionics, through their Smackdown, Panda (not as cute a bear as I once thought) and managed to get unceremoniously relegated to their sandbox with a couple of my small sites..*sigh*

And if this wasn't crazy-making enough, I lather, rinsed, repeated the whole ball of wax for my fantasy book series, The Persephane Pendrake Chronicles (Book 1 is here on Amazon.) The Persephane Pendrake Chronicles: One - The Cimaruta.

Then a few months ago, I started to hear whispers about this "Pinterest" thing on a few membership sites I still belong to. Busy, busy...I really didn't have time to check out yet another social site..so I thought. It was Brilliant Beth's article "56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest" from Copyblogger which appeared in my Facebook feed that finally drove me to Pinterest. So I opened an account for my author name of Lady Ellen and created a few boards following the steps in her article. It drove traffic to my site the same DAY! Ok, I was a fan....

Let's face it, Pinterest is a blast, great fun and my fave...visual. Love that. But did you know that as of Jan 2012, Pinterest drove more traffic to websites than Linkedin, Google Plus, Reddit and YouTube..combined!!??

Beth's book "Pinfluence: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business with Pinterest" is the best information and education you'll could ever receive short of sitting at a guru's elbow ( that would be Beth) on a daily basis.

Beth starts with the basics, gets you up and running, helping you to build an effective profile, pinning to your first boards, then to optimizing your sites and blogs for others to pin from, and grow your followers. You'll see how to link to your other internet real estate such as your Facebook and Twitter accounts and on to advanced techniques, even using the iPhone app. It's all here.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to benefit from the avalanche of traffic and activity that today is called Pinterest. Read more ›

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Original strategies and helpful advice June 30, 2012

By Earth traveler

Format:Paperback

When a new social media trend comes along I generally like to buy a book so that I understand it before I dive in. I know, I know -- that seems old fashioned. But the reality is that getting my head around a social media site like Pinterest by reading about it first saves me lots of time and energy down the road. So when I started seeing many of my friends on Facebook posting links to Pinterest, I wanted to understand what the site is all about. Pinfluence was perfect for my needs.

Several things really stand out to me about this book. The strategy chapters are excellent -- and there are lots of strategy chapters (basically chapters 3 through 14 are all about strategy). The strategy chapters include everything from etiquette to how to build community.

The author works directly with small business clients, so she knows the real issues that they are dealing with. Best of all, the author is not a fan of marketing hype. Instead she shows one how to become more authentic and real in relating to followers (and potential customers) on Pinterest.

By the end of reading Pinfluence, I had a clear picture of where Pinterest fits within the larger social media universe and I had lots of great ideas for how to use this tool as part of my larger marketing strategy.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hottest New Book on Hot Social Media Topic on a Hot Day! June 23, 2012

By Lori W

Format:Paperback

I practically ate this book for breakfast! The book is geared to work for anyone from the rank beginner to the more advanced Pinterest user. It is crammed with original ideas I haven't seen or found anywhere else. The 'Your Action Plan' at the end of each chapter is the best feature and very well done. I didn't have to take notes or try to hold the ideas in my head. By the end of the book Your Action Plan was for advanced users and I understood them completely. This book will cut about 3 months off the average learning curve (IMHO) and help me avoid making awkward mistakes. AND my business will have another user friendly contact point with the world.Pinfluence: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business with Pinterest

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The New Bible on Pinterest for Business! July 6, 2012

By Tamara Suttle

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Whether you are the hobbyist who might one day become an entreprenuer, the artist who is already selling your work on Etsy, the psychotherapist (like me) who works with the general public, a Fortune 500 marketing guy, or the non-profit group out to save the world, Pinfluence is a must read. The author has packed a whole lot of practical strategies into a tiny little book (<200 pages) and the great news is that she gives you success story after success story (with online links as proof) for each and every one!

Hayden's background in marketing and social media is evident throughout the book. She mentors the Pinterest novices by walking them through setting up an account with a business-building strategy in mind but she doesn't stop there.

For the more seasoned entreprenuers and corporate types, she has attended to our needs too in chapters like "The Care and Feeding of Pinterest Followers" and "Twitter, Facebook, and Your Blog: How Pinterest Plays Well with Others." She even includes a section on mobile pinning for those of you out there who are geeks and nerds!

My favorite chapter is "Learning by Watching: Tracking Trends and Monitoring Conversations." OK - it's not a riveting title but it is a chapter for the serious business user. Here she provides tools and information about how to monitor the search engine traffic that comes your way and how to engage your ideal clients once they find you.

Hayden doesn't shy away from creative ways of using Pinterest to address the unique needs of nonprofits, B2B companies, and blog-based businesses. She insists that every business providing either services or products can increase their numbers in search engine traffic and sales, too, by strategically using Pinterest.... (And, yes, she does back up her claims with references.)

Being true to Hayden's professional and personal sense of integrity, she concludes the book with a chapter on the ethical use of Pinterest. After all . . . by pinning images onto your own pinboards, you are using images that other folks have created. Hayden walks you through a decision-making process that allows you to make the right choice for your business each and every time.

Overall impression? Pinterest - What a fun tool to boost your business! Pinfluence - What a fabulous title for the new Bible on Pinterest! Read more ›