A few months ago Adam Levine came on the Oh So Pinteresting Podcast to talk about a wave of fake Pinterest accounts wreaking havoc with our follower numbers. If fake accounts weren’t bad enough, how about Pinterest impostors? This week, I’m chatting with Heidi Butkus about her experience with an account using her name and profile image.
Heidi Butkus has been a kindergarten teacher for over 25 years. Along with having a passion for education she also has musical talent and an entrepreneurial spirit. Over the past few years she has developed and grown a successful business called HeidiSongs. Her products help children learn through music and physical movement. How fun!
Heidi found that Pinterest could be a great marketing tool for her business. Through Pinterest she has been able to reach the parents and educators who buy her products.
Her business has grown so successful that she has had to hire help to run it. One of her assistants who was working on her social media accounts came across a Pinterest account using Heidi’s business’s name and even her headshot as the profile image! Can you believe it, someone stole her identity to create a fake Pinterest account!
Heidi had an image stolen from her website and used on a fake Pinterest account
The image on the left is the photograph that Heidi uses on her real account. The image on the right was the one used on the fake Pinterest account and was most likely taken from her website. How rotten of this person to go to a kindergarten teacher’s website and steal her identity and use it as a way to lure unsuspecting Pinterest users to an adult themed website!
Getting the fake account shut down turned into a long stressful process for Heidi. She had discovered that some of the pins linked to adult themed websites. This could be REALLY bad for a kindergarten teacher.
Despite several attempts to contact Pinterest in hopes that the account would be shut down, she got no response. Eventually she found a way to get Pinterest to listen and shut the account down.
What a mess! But thankfully this story has a happy ending. Heidi’s REAL Pinterest account continues to grow, she now has over 21,000 followers and is bringing traffic to her website. Pinterest is working so well for her that she’s now using Promoted Pins to market her business.
Below are a couple of images that are doing really well for Heidi as Promoted Pins. I think it’s important to note that the images which are working the best for her are not salesy or promotional. They’re pins that link people to helpful information.
Be sure to take a listen to the podcast to hear all of Heidi’s story as well as her Promoted Pins strategy.
On Pinterest
On Facebook
Come join me in San Diego for Social Media Marketing World! I learned tons at the conference last year and had a blast hosting a private meetup with friends of the Oh SoPinteresting community.
Left to right: Kim Vij of The Educators’ Spin on It, Kim Franklin of Trashy Crafter, Christine Kaczmar The Digestion Doc
I’ll be hosting another meetup this year and would love to see you there. Let me know if you’ll be going and I’ll be sure to put you on the guest list.
Purchase your tickets soon! As the conference approaches, the prices go up. If you buy a ticket through a link on my website I do earn a commission but it does not effect the price you pay. Thanks a bunch! – Cynthia
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