Using Cross Promotion to Grow Your Pinterest Following

It’s no secret that Facebook and Twitter are marketing powerhouses for brands. But did you know Pinterest can pack a mighty punch as well? While there are many benefits to being on Pinterest, as outlined below, many brands are wary of investing in the platform because their audience is already developed elsewhere. By using cross promotion, you can easily build a strong Pinterest following from users who are already interested in what you have to say.

Benefits of Being on Pinterest

Hyper-Targeted Content

Because Twitter and Facebook lack any form of content segmentation, often a users feed becomes cluttered with irrelevant information causing them to ‘unfollow’ or ‘unlike’ a brand. However, because Pinterest provides the ability to follow certain boards, rather than a brand’s entire profile, users experience a heightened sense of control over their home feeds. While this is great news for users, it is also great news for brands. Now, instead of spamming all of your followers with information that may – or may not – be of interest to them, you can simply create multiple boards for the multiple facets of your company.

Longer Lifespan

Perhaps due to the news feeds cluttered with irrelevant information, the lifespan of content on Twitter is only 5-25 minutes and Facebook content only lasts 80 minutes. The lifespan of content on Pinterest? More than one week. To see an example of this phenomenon, check out our Family Tree of a Viral Pin graphic, which shows a pin that took 32 weeks to finally go viral.

Higher ROI

Proving ROI is fundamental to brands adopting a social network  into their marketing mix. And while many brands have adopted Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest is often – an mistakenly- overlooked. When comparing the amount of revenue from a social platform, an average Twitter user who clicks through to your site is likely to spend $69, while an average Facebook user will likely spend $80. However, when an average Pinterest user clicks through to your site, they are likely to spend $179! Because Pinterest skews to an older, wealthier crowd, the traffic received from the network is of higher quality, and will produce a higher ROI.

However, many brands have been unable to build a strong following on Pinterest, making cross-platform promotions an invaluable tool.

Cross-Platform Promotions

Because Pinterest is relatively new, many brands have already invested time and resources into audience development over Twitter, Facebook, and email. So why not take advantage of these pre-made audiences with a little cross-promotion? By using your Facebook, Twitter and email subscribers to help promote your Pinterest page, you can gain followers who are currently engaging and who actually want to engage with your brand.

Jeep

In September 2012, Jeep promoted their Pinterest account over Facebook, where they have accumulated millions of Likes.  For this simple promotion, Jeep posted a picture of a vehicle with a link back to their Pinterest account.

Through this one Facebook post, Jeep was able to gain over 1,000 Pinterest followers in only two days, and their growth tripled from 35 followers per week to 110 followers per week.

Xyron

Adhesive crafting company, Xyron, wanted to quickly grow their Pinterest presence and engagement. To accomplish this, Xyron decided in November of 2012 to send targeted email blasts to their subscribers who were already on Pinterest.

In a little over one months time, Xyron’s Pinterest grew by over 4,000 followers, with a staggering monthly increase of +1,317%. Their engagement increased by 8,200 repins, and the percent of pins with at least one repin grew from 83% to 100%. All it took was 7 emails!

These brands serve as proof that by targeting fans where they already exist, you can quickly build a strong Pinterest following. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and use a few cross-platform promotion so you can take full advantage of all the great benefits Pinterest has to offer.

This article was originally featured on the Tailwind Blog as Using Cross Promotion to Grow Your Pinterest Following.