Pinterest Tips Courtesy of Kidzies

Last week's Pinning Party was a huge success!!!  The great news is that the party will run every Wednesday providing a unique and powerful tool for businesses to help promote each other online using Pinterest.  The Pinning Party idea was the brainchild of the very talented Kara Anderson, the creator of The Bag Holder.  She has always understood the power of group marketing, which is what Womentorz was built on, so she came to me to host the party for our extensive network.  I have to admit that I didn't know very much about Pinterest, so I'm still learning like many others.  We're all counting on the "Pinterest Experts" to bring tips to the group on how to be even more effective on the platform.

Amanda Seidel, founder of Kidzies, is one of the Pinterest Experts who sent me her tips that all of us can use.  She was so generous in letting me post what she sent me.  Here are her tips:

1.  I follow the people who are influential - WHEN they pin and the CONTENT they pin influences how I try to pin.  E.g. - lots of people are on Pinterest late at night.
 

2.  If you put a price in your description, e.g. Huggerz $6, it will appear in the link at the top of Pinterest under Gifts - I've done this a few times to gain exposure from people who search for Gifts.

3.  I share my username with my fans of FB periodically and tonight I asked them to share theirs, too (no one has yet).  But the last time I did this, I gained several new followers.

4.  You can use the "@" sign (like on Facebook) to tag someone on Pinterest.  So... when I wrote a blog around V-day with free downloadable coloring pages, I tagged some influential people and commented that "I thought your followers might like the free coloring pages."  Even though no one re-pinned it (to ultimately drive traffic to my website), several of them started following me.  :

5.  Like in point 4 - you could tag people with your product, etc, but that's not my style - I don't want to push my product on people through Pinterest.  And that's my number 1 reason for still using MY name instead of Kidzies.  I don't know if that's a good idea or not - but when I started using pinterest I had no intention on using it for Kidzies.  It was just fun.  I would love other people's opinions about this.

6.  I'll repin from places I really like - e.g. I'll pin a different photo from the same site several times at different times to see when it gets the most repins.

7.  I've seen some traffic to my site from Pinterest before and thought, "Wow!"  So that's when I started to try to use it a little more as a biz tool.  There's something like 4 million people on Pinterest daily, so, hey, what do you have to lose? 

8.  I've also noticed that you have to be careful with what you pin, not only for copyright reasons, but for your reputation.  Whenever people I didn't know started following me, I deleted several pins that could have been seen as "inappropriate".

Thank you Amanda for always supporting the network and sharing your Pinterest wisdom!!!!    

Where to Join the Party!
We now have a Pinning Party Group set up on Facebook.  The Pinning Party will actually run on the Womentorz Facebook Page, but the group page is for posting questions and tips before, during and after the party.  Here's the link to the group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/208980202540371/#!/groups/208980202540371/

We look forward to seeing you at this Wednesday's Pinning Party!


Be sure to watch Kara Anderson's video on how the Pinning Party works:

The Pinning Party Planning Post

This post is meant to start getting everyone set up for our HUGE Pinning Party that runs on Wednesday, March 28th.  The Pinning Party idea is the brilliant idea of Kara Anderson, the inventor of  The Bag Holder.  She has always believed in the concept of group marketing and the power of unity.  She has found how powerful pinning a picture and/or video can be for free online marketing.  I feel blessed to have her using the Womentorz platform, which is all about group marketing, to launch this idea.

The party will run all day with everyone pinning each others websites using Pinterest.  The only catch is that we all need to be signed up for Pinterest, which is FREE, but requires an INVITATION.  Signing up directly through Pinterest involves a waiting period, which we don't have patience for. :) If you're already signed up for Pinterest then you're set for Wednesday.  If you're NOT signed up with Pinterest, here are the steps to follow prior to Wednesday.

1. Leave a comment here with your name .  During the party you will provide the website where you would like a photo or video pinned, so wait on that for the Pinning Party.  This is simply for tracking purposes.  You will need to leave a comment here first or we won't know you're friending us to be sent a Pinterest invitation.  This is very important since we won't be able to send invites the day of the party.
   
2. Send a friend request to me, Melinda Case Knight, and Kara Anderson via Facebook.  Facebook is the easiest platform to send an invitation.
   
3. The third step falls in our laps where we need to send you an invite.
   
4. Once you accept the invitation you can register with Pinterest.
   
5. Grab the "Pinterest Button" and put it in your browser toolbar and you're ready for the PARTY!

Once we finish these steps you're all set up for future Pinning Parties.  We will use this same blog posting to track everyone signing up.  Please be patient with us during the process.  We may not get to everyone before the first Pinning Party, but we will be throwing these every Wednesday, so just hold tight until the next one. 

This is a full participation party, so if you're not up for pinning everyone who signs up then you shouldn't sign up.  The rule to play is if you sign up you're also going to take the time to pin everyone else.  Kara and I are the only ones who may not be able to pin everyone since we will be running the party. Who's in to play?!?!


Check out Kara's awesome video demonstration of how the Pinning Party will work.