3 Rules to Making Your Site Pinterest Friendly

Author: Courtney Gordner
Published: January 06, 2014 at 11:55 pm ShareTweet With every social media site comes the opportunity to market yourself and your product in a new way. Pinterest is no different, as long as you know what you are doing. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, you cannot just talk up your site and add a connecting link to Pinterest. Pinterest is an image driven site. It is not organized by fan pages, but by style boards. It is a completely different platform for social media; therefore, it has different rules for directing traffic to your personal site. In order to get the most out of Pinterest, your site needs to be Pinterest friendly. You must adapt to this site, because it will not adapt to you. Below are some tips and ground rules for making your site as Pinterest friendly as possible. ImagesAs previously mentioned, Pinterest is all about images. However, not every image is compatible with Pinterest. For example, Flash will not work with Pinterest, so if you have a Flash slideshow of images across your site, they will not be pinnable to any boards you may have on Pinterest. Instead use an HTML5 slideshow. According to some, HTML5 is not only Pinterest compatible, but more user friendly as well. Once you are sure the platform you’re using to display your images is compatible with Pinterest, make sure the images themselves meet Pinterest standards. In order for your site or blog to be shared by a follower on Pinterest, it must contain an image that is at least 100 x 200 pixels. Depending on where you want your image to be on Pinterest, whether it’s your profile picture, a cover image, a thumbnail, or a pin, there are regulation sizes you need to stick to.  Pin It!While this one seems obvious, it is worth mentioning that you are more likely to have images from your site on Pinterest if you include a Pin It button on your page. The easier it is for a viewer to share an image or idea, the more likely they will actually share it. If it takes too much work for a viewer to share a cool idea, they will forget about it and move on. We live in a fast-paced world and, if you can’t keep up, you better believe you will be left behind. The idea of adding a Pin It button to your website may scare some of the less tech-savvy individuals out there, but Pinterest actually has an application to help you install a Pin It button, a follow button, and widgets. You can do more than just add the Pin It button to the bottom of you page as well. You can also have the Pin It button appear when viewers hover over any images on your page that you have set up to link to Pinterest. Image DescriptionsNot everyone in this world focuses on the details, but a good amount of Pinteresters are all about details. While Pinterest is not a text heavy site, you do have control over the descriptions you include with your images that will follow them to the boards on Pinterest. A memorable description that captures not only the image, but its connection to you and your site will help bring pinners back to you in the future. Another important thing to keep in mind is your meta tags. A meta tag is the description that follows the HTML information for your images. Pinterest will grab your meta tags before they include the description you’ve written along with the image. You can ensure that an image will not be pinned with a description that has no relevance to your site by writing them yourself. ExampleLet’s take a look at this site and determine if it is as Pinterest friendly as possible or, if not, where it can be improved. As you can see from the home page, there are multiple images that encompass ideas shared by many individuals: science, spirit, body, family. While I cannot access the pixel size from searching for image properties, if these images in particular included a Pin It link, there is a good chance a lot of people would connect to at least one of these ideals and add the image to one of their boards. This site also offers a photo gallery, showing beautiful buildings and landscapes that embody total relaxation. Anyone thinking about a peaceful vacation to Florida would love to pin some of these images.  The one downfall for the images provided on the 12 Keys Rehab site is that most of the people who would want to pin these images will most likely not be interested in going to rehabilitation. The images absolutely give off the feeling of comfort and relaxation that 12 Keys offers its visitors, but those pinning about drug abuse probably aren’t looking for these kinds of images. Additionally, those looking for relaxing images probably don’t want a connection to drug and alcohol addiction. If this site could find the right audience on Pinterest, by adding a Pin It button and using the right description for their targeted viewers, the images have great potential for aiding in the use of Pinterest.      About this article Article Author: Courtney Gordner

Courtney Gordner is a blogger/journalist who loves to write. While she enjoys writing about a variety of topics, internet marketing and social media are her favorites. You can read more from her on her blog, Talk Viral or connect with her on Twitter, …

Courtney Gordner's author page — Author's Blog

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73% Of U.S. Adults Use Social Networks, Pinterest Passes Twitter In Popularity, Facebook Stays On Top

The U.S. is edging ever closer to social media saturation, with the percentage of adults using multiple social networks to communicate with each other now at 73%, and — partly thanks to the rise of mobile apps — the number of people on multiple networks now at 42%, according to figures out today from the researchers at the Pew Research Center.

Facebook — the world’s largest social network with 1.19 billion users — remains the most popular in the U.S. as well, with 71% of U.S. adults on it. In other words, nearly all adults on any social network at all are using Facebook. That’s four percentage points up from last year’s 67%, Pew notes.

Moving down the ranks, there is a lot more wiggle room for the next-biggest network. LinkedIn — site that bills itself as the “professional” social network focused on networking, job hunting and professional information and news — is hanging on at the number-two social network, with 22% of U.S. adults using it — up 2% on last year. Close on its heels is Pinterest — which has vaulted over Twitter to number-three position with 21% usage.

Twitter — despite the different services that it has launched to increase engagement like Twitter Music other discovery services; and despite the increased attention around its IPO — has only grown by two percentage points to 18%. Hot on its heels is Instagram at 17%.

For these sites, which are constructed in large part around advertising-based business models, critical mass is crucial: you won’t visit a site if no one else is using it.

More to come.

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