Category Archives for "Pinterest"

Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest: What Social Networks Should I Grow?

By Jillian Leslie | Email Marketing , Facebook , Instagram , Milotree , Pinterest , YouTube

Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest: What social networks should I grow? Or should I just focus on my email list?

I get asked these questions all the time!

There is a simple way to figure it out. And the answer depends on asking yourself one question.

What is my one primary business goal?

• To grow traffic
• To grow sales
• To grow my brand awareness
• To grow my YouTube channel

Based on what you just chose (or what combination), here are my recommendations:

MY GOAL IS TO GROW MY TRAFFIC

Here’s my recommendation on what to focus on:

• Pinterest – Best traffic driver out there besides Google
• Facebook – For some people, Facebook is a huge way to drive traffic to their site. From what I’ve found, Facebook works best if you put some money into it.

MY GOAL IS TO GROW MY SALES

Here’s my recommendation on what to focus on:

• Email list – Highest return on your investment if you’re selling a product or service
• Pinterest – People are in a “buying” frame of mind on Pinterest
• Instagram – The hottest platform out there, and exciting new sales features!

MY GOAL IS TO GROW MY BRAND AWARENESS

Here’s my recommendation on what to focus on:

• Instagram – Great way to get you and your brand out there in a visual way
• Email list – The most personal way for you to connect with your audience
• YouTube – Another personal way for people to see you and your brand in action
• Facebook – You definitely need a presence on Facebook, but don’t expect big return unless you’re willing to pay for it

MY GOAL IS TO GROW MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Here’s my recommendation on what to focus on:

• YouTube (duh :)) – not only do you want to grow your subscribers, but because your latest video is featured on your pop-up, it will also lead people directly to your YouTube channel. And by doing this, you also get “brownie points” from YouTube because you’re bringing people directly to the platform!

The best part is it’s super easy to grow all these platforms (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest) and your email list with the smart MiloTree popup.

MiloTree one popup you set to grow your multiple platforms at once. Plus, you can set it up in under three minutes, it’s Google-friendly on mobile, and we have a simple WordPress plugin or one line of code to install it on your site.

How to Create The Best Pinterest Boards

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree , Pinterest

If you want to learn how to create the best Pinterest boards, check out this podcast I did with Kate Ahl from Simple Pin Media.

I go into detail on why I think it’s important to create general boards and specific boards. I believe you need to get into the minds of the people searching on Pinterest. Do they want something specific or something general? Could people want both? If so, make different boards to cater them.

I also talk about how we organically grow new boards at Catch My Party. We watch and listen to what our visitors are telling us they like, and create boards around those topics.

I also discuss why everyone does not need a quotes board or a style board. My advice is to go narrow but deep, instead of wide but shallow.

I also think seasonal boards are a must on Pinterest and I will pin to them even in the off-season to keep those boards alive. Also about two months before the holiday or season, I will start getting active in those boards by creating new content.

And here are my recommendations if you’re just starting out on Pinterest:

• Start with just 5-10 boards
• Make sure your boards are targeting what you’re selling
• Start watching and listening to what your audience responds to, and build out from there

I believe your audience will tell you exactly what they like!

If you want to learn how to get more followers on Pinterest, listen my first conversation with Kate Ahl from Simple Pin Media. I share all the tips and tricks we use to grow our followers on Pinterest, including  our MiloTree pop-up.

How To Grow Your Pinterest Followers Faster!

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree , Pinterest

This is Part II in my series on How To Grow Your Social Media Followers. You can read Part I on growing Instagram here: How to Grow your Instagram Followers Faster.

If you can get your Pinterest account growing, there’s no better way to drive traffic to your blog. At Catch My Party, we get millions of pageviews per month from Pinterest.

Here are my 10 quick tips on growing Pinterest! If you do these, I promise, you’ll see your followers grow!

Tip 1

Sign up for the MiloTree pop-up on your blog! The MiloTree pop-up connects directly to your Pinterest account and asks your blog visitors to follow you on Pinterest. It really works!

This has been our secret weapon, and has helped us grow our Catch My Party following to close to 750k followers. There’s a WordPress plugin, for easy installation, and if you have trouble, email me at jillian(at)milotree(dot)com.

Tip 2

Look at what pins are doing well in your niche, and study why you think they’re working. (Are the pins beautiful? Do the pins show multiple steps? Is the text easy to read? Are the pins solving a problem people have?) Then make portrait-style pins inspired by what you see. Make sure to add text overlays on top of your photos so people know exactly what they’ll be getting if they click.

I have three favorite tools for making images.

• PicMonkey — great for collages
• Canva – They have a new app for mobile
• Snappa — I’m really liking this one and made the image for this post with it

Tip 3

Use keywords everywhere. Use them in:

• Your profile description
• Your board titles
• Your board descriptions
• Your pin descriptions

Think about what terms your audience is searching for, and use those exact words in all your descriptions.

Tip 4

Create 10 boards to start, and try pinning 10 pins in each one. Then each day, pin 10-20 pins. I recommend Tailwind as an easy-to-use scheduler. That’s what we use.

Tip 5

Confirm your Pinterest account so Pinterest knows your business is for real, and your account with get useful analytics. Also, enable Rich Pins on your site so your pins get more “juice” from Pinterest and your logo shows up on all your pins.

Tip 6

Follow a few power pinners every day to let Pinterest know you’re serious about the platform.

Tip 7

Every week, make a new boards and repin your best pins into them.

Tip 8

Use your analytics! Look at what’s performing best on your Pinterest account and make other content like it!

Tip 9

Add the “Save” button to your site so your blog visitors can easily pin from your site.

Tip 10

Be of service. Think about your Pinterest account as a way to help other people find what they’re looking for.

We pin:

• 50% of our own Catch My Party content
• 35% repins from awesome content on Pinterest
• 15% from blogs and other sites we love

Our goal is to be the best party resource on Pinterest regardless of where the content comes from.

BONUS TIP: 

Be patient. A pin can take months to gain traction. It’s a very different platform from Instagram or Facebook, where the feedback is immediate. Pin beautiful, relevant content, make it easy for people to find it, and you will see results.

Has Your Pinterest Following Dropped?

By Jillian Leslie | Pinterest

If your follower count is down, you’re not alone.

Our account, Catch My Party, lost almost 5k followers in one day!  We went from 339,995 followers on November 10th to 335,045 followers on November 11th. You can see the drop here:

Analytics from the “Grow Pinterest” pop up

Normally I’d be freaking out. Pinterest is the number 1 traffic driver to Catch My Party. But because we are tracking other sites’ Pinterest analytics with our “Grow Pinterest” pop-up tool, we’re seeing it happen on other accounts (big and small), too.

It turns out we saw the biggest drops in people’s accounts on November 1st and November 10th. And according to our source, Pinterest is in the process of cleaning up spam accounts.

If it has happened to you, think of it as a Pinterest recalibration. If it has not happened to you, call yourself lucky, but don’t be surprised if it does.

So to cut to the chase, we’re not changing our Pinterest strategy. We will still pin 40-50 pins a day from our site, other Pinterest accounts, and other sites on the web. We will still focus on keywords and SEO, pin into group boards, and emphasize timely pins.

And we’ll keep an eye on it and see if anything else changes…

If you have any insights about your Pinterest account, please share in the comments.

If you’re interested in growing your Pinterest account effortlessly, check out our new “Grow Pinterest” pop-up that we built for ourselves, but was so successful, we had to share it.

Click Here to Subscribe

If you like getting tips like this, please subscribe to our newsletter here!