I pretty much instantly fell in love with Pinterest – even though, as I must admit, I was a bit of a latecomer to the platform. In fact, it was only a little over a year ago that I found my way into the white and red world of pins, pinners and pin boards.

Pinterest, to my mind, is in many ways just like Google+ – only not terrible. Sorry, Google, but I’ve never really got your social network. I remember when it came out to tune of ‘the next Facebook!’ – and it pretty much failed on all counts. Yeah, there were some similarities to Facebook – but basically it was just a similar thing, but not as good.

The problem, I think, when social networks emerge claiming that they are going to be ‘the next Facebook’ is that – well, we’ve already got a Facebook, haven’t we? Yeah, we have – and it’s probably the best Facebook that there’s ever going to be.

My point is that, with regards to platforms like Ello and Google+ for instance, all the creators seem to be doing is trying to reinvent the wheel – and they insist on making it brick shaped, and then wonder why it doesn’t take off on a roll… *sigh*

The Best ‘New Facebooks’ Are Nothing Like Facebook

What I love about Pinterest – and Twitter, Vine, LinkedIn, Tumblr., Instagram and YouTube for that matter – is that they are nothing like Facebook. That’s why they work. That’s why they coexist alongside the social media giant, why they enjoy hundreds of millions of active monthly users, why people from all over the world love them, and why they’re successful.

Yes, Pinterest. The visual based social network that is all about sharing great links to great content – as I say, just like Google+, but without all the boredom and nonsense.

4 Pinterest Marketing Hacks

Ok, I could waffle on about why I think Pinterest is so great (and why I think Google+ isn’t) for hours – but what you really want to know is how to use the platform to your marketing advantage, right? Right.

So, without further ado, let’s now delve into 4 great Pinterest marketing hacks to help you rise above the competition on this groovy platform.

#1. Make Your Pinterest Discoverable By Search Engines

Yep, this first one is really a bit of a no-brainer, but there’s every chance that you might not have flicked the important switch on your account settings that will make your Pinterest account visible to search engines. If you don’t do this, then you are potentially losing out on an awful lot of traffic, since your Pinterest will only be discoverable by the Pinterest search engine itself, and not those – like Google – outside of the site.

So, before you do anything else, you need to head over to your Pinterest account right now, login, go into your account settings, and look for the field that’s entitled ‘Search Privacy’. Make sure that the switch is set to ‘NO’. Phew – now your Pinterest is visible to search engines across the rest of the web.

#2. Cross Promote

52% of adults are now present on more than one social media. Most of them are in fact on Facebook and then one other. So, make sure that you’re tapping into all of those Facebook fans that you’ve got who are already on Pinterest. Since they’ve taken the time to show an interest in your brand on one social network, then they will no doubt start following you on another, too – especially if they’ve already got an account.

However, what your Facebook fans will not appreciate is you simply sharing the same content across both platforms. If, when you alert them to the fact that you’re on Pinterest, all they find when they get there is the exact same stuff that they’ve already seen on Facebook, then they simply won’t bother jumping on board your Pinterest.

In fact, this is pretty sage advice for all of your social media marketing efforts – you need to be creating unique content for all of your platforms if you want to attract as many people as possible to as many networks as possible.

#3. Make Your Pictures Pro

As I sated in the introduction to this blog – Pinterest is a visual platform. This means that you need to be paying close attention the quality of your visuals.

You will not be surprised to learn that I am not the first person to realise the importance of photographs on Pinterest, and that in fact there are some people out there who have even gone a step beyond pointing this out, and have actually created some tools to help pinners pull out the potential in all of their Pinterest pics.

I want to tell you about two of my favourites.

The first is PicMonkey, which is a great tool that allows you to brush up, crop and add filters to your photos, but also includes some rather nifty features such as the ability to allow you to create image quotes (say, from any positive PR or customer testimonials that you might have amalgamated), resize your images, and overlay photographs with text.

Image quotes are very popular on Pinterest. Indeed they attract a lot of clicks, and if you can display some impressive statistics using a colourful image quote then you’ve got a great pin ready to be shared far and wide. As such, I recommend ShareAsImage to help you do this – and the real cool part is that it allows to share the image that you create directly onto Pinterest (and all of your other social media outlets as well).

#4. Include Price Tags On Your Products

Pinterest is increasingly becoming a platform for shopaholics. Indeed, even if you are feeling a little light in the old wallet, then there is still quite a lot of satisfaction to be had from doing a little window-shopping online – and Pinterest is one of the best places to do it.

However, Pinterest users are ready to buy. But, what frustrates them is when they have to click through on each pin to a sales page where they can finally see a price tag. Indeed, pins that include price tags get 36% more likes than those without, so make life easy for your Pinterest following, and make sure you display a price on everything that you are selling on the platform right there on the actual pin.

Got any more great marketing hacks for Pinterest? Share your thoughts below.