8-27-2012
There?s a reason so many brands and businesses are creating a marketing strategy just for Pinterest: It?s a huge traffic driver. Recent statistics show it provides more referral traffic to other websites than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn combined.
Whether you?re a blogger, a retail boutique, or a radio station, traffic to your website is important. Web traffic makes advertisers happy, and your station may gain new listeners within and outside your market from Pinterest referrals. If your website content is good, those visitors may become regulars. They might listen online, and again in the car when they head to work the next morning. They might even pin your content, increasing your reach yet again.
Almost 70 percent of Pinterest users are female. Fifty percent have children. The age demographic is varied, with 27 percent 25-34, 29 percent 35-44, and 24 percent 45-54. The site receives almost 1.5 million visitors every day, with users spending an average of almost 16 minutes per visit (exceeding Facebook?s 12.1 minutes).
Both the demographics and the power of Pinterest as a referral source make it perfect for Top 40 radio. But the nature of Pinterest is different from other platforms. Show up and do what you do on Facebook or Twitter, and you?re destined to fail. Treat Pinterest as a ?what?s in it for her? experience, and you?ll be rewarded with the virality of repins, an increase in Web traffic, engaged listeners, and happy clients. Embrace The Top 40 Lifestyle: Get In Her Head Define your station?s target listener. Go beyond age and gender to determine what she does during a typical day.What are her interests? What are her problems? Defining these will help you create a content strategy for your station?s Pinterest account.
Eighty percent of pins are repins, meaning Pinterest users are browsing to curate content from pinners they follow (and not always to create organic pins from the Web). This could be thrilling or damaging, depending on the strength of your station?s content. The pro: There is a strong chance your content will be repinned if it?s good. The con: Station-centric content can?t be your focus. You won?t gain any followers, as only the most devoted P1s will repin a promotional image or DJ blog. Users are looking for content they can identify with to repin as a form of self-expression, or content they can come back to later, like household tips, recipes, or products to purchase.
The most popular categories on Pinterest are Home, Arts and Crafts, Fashion, and Food. Use your listener profile to expand your strategy beyond these. If 50 percent of Pinterest users have kids, and many Top 40 listeners do too, create content for moms. Pin family-friendly events from your website?s events calendar to a Pinterest board for your mama listeners, or create a fitness board to help new moms lose weight. Follow the example of WSTR (Star 94)/Atlanta and pin cute kid pics. Use Pinterest to drive traffic back to your website, too, by creating boards that represent features on your website ? for example, a ?Sleaze Board,? where you can pin entertainment and pop culture news from the station website and other sources.Add content to your website with the ?Pinterest mindset? to ensure stories, promotions, and events have an attractive image to pin. Use teases to ensure your followers will read the full story on your site. While it?s essential to pin like a listener, don?t forget to include content expected from a radio station. Create boards for music you play, concerts in your market, personality blogs, and more.
Can You Sell It? I haven?t seen a station get a pin or board sponsored yet, but I believe you can. Pinterest is all about visual content. Be picky about which clients you partner with, and choose based on the custom visual content you can provide. If you?re weaving clients into a well-developed content strategy, listeners won?t care that some content is sponsored. Weddings are a hot category on Pinterest. Partner with a local wedding boutique to share wedding and bridesmaids? dresses. Pin their images (with a link to the boutique?s site) over a period of time, mingled with other wedding content, like catering and music. You could include a pinned coupon, or a repin promotion to win one of the dresses pinned. Create the content idea first, with your demo in mind, then present it to the client. And be protective of your Pinterest account so it doesn?t become a dumping ground for client products and events.
Your followers on Pinterest will be paramount to any future success you have with clients. So create a content strategy and get pinning first, to establish your station as a ?pinner to follow.? Need help? An intern (ahem, ?pintern?) in your demo might not be a bad idea.
Stephanie Winans is a Social Media Strategist and Content Curator for the Randy Lane Company and Stephanie Winans Digital. Learn more at stephaniewinans.com or e-mail her at stephaniewinans@gmail.com.
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