Pinterest for PR Pros
Considering
the mortgage industry has taken their sweet time to adapt to the forever
evolving social media world, it might take some time for our industry to
appreciate the true value of all things social media, especially the newest
social kid on the block, Pinterest.
Yesterday I
was able to listen in on a webinar about Pinterest and what it can do for a
brand and a company.
If you are
considering creating a Pinterest account for your company you should consider a
few things before you start.
- Determine whether your business is a match for Pinterest
- Determine how you’re going to use Pinterest to drive traffic to
your website.
- How are you going to keep Pinterest users interested?
- How are you going to incorporate Pinterest into your overall
campaign strategy?
Did you know that Pinterest has 7% of the membership that Twitter
does, but produces nearly as much referral traffic?
This is
an amazing statistic and goes to show that Pinterest users are a very proactive
group, making them easy to engage, click to click, until they get to the
original post.
In order
to drive traffic to your site you can do several simple things. One is adding
the 'pin it' button to your website and blog. This allows
visitors to pin whatever is on your site to their pin boards, driving more
traffic to your website. You can also link your Pinterest to your Facebook and
Twitter accounts. This allows you to promote your brand and company on all
social channels. Add links in your description and add hash tags making your
content more searchable directing traffic back to your site.
Another
big thing that needs to be applied to your Pinterest account is using keywords.
I know we have all heard about keywords and their benefits for SEO and that is
exactly why using keywords, even on Pinterest, is good for your traffic.
You might
be asking yourself how the mortgage industry is going to utilize Pinterest. We
can use Pinterest to promote a lifestyle, your office lifestyle and your
employees. It is great to showcase a personality on your Pinterest; this allows
your followers to connect with you on a different level. You can create your
personality around your brand, you can run contests, tell stories and showcase
different items or ideas related to your industry.
For
example IDS client 360 Mortgage Group who signed up for a company Pinterest
account about five months ago has had a positive response to their Pinterest
boards and has been able to grow their female fan base, drawing in an increased
number of female mortgage brokers.
“At 360
we are always looking for new ways to take advantage of social media and we saw
Pinterest as an increasingly popular social media source,” said 360 Mortgage
Groups Social Media Coordinator and Editorial Writer Amy Elms.
360
Mortgage Group has already seen an increase of traffic particularly to their
blog since using Pinterest and linking their followers directly to their blog
and website.
“We
always make sure to link our latest blog posts on Pinterest using an image that
is related to the post. We have had a good amount of followers repin our blog
posts on their own Pinterest boards, thereby increasing the number of people
who view our blog,” said Elms.
According
to Elms Pinterest is a great new resource in order to create a community
between borrowers, brokers and fellow mortgage companies. Currently 360 is
connected to more than a dozen other mortgage companies on Pinterest as well as
a number of companies and individuals that focus on the mortgage industry or
the housing market.
Pinterest
has proven to be a great way for those in the mortgage industry to fine new
mortgage and housing-related articles, infographics, images and blog posts.
With free resources available at our fingertips, the mortgage industry
is starting to catch on to the social media hype that continues to plague our
daily lives with information. It is what you make it and we can all utilize
social media to improve and create the communities throughout our industry.