Hooray! This is the session I was most excited about! (it appears that we are skipping the “Growing Your Traffic” session due to schedule delays)
This post is a “live blog” of the Blogging About Your Town: What to Do with Local Content session at Bloggy Boot Camp Dallas. Please excuse all typos and format issues. We’re live!
Your blog is YOUR personal space. No one should be telling you what to do with it. Own it. Do it your way. One of the things about YOUR story is where you live.
Your Local Influence
Google Analytics – go to Audience => Demographics => Location => Us => Arkansas Look at % of visitors and amount of time spent on site.
Twitter – check twitaholic for local ranking
Roughly estimate % of followers on twitter, FB, LinkedIn, G+, Pinterest, and any other online networks
Look Offline: Email contacts, local organizations – HOA, PTA, kids’ sports, etc.
Create a snapshot of your local influence
Write down and track
# of Blog views per month from Texas
Ranked 3rd for twitters followers in DFW
# of local social media reaches
Local organizations
How to Grow Local #s
– On Your Blog
Change URL of your ABOUT page. http://yourwebsite.com /[your city]momblogger (or other keywords that you want to be found by).
Use your new keyword phrase in your bio on that page
Add the phrase in your sidebar somewhere
Always use local keywords on your photo names
Promote your local content to your local friends
– Guest post where locals will see you
Online version of local newspaper
Local organizations/businesses’ blogs
Link your guest post to your new about page.
– On Twitter – stalk local followers – find them on local accounts like news, museums, organizations that are specific to your town
– On Pinterest – search for geo-centric boards: town names, sports names, local attractions
– Press – make yourself available to local TV, newspapers, local blogs
– Attend local events when asked
– Network with your local bloggers
How to put Local Content on YOUR blog:
If it’s occasional, just do it.
If once/twice per week: Consider setting aside a day or the weekend for this content
Set up a blog category with your town’s name.
Reasons you should NOT start a local blog
Workload – local blogs compete with news organizations who have PAID employees…and a lot of them
Website Traffic – potential traffic capped by your town’s population limiting passive income ptential dramatically
YOU are NOT the PRESS – but people will act like you are and not want to pay you
Local Businesses – don’t have the budget to take a chance on you and may be a little intimidated about social media in general
Find a way to fit local content in with what you are already doing.
Holly Homer hosts a G+ hangout on Wednesdays at 10:30am on social media practices. Feel free to come over and ask questions!
This is a Break Out Session. The other session, Writers Workshop, is being lead by Francesca Banducci @FranBanducci and Kathy Bouska @mamakatslosinit (sorry peeps, I can’t be in two places at once!
First up, Tiffany Romero.
Tiffany says that making a living from blogging is probably not happening with side bar ads. You have to know where you want to go and HOW you want to make your business. “Where you put your attention is where you get results.”
You also cannot compare yourself to other bloggers who have a different circumstance. If you have three kids under the age of 6 and no outside support, you can’t follow the same business model as a mom with older kids and a stay at home husband.
On working with other bloggers – “You need to have met them if you are going to share $ with them.”
Know your goals and throw out anything that doesn’t match. If you can spin it to match, or re-propose something that is a good fit, that’s good, but don’t do extra work to try to make something fit when it won’t. Don’t try to please EVERYONE. Please the people who are important to you, and please them first.
Tiffany says, “My husband is much happier if I have sex with him. It’s ok to schedule this in your mind. When the kids are going to bed, you’re getting on the computer, and your husband is giving you the stink eye, go ahead and have the sex.”
Manage your life with a schedule. Set office hours, and schedule when you check your email. You don’t need to check your email all day long.
“Business Opportunities are like buses. there is always another one coming.” -Richard Branson Be respectful and stay on the radar, but don’t feel like if you miss an opportunity, that you won’t get the next one.
It is more important to keep our integrity than it is to bring in $. Don’t sell out for less than you are worth. If you can avoid desperation, avoid it. Saying yes to everything isn’t going to work.
Laurie says, If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. Saying no to money is really hard, but you have to put value on your integrity.
Tiffany – The perceptions of what blogging is will test our integrity. My personal blog doesn’t make any money. It’s the launchpad for SITS girls, which I created to fill a need in the community, not to make $.
Behave like a professional, and people will treat you like one. You have to have business cards. You have to set up a corporation (LLC) to project yourself. This conference is a tax write-off. This is a business expense. You need to run as a business. Learn accounting, or get an accountant. Get a lawyer.
Most likely ways to actually make $$ from blogging:
Brand Ambassadorship
Social Media Consulting
Paid Blog Posts
“A man should never neglect his Family for business” – Walt Disney You have to schedule out time for your business AND schedule family time.
Laurie Turk says that she incorporates her family into the housework so that they are bonding over all working toward the same goals. They schedule things like Family Game Night as a reward for everyone getting their tasks done.
If you’re going to go into a partnership, you need to first have an exit strategy. Keep your partnership to only two! More than that causes problems. Especially if you are partnering with moms, keep in mind you are also partnering with their husbands.
Go into a partnership with a contract that has been reviewed by attorneys on both sides.
If someone is unhappy that you’ve gone into business with someone else, or if they are jealous of the jobs you are getting, that’s a big sign that you don’t need that negativity in your life. Surround yourself with people that are thrilled for you and are happy with your success. You determine how people treat you. You have to take responsibility for that.
@AngEngland shares a quote she heard: “never compare your insides to someone else’s outsides.”
Best investments in gaining opportunties:
Meet other bloggers/agencies/brands in person
Go to blog conferences (to meet people in person)
Create a “tribe” of 3-5 people that are working in blogging/social media and have similar amounts of experience as you have. Find people who are in the same place in life as you are, but it’s great to have different interests. You gotta love the person, but also gather a writer, a photographer, a coder, etc (different interests).
18 Ways to Make Money from Your Blog (from Laurie Turk, @TipJunkie)
EBook
Traffic ~ google adsense/ad network
Brand Campaigns
Sell a Product
Consulting
Endorsements
Licensing designs
Giveaways
Ad network
Tribe collaborations {with other bloggers}
Facebook amplification
Sponsor posts
Affiliate links
Conference sponsorships
Hosting live events
Re-selling product ~ Amazon.com
Newsletter sponsors
Allison @AzTalamantez is going to talk about Media Kits and PR now.
Allison is not a big fan of blogger media kits. Most bloggers are making income by engaging with brands.
How do you stand out from the crowd?
– Know Thy Self
Who are you online & offline? And who is your audience? Offline is VERY important. Combining online and offline is a seamless way is the key to success.
What do you have to offer a brand? What do you do that is special
Where will your sponsored content live? Your need to be honest and upfront about this.
Why are you worth the investment?
How often are your readers open to sponsored content?
– Watch, Listen & Learn
Who is on your brand wish list and why? Make a list of 25 people you want to work with.
What are they currently doing in social media? If they are already working with bloggers, email them and ask to work with them.
What are they NOT currently doing in social media? Contact them and tell them how you can work with them.
– 5 Successful Pitch Strategies
Brevity is welcome in email. Close with the Q, “If you aren’t the right person to contact, who is?” If you are brief and you are clear, you are much more likely to get a response.
Media kits are useful. Phone calls are better.
Switch it up: Email-Phone-Email (one every three days) If you need an email, google “[company name] press release” and get a contact off the press release. Follow marketing/pr folk online.
Start a pitch calendar. You have to be thinking a full quarter or two ahead. Companies are working on New Year’s campaigns now. In January, you should be pitching for Mother’s Day.
Figure out how to be a brand’s hero. Figure out what brands need and how you can help them attain that.
Never bet against yourself. Know your value. Know you can’t give yourself a raise from $0.
– Plan and Strategize
Know who you want to be when you grow up.
Have idea starters.
Make a pitch calendar.
Ask questions and build relationships.
If a company responds that they don’t have a budget, ask if you can chat with them for 10-15 minutes about how you might work with them in the future.
When you are small, you are much better off working with small, local businesses to start with. Those businesses can make decisions and write a check much faster than a large corporation.
eBooks are a great way to make money as a blogger. Angela is currently earning a five figure income from her eBooks.
Why create an eBook:
Reuse conent that you already have.
Create an additional revenue stream. – will continue to make money while you work on other projects
Reach a broader audience with your message – offer one for free and encourage your readers to share with friends.
Builds personal brand and authority building – 10% of Angela’s customers who buy the ebook turn around and hire her to do what she talks about in her ebooks (social media, public speaking). It’s another form of a resume or portfolio.
What to write about:
Be specific but not too narrow. Example – you can’t just write about knitting. Don’t recreate things that are already out there. You also can’t write about knitting hamster outfits. Not enough people are interested in that. Find something that teaches a specific skill, saves money, or saves time. (or all 3 is even better)
Brainstorm your main topic areas and work your way down from there. Look at your analytics. What are people already looking to you for? What do they know you already do?
What are you already talking about?
What topics are you currently writing or researching? Even if you are not an expert, you can write your process. “100 days to becoming a knitter”
Create a table of contents (outline). This helps create a plan/focus and eliminate distractions.
The table of contents keeps you motivated to finish.
Angela pre-sold her book as motivation. She gave people that bought it on the pre-sale a 20 minute constult as a “reward”. This generated income she could use to hire an editor/designer to help her craft her ebook
Finishing touches:
Use pro images, photos, graphics, and cover art. Don’t go overboard with images because your ebook needs to be short, and you’re sacrificing content with each image.
Editing – catch mistakes – have it professionally edited. You can barter with an editor to save $$.
Format – presentation matters to readers.
If your book is more than 40 pages, add an index.
Consider font and readability. Make it big enough to read.
Marketing your eBook
Sell on your website – add a paypal button
Create an affiliate program and e-store of your own http://bit.ly/ebookplugin. This allows other bloggers to sell your ebook on their site for a % of sales. You are growing your audience this way.
Ads – you can create an ad for you ebook. If you don’t want to pay for ads, swap ads with another writer.
Tap into larger networks by becoming a columnist, doing guest posts, or sending the eBook out for review.
Monetize IN the eBook with your own affiliate links.
Audience Q – What format should it be in?
A-Most eBooks are PDFs.
Audience Q – Why would somebody buy my content when they can get it for free?
A-It’s easier and more convenient to have all the information in one place. If you build it properly, the people who need it will buy it. Many buyers are not blog readers and they don’t realize that they can search through your blog to find all the content.
This post is a “live blog” of the What You Really Need to Know About Blog Design session at Bloggy Boot Camp Dallas. Please excuse all typos and format issues. We’re live!
Theory: “If you look good, you do better.” If your site looks good, people are more likely to come back.
REAL ESTATE – The most important piece of real estate is the items “above the fold”. Headers should not be taller than 250pixels because otherwise you’re wasting that real estate. If it is bigger, then you need to incorporate other features into your header, like social sharing or navigation.
It’s ok to be a personal blogger and make your header reflect that.
NAVIGATION – Keep it simple, and use it. It should be easy to see and use. PioneerWoman.com is a good example.
Your left side bar is where readers start, so put content that makes money there.
Highlight different areas of your blog on your main page. Ask yourself an important question: “do I need it on my front page?” Keep your front page simple so it doesn’t affect your load time. If your load time is slow, it may be because of too many links.
The FOOTER is the second most important place to the header. It’s a secondary navigation place. Where do you want readers to go next? Link to other parts of your blog. Make it a treat for the readers that got all the way to the bottom of your post. Also, repeat the main navigation and subscription tools down there. Use widgets to keep content dynamic (featured posts, recent posts, featured images, etc…)
GRAPHICS – no graphics are better than bad graphics. Cyn says buy stock and then change them to make them custom to your site. Play with line and stroke to make things different.
PHOTOS – so much more important now because of Pinterest. Pay attention to how photos are telling your story. Make sure you tag your photos with your blog name/URL. Group photos before you use them. Marketing people are looking more at how you tell your story with photos than they are paying attention to your words. Set your dpi resolution at 72 dpi. Computers can’t display more than that anyway, and it’ll make your image load faster.
FONTS – Use 3 or less fonts per site. If you have a logo font, Cyn says she likes to NOT use it elsewhere on the blog. Make sure your fonts are readable. Free fonts from dafont.com. Fonts set a mood.
COLOR – Color is hard to nail down. Make sure that you have white space on your blog. Use color sparingly. Don’t forget that different computers/resolutions/browsers are going to show colors differently. Use Pops of color to draw interest. Adobe Kuler is a free tool to create color schemes based on the colors of things you love. The trick is mixing your color scheme with your graphics for a total design.
TOTAL DESIGN – be consistent across platforms (FB, twitter, youtube, etc). Your color doesn’t have to be your brand. It could be a shape or an image. Spend the $$ on your logo because that’s what people are going to identify you by. Make sure you match who you are online with who you are in person. You have to carry your brand through when you meet people in person.
SITS Girl Tiffany Romero telling us how much she LOVES to talk in front of a crowd.
Good morning! We’ve just finished up a yummy breakfast from @PetitJeanMeats! SITSGirls Tiffany Romero @TiffanyRom and Francesca Banducci @FranBanducci gave welcoming remarks. This is the 15th Boot Camp – these gals know what they are doing!
This post is a “live blog” of the Top Ten Tips for Blogging Success session at Bloggy Boot Camp Dallas. Please excuse all typos and format issues. We’re live!
Presenter: Laurie Turk @TipJunkie – Introduced as being ahead of the curve in everything social media and technical. Laurie is super outgoing and friendly, and truly believes in paying it forward. http://tipjunkie.com
Top 10 Blogging Tips – (keep your mind open when thinking about how you can apply these to your blog)
1. Know what industry you are in. McDonalds is the largest single owner of real estate in the world. They are not in the business of food, they’re in the business of real estate. YOU are in the business of online real estate. Your content has to be great, but people have to SEE it in order for your blog to be successful. As we learn and grow, our blog will grow too.
2. Treat your blog like a business. Think like a business person. Have one main purpose. If you solve a problem, you will make money! Know your limitations and work toward your strengths. Find a way that you can take something you love and make money at it.
3. Always expect a pay-off for your efforts. Don’t spend time, money, or effort on things that don’t pay a return. Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income. Schedule these with short and clear deadlines. Think about how much your blog costs you a day in time and money. Pay-offs:
Higher Traffic
Recognition
Money
Experience
Cut items out that don’t pay off in one of the categories above. Get rid of email subscriptions, etc that don’t help you. Laurie cut out Twitter because it was taking a lot of time and didn’t have a pay off.
4. Work smarter, not harder! Multiply your strengths and outsource the rest. Never underestimate the person sitting next to you – collaborate with people who are different from you and have different skill sets.
Do your most important task first
Spend your 1st hour intentionally working
Have a 12 month editorial calendar
Have office hours
Maintain no-technology hours
Only read email 2x a day
Use social media management tools like HootSuite to schedule image posts.
Sync Google Calendars with your family
Use alarms on your phone
Have 3 month goals & track them in Google Docks
5. Establish an end game and define yourself. Make a long term plan. Where do you want to be in 3 years?
6. Never second-guess a fun idea. If you have a crazy idea and it is completely bonkers, do it.
7. You’re only as good as the company you keep. Surround yourself with supportive people. If someone is bringing you down, get away! Join a closed facebook group that is negativity free. Barter advertising! Cross-promote! Be active in one another’s community.
The loudest voice is not always right. Listen to the people that are making money. Listen to the people who are already doing what you want to do. Avoid blog envy! When one person succeeds, we all succeed.
8. Teach people how to treat you. Remember “your problem is not my problem”. Make people tell you what they want and what their parameters.
9. Reward, don’t bribe. Give people something fun/free and all the sudden your subscribers will shoot up. ebook, printable, how-to guide, etc…
10. Branding, baby! Branding is what people say about you when you aren’t in the room. Ask your readers, ask your friends, “What do you think I am?” Find out how other people describe you.
Bonus Tip: Brand Every Blog post – First 3 sentences: explain what the reader can expect from the beginning, middle, and end of your blog post. Link to other posts within your blog in those first 3 sentences using relevant keywords as the link. Brand Imaging: add text, url or logo to your image. Use PicMonkey.com (it’s free). Footer: Put a footer with your profile picture, your blog button, RSS Feed, ebook, or Facebook Freebie. That way if people steal (scrape) your content, it’s still branded as yours.
Hello from Dallas, Ya’ll! I got here bright and early this morning and am getting pumped for Bloggy Boot Camp. Tomorrow morning we’ll get down to business, and I’ll be blogging it all for you ladies. Here’s the rough schedule for posts (I say rough because there are no end times on the sessions, so I’m not sure exactly when my posts will be finished):
Keep in mind that I will be blogging about and posting these sessions as they happen. There will be typos and grammatical errors, which I will try to go back and clean up after Bloggy Boot Camp is over.
My twitter is @FawnRech if you want to tweet questions to me during the conference. Not sure how quickly I’ll be able to answer! You can also follow along with the conference on twitter with #BBCDAL
Here’s my first conference secret for you: The fee you pay to attend a conference usually doesn’t even come close to paying for the cost of the conference. Conferences don’t happen without sponsors. Please take a moment to show some social love to the conference organizers and sponsors.
If you are a blogger then chances are you have dreamed of attending at least one blogging conference. Unfortunately, for many of us, time, money and family commitments often keep us from attending these events. But that doesn’t mean that we still can’t learn some great tips, tools and techniques to keep our blogs spanking fresh and on top of current trends in blogging technology and social media!
This Saturday, Fawn Rechkemmer of Instead of the Dishes will be attending Bloggy Boot Camp in Dallas and will be live blogging throughout the day to bring you all the information as it happens! We are so excited about this and hope that you will check our blog frequently throughout the day on Saturday.
Live Blogging is a new concept to us at Arkansas Women Bloggers (and may be to you too) so here is a basic idea of what you can expect this weekend.
Friday – Fawn will be posting the Bloggy Boot Camp Session Schedule so you will have an idea about when things will post and what will be covered.
Saturday – Fawn will type at lightening speed throughout the event and will upload posts at the end of each one hour session. During multi-hour sessions, Fawn will update several times. The sessions begin at 8am so you can expect to see the first post sometime around 9am.
Grammar – Since this will be a fast paced event you may see grammatical and spelling errors. We are not professional editors but we will do our best to clean up any spelling and grammar errors at the close of the event.
Photos – Fawn will try to add relevant photos as she goes.
Links – If any important links are missed during the event we will add these in during post-editing.
Questions and Answer – If you have any burning questions about any of sessions please feel free to leave a comment or post questions to our facebook or twitter accounts. Fawn will do a follow-up post and will try to answer as many of your questions as possible.
Social Media Updates – We will most likely NOT provide you with social media updates during this event. We are currently investigating some plug-ins and other tools that will make this possible in the future. Please check Arkansas Women Bloggers frequently throughout the day to keep on top of the topics.
It *might* be time for us to begin wrapping up our daily conversations about #AWBU. It’s ok, though – that means that you can begin looking forward to next year… you KNOW we’re going to up the ante!
So, we’d like to take a moment with you to relive the glory days one last time. Here it is: everything you need to know about #AWBU 2012 in one spot for the days when you need a little inspiration.
And don’t worry, we’re not going on sabbatical – we have some exciting things planned here on the Arkansas Women Bloggers site in the coming months, and they involve YOU! Stay tuned!
And then there was the preachin’: There was a TON of great content. We couldn’t capture it all, but below are recaps of some of the popular sessions that the leadership team compiled for you, and we hope other presenters will post links to Slideshare presentations or other items from their sessions in the comments below!
The Infamous Quiz Session Recap by Stephanie Buckley (The Park Wife) – coming soon!
There you have it, ladies. Watch for a few more words in the coming days from some of our sponsors, but bookmark this post as the go-to for everything AWBU 2012. We can’t wait to see you next year!
I never really understood the value of Pinterest as a blogging tool until a pin from my website went “viral” and my sites stats went soaring into outer-space. When my Google analytics indicated that my site went from less than 100 hits per day to well over 5,000 in a single day I knew something was going on. A little research into my analytics showed that the source of most of the traffic had originated on Pinterest! If you are unsure about analytics then check out our post Understanding Blog Stats written by Fawn.
Once this happened, I quickly realized that I needed to change some of my blogging practices to help make Pinterest work for me. A lot of bloggers are afraid of Pinterest becasue there are a lot of myths and misinformation regarding how the site works. We will discuss some of these in our next post and while it is necessary to be cautious and proactive when it comes to Pinterest I do not believe it is something we should fear.
This is what I saw in my stats:
All because of a single pin that began a “viral” spin on June 24, 2012 I saw a huge spike in UNIQUE Visits to my blog. That number slowly declined over the next 10-12 days but has been holding steady at approximately 350 unique visitors per day which is more than FOUR TIMES the number of visitors I was previously getting. Even if you only have 5 daily visitor I think we would all love to increase our site views by four times!
Truthfully, I got lucky and the right person who had the right followers on Pinterest pinned my picture. I had pinned the picture my self a week or so earlier and nothing had happened. Maybe it was a fluke but I am hearing more and more reports of such “flukes” in the blogging world. So the questions remain – how is Pinterest beneficial to me as a blogger and how do I make the most out of Pinterest?
How is Pinterest Beneficial to Me as a Blogger?
1. Pinterest can drive traffic to your blog.
Can you really think of a better reason than that? Most of us, regardless of why we want more blog traffic, want more blog traffic. It doesn’t matter if you are motivated by blog monetization or by comments seeing our blog stats grow is exciting. Pinterest can help do that. Yet that leaves us with the question of – how? Keep reading the following list of benefits of pinterest and that will become more clear.
2. Pinterest can connect you to other bloggers and reaches a wide audience.
According to ignightsocialmedia.com 80% of pinterest users are women and over 50% are between the ages of 25 and 45. They have also discovered that Arkansas is the 5th most represented state in the US on Pinterest! For most of us, these are the exact demographics of the people we are trying to reach with our blogs and there is a high chance that the same people who casually read blogs are the same ones pinning to pinterest.
The nature of pinterest is that people following your boards are people who have similar interests and tastes as you. The things that are visually appealing to you are also appealing to them.
If you were to go through your list of “followers” you would likely see several (or perhaps many) people following you that you don’t know. While your blog is likely read by your best friend and your mom and the people you know on facebook are real people that you really know, pinterest allows you to reach a whole new group of people just because they can see your pins.
3. Pinterest provides motivation.
Pinterest works like a magazine without all the words and advertisments. You can log in to your account and quickly browse through hundreds of picutres in a matter of minutes, quickly determining which pieces you want to keep (repin) and which you want to pass over.
I was initially drawn to Pinterest because of the food. I love to cook and my blog tends to be more about food than anything else. Still I often find myself asking the age old question, “What are we going to have for dinner tonight?” Shortly after discovering Pinterest I found it to be my go-to source when I planned my weekly menu every Saturday and because of my focus on food blogging this quickly translated into a source of motivation for my blog.
Not only was I provided with new recipe ideas but I was motivated by the beautiful photos I was seeing. I began building my own new recipes off things I was seeing on pinterest and I began to work on improving my photography skills to more closely resemble the gorgeous pictures I was seeing on Pinterest.
4. Pinterest keeps you abreast of current trends.
The ability to grow traffic to your blog correlates highly with your ability to present meaningful information to your readers. Whether you are a food, fashion, home decor, humor, mommy, finance, technology or whatever blogger; Pinterest will alert you to current trends in whatever your field of interest. The EVERYTHING category in Pinterest shows you a little bit of everything that is being pinned currently. The POPULAR category will show you pins that are being repinned and liked at a higher rate than other pins. Essentially it shows you what is “trending” at the moment. Another great tool is a separate site called Repinly which claims to help you find the most popular pins, boards and users on Pinterest. Repinly will also generate your “Pinterest Score” which is calculated by popularity, activity, and influence on Pinterest.
So…
How Do I Make the Most of Pinterest?
1. Use it!
Set up a Pinterest account. Make some boards and then visit your favorite blogs and start pinning things you love. As you begin to follow others and others begin to follow you, you begin to develop a presence on Pinterest. Commenting on pins you like is also a great way to get people to notice you and to return a “follow”.
Use the boards to properly organize your pins and do this NOW! I did not understand the importance of this when I started using it and have had to spend a lot of time reorganizing and relabeling boards appropriately. Properly labeling and categorizing your pins and boards will help others to find them.
3. Check your links!
Whether you are pinning from your own site or someone else’s it is BEYOND IMPORTANT that the picture matches the content in the link. If I were to pin a picture of a cake I made and blogged about in 2007 but the link leads people to my homepage rather than the actually link for the cake recipe, I am going to lose a potential reader because they are not going to want to search my whole site to find a random cake recipe.
4. Provide a “Pin It” button on your blog.
Yes in point number one I claimed that 80% of pins were actually re-pins. Still that other 20% comes from somewhere and providing a “Pin It” button on your blog not only encourages readers to pin your content but gives them an easy way to do it.
5. Make your pictures Pinterest ready.
Since I began adding post titles and a “watermark” to the pictures on my blog I have seen an increase in pictures from my blog being pinned and re-pinned. People like to know what they are getting and seeing a picture with a description that matches (or explains) what they are seeing makes them more likely to re-pin the content.
Text can be added to photos with PC tools like paint and Photoshop. There are also several great online photo editing tools available. PicMonkey is one of my favorites and it is very simple to use.
How Do I Know If It’s Working?
(Pinterest’s Best Kept Secret)
I mentioned above that you can use your Google Analytics (or your chosen stats builder) to see if Pinterest is generating any traffic to your blog. However, analytics can be confusing and there is a much easier way to find out what is being pinned from your site. I like to refer to this as “Pinterest’s Best Kept Secret” because it took me over a year of using Pinterest to discover.
Pinterest allows you to see exactly what is being pinned from your website!
Go to pinterest.com/source/(your blog url) and you can see what is trending from your site!
Today we’re going to discuss the art of pinning and the purpose of the boards.
How Do I Pin to Pinterest?
How do I pin from within Pinterest?
Pinning from within Pinterest is SUPER easy! When you login to Pinterest you will be taken to your main page where you will be seeing the “feed” of pins pinned by all the people you follow. It should look something like this:
On the left hand side you will see “Friends to Follow”. If you are connected through Facebook Pinterest will notify you of your other friends that are also on Pinterest. I assume it would be the same if you were connected through twitter although I haven’t tried this myself. You will also see “Recent Activity.” This is where you will see who is repinning your pins or if anyone has commented on your pins. You will notice that some of the names here may be unfamiliar to you. Since anyone is able to follow you on Pinterest you may not know some of these people. This is another great source for finding people to follow! Chances are that if they are repinning things you have pinned you probably have similar tastes and interests.
The rest of the page consists of the “feed” of pins that the people you are following have recently pinned. I usually peruse this once or twice a day. These images are constantly being pushed down as new things are pinned. If you see something you like and want to explore you may want to add it to one of your boards by “repinning” it. (More on boards below.)
When you hover your mouse over a pin you like, you will be given the options to repin, like, or comment.
Likes will appear on your profile page but are not organized on a board. Comments are visible to the original pinner and their followers. Clicking on “repin” will allow you to place the pin onto one of your boards. As you will see below, I can use the drop down menu to select my board and I can also edit the text that will appear with the pin on my board.
How do I Pin from a Website or Blog?
There are two ways to pin from within a website or blog. You can pin by using the “Pin It” button found on may websites or with the Pinterest Bookmarklet.
1. Pinning with the “Pin It” Button
You will notice that many bloggers have begun encouraging pinning by placing a “Pin It” button on their blog posts. Here is how it looks on my blog:
Sometimes you will even find the button right beside the pictures.
Click on the button and a window will pop up containing all of the “pinnable” pictures on that page.
Now you proceed just as you did above. Mouse over the picture you want, select “pin-it”, select your appropriate board, edit your caption and then select “Pin”.
2. How do I pin with the Bookmarklet tool?
Not all websites have a visible pin it button. If this is the case you can still pin using the Bookmarklet Tool put out by pinterest. Essentially this will place a “Pin It” button in your browsers toolbar allowing you to pin quickly from any page. To install the Bookmarklet Tool you will need to visit the Pinterest Goodies page and follow their instructions.
NOTE: If a “Pin It” button is not readily available on a webpage PLEASE check the pages copyright rule BEFORE pinning their pictures. I have heard of several occasions when pinners were contacted about violating a blogs copyright rules by pinning an image.
If you want to prevent people from pinning from your site there are several Pinterest blocking plugins available.
How Do I Create and Organize Boards?
Organization is essential to getting the best experience out of Pinterest but the great part is that they make it SO easy through the use of boards.
When I was a teenager I loved to clip magazine pictures and pin them up. My dad wouldn’t let me pin them to the wall so he bought be several bulletin boards. I had one for clothes, one for friends, and of course one for cute boys! It was a primitive form of Pinterest! The modern version of Pinterest works essentially the same way!
When you first set up your account Pinterest will provide you with a few generic boards to get you started. You can always edit these, delete them or create totally new ones.
1. How do I add a board in Pinterest?
Login to Pinterest
Click “Add +” in the upper right corner
Select “Create a Board”
Name your board, select a category and click “create”
You are now ready to pin to this board just like we showed you above!
2. How do I organize my boards?
How you organize your boards is going to largely depend on what you are pinning. I am an art teacher so I have a board for each class I teach as well as boards for several art related topics. I also have boards for food, dessert, home decorating ideas, fun projects, Christmas gift ideas and so on. I have all of my food on one board but you could easily create boards for specific meats (chicken, beef, fish, etc.) or even types of dishes (appetizer, sides, salads, etc.).
The more boards you want, the more boards you will create. You can also move pins from one board to another by clicking the “edit” button when you mouse over one of your pins.
3. I have boards and I’ve pinned to them…now what?
Everyday we see hundreds, if not thousands, of images on the internet. Pinning them in boards that are organized helps you to collect all those awesome ideas into one place. Now you can access your board, take a quick glance and investigate further. Here is an example.
Login to Pinterest.
Click on your name in the top right corner (You will be taken to your collection of boards).
Select a board and click on it.
I have a “BLOG” board where I like to pin ideas, tips and tricks to help me become a better blogger. Now all the tutorials I find and ideas I get are all located in the same place and I can easily find what I am looking for and can click on it for more information.
For example, the first pin is about how to create a media kit.
I can now click on that Pin and it will (should) take me directly to that source on the internet. (Note: Your first click will enlarge the pin and the second click will actually take you to the source.)
The great part about Pinterest is that it allows you to totally customize your experience by allowing you to decide who you follow, what you repin and where you pin it!
We will be continuing our series about Pinterest with the following posts:
How is Pinterest Beneficial to Me as a Blogger and How Do I Make the Most of Pinterest?
Frequently Asked Questions and Myths Regarding Pinterest
Hello from Dallas, Ya’ll! I got here bright and early this morning and am getting pumped for 
