Sometimes, you can glean more from seeing things done the wrong way than knowing what the right way is. Luckily, there are plenty of people out there who have committed (and for some, keep committing) major blunders with social media sites, particularly Pinterest.
If you are using Pinterest to market your business, you want to avoid these fails as much as you can. So, let’s flip the coin and look at it from the other side. Here are some tips that will help you fail at marketing on Pinterest.
Use the Worst Images You Can Find
If you want to fail at Pinterest, use really bad images, especially of your products. While your competitors are posting high-quality photos with good lighting and perfect presentation, take pictures where only half the product is showing, or it is mostly in shadow. You can also put your thumb over the lens when taking your picture or use the flash when you don’t need it so it’s all washed out.
There are lots of ways to make photos look terrible before posting them.
Ignore Pinterest Analytics
You don’t need analytics. You are probably psychic, so you can just guess which keywords you ought to be emphasizing and which ones you are using too much. You also don’t need to know what kind of visitors are visiting your pages. Who needs that information?
Pin Your Products and Only Your Products
Just because everyone else is posting compelling and interesting images besides their product pics doesn’t mean you have to follow them. Instead, post only pictures of your products, preferably at every possible angle so that no one misses a single centimeter. Whatever you do, don’t post any pictures of stuff you find interesting because people will start checking out your pins more often and you’ll never get rid of them.
Don’t Fill Out Your Business Profile
When you fill out your profile on Pinterest, customers will see an actual person behind the business and no one wants that. Instead, be as boring as you can and don’t fill out anything if you don’t have to. That way, when people visit your profile they will be completely mystified and not understand your company at all.
Never, Ever Put Prices on Your Products
Putting prices on your products is a terrible idea. If someone likes the price and the product, they are going to want to buy it, and that’s a lot of work for you. Never include the prices either in the title of the pin nor in the picture itself. It’s just asking for people to bother you with orders.
Be as Boring as Possible
Do not post pins that are engaging, creative or interesting, because if you do, you’re going to have people tracking through your Pinterest page every single day, looking for something entertaining.
First of all, you have to clean up all that mud that gets tracked in, and second, you might actually have to talk to people if you aren’t careful. Post really boring pins like those corporate posters that you see in boring corporate offices, or better yet, a photo of a plain white wall that has been recently painted. Of course, you could also do what is recommended above and post pictures of your products on every pin.
Do Not Link to Your Product Pages
You can link your pins to whatever you want, but the one thing that you should not link to is the product page for whatever product is being pinned. Link to anything else that you want: pictures of two kittens inside of a slipper, a photo showcasing your Photoshop skills at celebrity face-swapping or even a video of Rick Astley singing “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Link to anything but the product page, because if you do, you’re probably going to make sales and the time you spend filling those orders is time when you’re not watching “The Vampire Diaries” on Netflix. (See Damon Salvatore above.)
NOTE: If for some reason you started reading this article in the middle, please don’t actually follow this advice. Do the opposite if you want to be successful at Pinterest marketing. Oh, and look up the word “snarky” in the dictionary.