9 Ways to Get Pinterest Followers

While Lady Gaga might be able to pick up several million followers in a matter of months, mere mortals like us will probably not have such good luck.

But don’t let that frustrate you. Follow these 9 tips for encouraging people to follow you and who knows…maybe in a six month you’ll have several thousand followers.

1. Re-pin what your customer’s are pinning – To attract the attention of particular followers, create a board in your account labeled “coolest re-pins” or something like that…and then start re-pinning the content that they are sharing on their accounts. This is a great way to make your account less about business…and more about the relationship…showing them you are actually taking the time to interact. A company using this strategy well is Whole Foods.
2. Follow pinners/boards who/that fall in your target market – Basically, look for people who share the same interests as you do…and might be interested in what you do for a living. For example, if you are a photographer, then you would follow boards that are tagged “photography” or “weddings.” If you are a tech geek, follow people who enjoy science.
3. Comment on pins – When you see a pin that you like, leave a comment with the pinner. Do this frequently and you will start to gain their attention. Don’t forget that you need to add value when you comment. “Great stuff!” doesn’t cut it.
4. Create a pin that goes viral – Sharing pins is obviously the main way you would promote your brand. But content on Pinterest has the chance of going viral. If you share a pin that someone likes, they may “re-pin” it…in other words, they share it with their audience. The more people who re-pin an image, the longer it will stay on the popular page…getting more re-pins and follows.
5. Use the 1/19 content sharing rule ­– Like my rule for Twittering promotional content, you should share 19 pins that are notpromoting you for every pin that is promotional. For instance, you may only want to share your very best blog posts on Pinterest. Or it could be an infographic or guest post you wrote for a big blog.
6. Encourage people to share your content on Pinterest – You can grab Pinterest share buttons from their site and embed on your own. However, you may want to wait to do this until adoption of Pinterest grows and you’ve established it as a place where you are going to spend resources to maintain. I would recommend that you don’t overload your website with share options…people tend to get confused when there are so many options.
7. Encourage people to follow you – You can also embed a Pinterest “Follow” icon for your website/blog.
8. Tag popular pinners – You can get the attention of other pinners by including a “@mention” tag like Twitter in your caption. This will send a message to that user who may then pick up on what you are pinning and re-pin.
9. Use hashtags – Like the other social media sites, hashtags work on Pinterest to help you gain attention across multiple platforms and build up a following during a marketing campaign. It also works in gaining followers in much the same way that it does on Instagram. On Instagram, if you include hash tags on your photos, you will appear in those popular searches.

My final tip is to use Pinterest as an individual rather than a company. This is probably why Martha Stewart has double the followers than Martha Stewart Living. You are more likely to get followed since people won’t have the suspicion that you are trying to sell something if your profile was a company.

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