This New Virtual Pinboard Can
Help Promote Your Brand and Business
Nutrition professionals of all
types have taken quite well to using Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to promote
themselves, their nutrition messages, and their businesses. For the dedicated,
there’s no being left behind in the social media craze that’s become one of the
most powerful tools to leverage one’s image and business persona.
Pinterest, the newest social
media trend, wants people to get the picture—literally—to showcase what they’re
all about. This virtual bulletin board (or virtual pinboard) works like a
scrapbook collection for business and personal interests. To create several
personalized or business-specific boards, you simply upload images to pin onto
each board and describe them in a caption. Pins are instantly accessible to
your followers as well as those you tag, who can then comment on your images
and share them with their followers. Choosing images your followers enjoy and
find useful generates interest and conversation that can increase traffic and broaden
your outreach and business opportunities.
Get Crackin’
The time to get pinning is now!
Pinterest is the fastest-growing social media site, with nearly 12 million
unique users as of January. It gets more than 11 million visits each week, and
it made Time magazine’s list of the 70 Best Websites of 2015.
When Pinterest debuted in 2010,
its first users were moms, food bloggers, and DIY-ers, followed by travelers,
fashionistas, and techies. But the media, including Cooking Light, Eating
Well, the TODAY show, and brands such as Southwest Airlines, Whole
Foods, and Nordstrom are quickly joining in. Those that have products are
driving sales as well. You can pin a product image, link it to an e-commerce
page, and make a sale. Etsy, the sales site for handmade items and other
products, has the most pins.
What to Pin?
If you’ve never visited
Pinterest, head over to Pinterest.com and browse the site. You’ll soon get the
picture—a great deal of pictures. Click on a few that catch your eye, and take
note of the comments, the re-pins, and the “likes” they generate. Then enter
the search term “dietitian” to find everything RD—including colleagues’
boards—to get an idea of the categories they’re pinning. You’ll quickly see how
they’re using Pinterest to promote their businesses. Anyone can browse the
boards, but to participate, request an invitation from Pinterest or from a user
friend to join. Don’t worry; it’s not a commitment, just the opportunity to
test-drive the social medium.
The selection of boards you can
create and pin images to are as wide open as your interest spans. Dietitians
who are published should have boards categorized for books, articles, and
blogs. Attach an image linked to the articles and even a “buy it” link for
books. Media, videos, recipes, and nutrition and fitness tips are other great
ideas for boards that give immediate access to your work.
Be sure to reach beyond your
own images and pin those that are valuable to your community. These may include
books, magazines, and organizations you love; new healthful food products; or
meal ideas for kids. Just make sure the photos you pin are visually appealing.
On Pinterest, your images are the hooks that attract people to your page.
Be Social
As with Facebook and Twitter,
you need to let people know you’re out there. The best way to spread the word
is to follow others. Find friends, clients, businesses, and brands you enjoy
and follow them. Many will follow you right back, which means they’ll see your
pins. Visit their boards regularly and be on the lookout for other boards you
may like to follow. When you visit, like or comment on their pins, and if you
think your followers would enjoy their pin, re-pin it to one of your boards.
The more present you are, the more interaction will come your way.
Events are also a great way to
generate visitors, says Janet Helm, MS, RD, Weber Shandwick’s chief food and
nutrition strategist for North America, who suggests creating a guest pinner
gallery where people can pin things they think your followers will enjoy. You
also can host a contest in which you ask users to create a special pin to post
on your board, perhaps a healthful seasonal recipe or sugar-free dessert.
Something like this will attract new followers, so be sure to spark conversation
via comments.
RDs have the opportunity to
attend events such as nutrition conferences, food expos, and workshops. Snap
pictures and pin directly from the audience (or maybe you’re a presenter) to
share the experience with your followers. Expert speakers and celebrity chefs
are perfect pins. There are Pinterest apps that make this as simple as posting
to other social media. In fact, you can allow everything you pin to post on
your Facebook and Twitter pages all the time or just for an event.
Why Participate?
For many of you, the thought of
adding yet another social media outlet to your agenda may be daunting. But as
RDs, this is an opportunity you don’t want to miss. Food is one of the fastest-growing
topics on Pinterest, and it’s the most re-pinned. The potential in that
statistic is huge and applies directly to every food-related profession. What
you do and what you know is valuable to many people, and Pinterest is the most
current, cutting-edge medium with which to reach them.
Promote yourself as an expert
on your page. Create boards to showcase all that you’ve done as well as what
you’re doing now. Add a Pinterest follow button to your blog and Facebook and
Twitter pages and actively re-pin and comment. “People are using it like Google
and searching for food, fitness, and information there,” Helm says. “Be there
when they search.”
Be there, as Helm recommends,
but at the risk of Pinterest addiction, or perhaps “pindiction,” she says, “Be
careful; it sucks you in.” Time management must be a conscious effort,
something Helm recommends including as part of your social media strategy. One
way to make the most efficient use of your Pinterest time, Helm says, is to
find out what’s driving the most traffic to your page and focus your efforts
there.
It will take some time to get
started and build your board, but the marketing payoff could be well worth it,
Helm says. The best strategy to use to ensure it does is to follow the big players.
All the organizations RDs connect with, such as the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics and the USDA, are must-follows. When you interact with them, you
reach all their followers who are your potential clients. And by monitoring
their activity, you keep up with cutting-edge information in your field.
So jump in! Whether with gusto or timidity, Pinterest
has the potential to become a social media mecca for food and nutrition
professionals. Food has been a top pinner from the beginning, and it looks as
if it’s only getting more popular. By the time it grows to Facebook and Twitter
proportions, you’ll want to be there.
— Lori Zanteson is a southern California-based food and health writer whose work has appeared in various publications.
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