Marketers have really latched onto Pinterest and Instagram as a way to propel “social shopping” and encourage customers to “pin” and share images and videos of the products they use and like.

1. Learn How To Increase Traffic with
Pinterest & Instagram
ConversionFanatics.com

2. A new wave of social networks has hit the web and it’s making visual-content-sharing the
reigning champ of social media. At the helm of this fresh approach to digital interaction are
Pinterest and Instagram, each of which showcases compelling photos, images, and videos that
have been uploaded by users, including visual content specialists, such as artists and
photographers, as well as companies and brands.
Marketers have really latched onto Pinterest and Instagram as a way to propel “social
shopping” and encourage customers to “pin” and share images and videos of the
products they use and like.
Marketers have even started valuing visual content and social platforms more so than
traditional social media, including Facebook and Twitter, a finding discovered in a report
conducted by the Social Media Examiner, which included input from around 3,000
marketers.

3. Now, more and more marketers are looking to boost audience engagement by creating
original images and video content. And their visual efforts have been paying off, leading
to significant returns via more visitors, leads, and customers—all of which contribute to
increased revenue. Not too shabby.
And the simple reason for the success of visual marketing and visual-based social media
platforms? People love photos and videos.
But don’t just take my word for it…

4. Why Visual Content and Social
Platforms Merit Your Time and Energy
Check out the following compelling statistics compiled by Amanda Sibley of HubSpot as
a testament to why marketers should incorporate visual content into their marketing
plans:
1. “90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed
60,000X faster in the brain than text. (Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco)”
2. “40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text.
(Source: Zabisco)”
3. “Publishers who use infographics grow in traffic an average of 12% more than
those who don’t. (Source: AnsonAlex)”
4. “Visual content drives engagement. In fact, just one month after the introduction
of Facebook timeline for brands, visual content—photos and videos—saw a 65%
increase in engagement (Source: SimplyMeasured)”
5. “85% of the US internet audience watches videos online. The 25-34 age group
watches the most online videos, and adult males spend 40% more time watching
videos on the internet than females. (Source: comScore and Nielson)”
6. “Viewers spend 100% more time on pages with videos on them.
(Source: MarketingSherpa)
7. “Viewers are 85% more likely to purchase a product after watching a product
video. (Source: Internet Retailer)”

5. Research also shows that marketers with more industry experience tend to value visual
social networks, including Pinterest and Instagram, more highly than their less
experienced counterparts.
Marketers who are relatively new to the game, with less than 12 months of social media
experience, rate Facebook as their number one choice, with only 32% using Pinterest
and even fewer—15%—using Instagram.

6. And while Facebook remains the most widely used platform regardless of experience,
the percentage of marketers using Pinterest and Instagram more than doubles among
more seasoned marketers, with 66% of marketers with 5+ years’ experience using
Pinterest and 47% of more experienced markers using Instagram.
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7. A shift towards visual social networks can also be seen among marketers who spend
more time on social media each week.
According to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report conducted by the Social
Media Examiner, “Marketers who invest more than 40 hours per week are much more
focused on Instagram (46% more), YouTube (38% more), and Pinterest (37% more) than
those investing six or fewer hours a week with social media.”

8. Furthermore, research indicates that business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers tend to
focus on visual content and social platforms more so than their business-to-business
(B2B) colleagues, who prefer blogging, Google+, and LinkedIn.
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Accordingly, since it’s a wise move to heed the advice and actions of those with more
experience and who possess more savoir faire, marketers, especially B2C marketers,
should take a cue from their precursors and implement a marketing strategy that
incorporates visual content along with Pinterest and Instagram.

9. Increase Your Web Traffic with Pinterest
Here are five essential strategies you can use to drive more traffic to your website from
Pinterest.

10. Validate Your Account
There are tons of posers online so validating your account by verifying your website is
crucial for brand protection. Plus, when you gain that tick mark next your website,
indicating that you are in fact the owner of that website, you instill confidence in visitors
that the account is legitimate.
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11. Check out this free Pinterest Marketing Video Tutorial to learn more about how to verify
your website.
Furthermore, once you’ve verified your site, you gain access to Pinterest’s free analytics
tool, which you can use to assess the amount of traffic you receive from Pinterest and
what you can do to get even more.

12. Add Your URL and a Call-To-Action to Pin
Descriptions
You want to make it as easy as possible for visitors to move from Pinterest to your
website. Any additional steps may mean less traffic for you. Plus, you want to provide
your visitors with the necessary incentive and encouragement for clicking through. Mitt
Ray, Founder of Social Marketing Writing, shares some tips below.

13. Mitt Ray: “Pinterest automatically adds a link to your image, but to visit
this website, the user needs to click on the pin first, wait for it to expand,
and then click on the expanded pin. This process can be simplified by just
adding the link to the same page (where the image is located) to your pin
description. When you do this users won’t need to expand the pin to visit the website,
they can just see the image, read the description and click on the link in the description.
This way of simplifying things for your followers by cutting out the step of expanding
pins will get you more traffic. If Pinterest doesn’t let you post shortened URLs use the
full one as shortened URLs are considered as spam.”

14. Moreover, in addition to including your URL in pin descriptions, you can increase your
click-through rates even more by providing calls-to-action—actually asking people click
on your URL. Who would’ve thought? So, in your pin description, just before your
website’s URL, add a phrase like, “Please click this link” or “Visit this website now” and
see what kind of effect it has on your traffic.

15. Instill Shopping-Centric Mindset
People use Pinterest to curate their wish lists and favorite brands and products in one
convenient spot. Therefore, it stands to reason that Pinterest has a significant capacity to
drive sales directly from its platform. According to a PriceGrabber survey, 21% of
Pinterest users have purchased a product after viewing an image of it on the website.
Given this statistic, a significant number of Pinterest users operate in “buyer’s mode”
while perusing the site—a crucial state of being when it comes to purchase conversions
and one that marketers can capitalize on by using Pinterest’s brand-friendly elements to
steer users in the direction of taking real, buying action.

16. Cara Harshman of Optimizely offers several suggestions for marketers below.
Cara Harshman: “Use ‘Rich Pins’ to add extra details about images you’re
pinning. This feature will make your content more engaging by
encouraging your audience to connect with your brand in a more
interactive way. Product pins, for instance, include real-time information
about pricing and details about where people can buy the items that they’re pinning.

17. Once you’ve enabled Rich Pins for your products, try dropping your prices every once in
a while, as Pinterest alerts its users when the items they’re curating drop in price. This
feedback loop can help drive conversions by reminding your audiences about the
products that they love—it’s a way for brands to stay continuously engaged with their
buyers.”
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18. Post Pins at Optimal Times
Timing is everything. You’ve likely heard this expression before, as it can be applied to a
wide range of situations and ideas, from joke-telling to relationships, and it also relates
to posting on social media.

19. Mitt Ray: “An important factor that can get you more website traffic is timing. If you
share your pins at a time when more people are online—more people will see them and
click on them. This will get you more traffic.
According to Bit Rebels the best time to share on Pinterest is between 2 PM to 4 PM in
the afternoon and 8 PM to 1 AM I the night. Try and post your pins between these
times.

20. You could also post your pins at less popular times and see how that works for you.
Sometimes posting at the least popular times could turn out to be a lot more effective
as fewer people will be pining and there will be less competition.”
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21. You can also use the following scheduling tools to save time and make sure you’re
posting at the best hours each day:
• Traffic Wonker – Currently it’s free to use but it will eventually switch to a
paid/free subscription model costing paid members $4.95/month.
• SocialPilot – The Starter plan is free for a lifetime. The Pro plan costs
$4.99/month. And Pro Plus costs $9.99/month.
• Board Booster – You get the first 100 pins for free, and beyond that, the prices
and pin counts range from 500 pins for $5.00/month to 5,000 pins for
$50.00/month.
• Mass Planner – There is a 5-day free trial. Then, prices start at $9.95/month.
• ViralWoot – You can schedule 100 pins/month for free. But if you want to post
more than that, monthly plans start at $12.
• Tailwind – For bloggers and small businesses, the Plus plan costs $9.99/month,
and for large brands and agencies, the Professional plan costs $799.99/month.
Or, you can request a personal demo of the Enterprise plan.
• Buffer - Get a 30-day free trial, and afterwards pay $50/month for the Small
Business plan or $300/month for Enterprise.

22. Link the Photos You Upload Back to Your Site
With Pinterest, you can create images related to your industry or niche and then direct
the images back to your website. Sony Electronics’ “I can haz gadgets?” is a good
example of a Pinterest board that’s using this technique effectively.
Vincent Ng of MCNG Marketing: “Here’s a picture of a cute dog with a speaker made
by Sony. When this pin is clicked on, it leads directly back to an e-store operated by
Sony Electronics that sells the speaker that’s seen in the pin.
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23. This way you don’t always have to use the pictures that are on your website. You can use
those other photos, or create graphics that lure your customers in with curiosity.
To redirect the photo to a site that you want, all you need to do it edit the pin, and
change the source of it.
Here’s a pin created by Kelly Liebermann of #pinChat about Hello Society. Notice at the
bottom that you can edit the web address of the pin.
Image Source
You can technically change the web address of any pin that you’ve uploaded or repined,
but I don’t advise that you change another pinner’s source unless you are trying
to redirect it to the original source of the pin.”

24. Increase Your Web Traffic with Instagram
Here are three easy suggestions for how you can increase the amount of traffic your
website gets from Instagram.

25. Add Your URL to Your Bio and Comments
The first place new or potential Instagram followers go is to your bio to get a brief
overview of what you and your company are all about. This means that your bio is prime
real estate in terms of traffic-driving and should absolutely include your website’s URL
(the same should also be said of your Pinterest profile).
With room for only 150 characters, however, you don’t have a lot of space for creativity.
Nevertheless, your URL is a priority and the remaining characters should provide
followers with the nutshell version of what your company does and what makes it
unique.
Similarly, while Instagram comments aren’t hyperlinked, they do become live once the
same photo or video is shared on Facebook or Twitter. So be sure to include a
shortened version of your website’s URL when you leave comments on Instagram to
help promote engagement and drive even more traffic.

26. Make Use of Watermarks
All of your images should be treated as equal in terms of their potential to go viral. You
never know so don’t take chances. Add a watermark stamping your company name and
URL to all of the photos and images you post.
If you have never added a watermark before, check out the iWatermark app, which
allows you to easily add your URL to images for just $1.99.

27. Include Pricing Info in Your Product Images
Previously, we talked about inspiring a shopping-centric mindset with your Pinterest
visitors. Well, the same can be said of your Instagram followers. Kim Garst of Boom
Social offers words of wisdom below.
Kim Garst: “There is nothing wrong with qualifying your traffic! Don’t be
scared to include price tags on all your product photos. There’s no need
to hide the fact that you’re an e-commerce site; in fact, product shots
with price tags generally receive higher click-throughs on Pinterest than
those without. I’ll bet the same [is] true on Instagram. If a person is
interested in your product, they don’t want to ‘hunt around’ for the price of it.
It’s important to remember the reasons you are using Instagram: to build brand
visibility, and to give a more authentic, personal feel to your business. But you also want
to make sure that fellow Instagrammers who want to connect with you via your website
can do so easily.”

28. Effectively Track Your Content on
Pinterest & Instagram
As with any other social media campaign, you need to have a strategy in place for
monitoring your progress on Pinterest and Instagram. And fortunately, you can easily
find analytics for both Pinterest and Instagram to help you with this process.

29. Pinterest Analytics
As previously mentioned, Pinterest actually has its own analytics, which you can unlock
once you verify your website. Then, to access your Pinterest account’s analytics, go into
the Settings drop-down menu and select the Analytics option.

30. Marcela De Vivo of Gryffin Media: “Here are some questions that can
be answered by analyzing the data from Pinterest Analytics:
1. What content are your visitors loving so much they just have to
pin it?
2. If you pin your own images to your board, are they attracting click-throughs
originating from Pinterest?
3. How many different people are pinning images from your site, and what
are they pinning that you don’t know they’re pinning?
4. What pins are bringing the most traffic from Pinterest to your site?
Using this information, you can determine what other images you should be pinning on
Pinterest, what images/products to feature and highlight on your site or social media
campaigns, as well as how to adjust placement of products on your site.”

31. Instagram Analytics
While Instagram doesn’t have any type of analytics platform within the app itself, you
can find numerous third-party apps to help monitor your progress. One such app that
comes recommended by Instagram marketing expert Jenn Herman is Iconosquare.
Jenn Herman: “It’s a free platform for use and the only setup required
is connecting your Instagram account. After you’ve connect your
account, they do all the work for you. And your analytics are updated
daily so you can easily keep track of your information. You can even set
up email notifications to receive an alert every time your Instagram
analytics are updated.
When you first access your Statigram account, you’ll land on the Overview page. This
page is exactly that, a quick overview of your account. You can see how many followers
you have, how many people you are following, and the total number of likes and
comments you’ve received.”
Some of the other top items you can track with Iconosquare include post optimization
and engagement as well as who your most highly engaged followers are.

32. Conclusion
Visual content is taking over the online social sphere and savvy marketers are taking
note. According to the Social Media Examiner, 92% of marketers believe that social
media is an “increasingly essential tool,” and the rising trend towards visual content and
social platforms is undeniable.
Both Pinterest and Instagram have the ability to convert browsers into buyers, drive
more traffic to your website, and promote engagement. Additionally, both sites can
integrate with your company’s website, Facebook page, and Twitter account. With so
many benefits, visual content just may speak louder than words when it comes to social
shoppers and driving traffic.
Justin Christianson of Conversion Fanatics states, “We are seeing a growing trend in
visual marketing. Images and different imagery are having an increasing impact on
conversion metrics. As we have seen in several different cases, Pinterest and Instagram,
and even visual elements through Facebook and Native ads, are a viable option to
increase engagement and in turn increase results and revenue.”
If you want further insight into how to maximize your Instagram and Pinterest traffic
through optimization, we are happy to do a complimentary conversion acceleration
session for you. Just contact us at ConversionFanatics.com/schedule.