How to execute a guest pinner program on Pinterest

What is this Pinterest?

Pinterest is a website that allows you to create a visual online pinboard, organized around topics of your choice, by category. Think virtual corkboard. For example, I am a movie-addict, so, I have a board of all the movies I love, quotes from films, and actors. But, I have another board that is full of recipes. It can be anything and everything that one loves.

Seventy percent of the site’s visitors are women age 25-44, and they spend an average of 15 minutes looking around. And that should make your business mind take notice, right?

What is a guest pinner, how can it help my business?

A guest pinner is someone you invite to pin to your boards. Some that you think will bring something new, helpful or exciting to your boards.

It’s a win for you because you’ll get new content on your Pinterest boards that you don’t have to do a thing to get. It will also bring the guest pinner’s followers to your page, which has great branding potential.

For example, ModCloth has a guest pinner gallery. They feature some of the industry’s best and brightest who showcase their art, design concepts, and anything else that they think would appeal to ModCloth’s audience. And it’s a win for your guest pinners too, because they get a whole new audience with whom to share their content/product/perspective and the potential to gain new followers in your following.

What about content? You don’t have to just pin pictures; you can pin videos or even text. Consider posting segments from speaking engagements, news clips, interviews and YouTube videos that are highly relevant and engaging to your Pinterest boards and followers. The possibilities are virtually limitless.

Okay, I’m ready for guest pinners, now what do I do?

When you decide who you want to invite to be a guest pinner, reach out to them and address your goals, why you would be honored to involve them, and give them some basic guidelines.

Then, you can invite them to pin to one of your existing boards, or you can have them pin to a secret board. A secret board is essentially a hidden board that no one else can see but you and is useful if you want to do an unveiling of content at a specific time or on a specific day. If you are using an existing board, you will simply do the following steps:

• Hover over your name, in the top right of your Pinterest account and then click “Your Boards.”
• Find the board you want your guest pinner to use and click “edit.”
• Under “Who can pin?” you can type in a name or email and simply click “invite” and they will be able to pin to that board.

If you want to create a secret board that you can unveil or simply collaborate on before it goes “live,” you will need to do the following:

• In the upper right corner of your Pinterest account, click the plus “+” sign by your name.
• Click “create new board.”
• Then you can name it, add a description and category and then slide the “secret” category to yes and save changes.
• Follow the steps above to “invite” your guest pinner to the board and you’re ready to go.

Pinterest is another great social media outlet to share your content on and by using a guest pinner you are expanding knowledge and excitement about your product with more followers, improving your branding effort, and giving brand fans ownership over the brand they love.