How To Run a Contest on Pinterest
Companies are really taking stock in Pinterest these days. Pinterest is now referring more traffic than the Bing and Google search engines. Books are being written about it.
How can small businesses get their share of the Pinterest traffic?
Have a “Pin It To Win It Contest”!!
I can hear you now, “A pin it to what?”
Pin It To Win It (PITWI) contests are becoming wildly popular as Pinterest traffic increases. People want to win something and here is the chance to get your product/service out there!
A PITWI contest is a contest ran on Pinterest that includes a graphic you have to re-pin for a chance to win. I’ve seen this contest used to promote a book, a social media consultation, a Twitter building program and free memberships to different online clubs.
Interested? Here’s how to run an effective contest….
1. Decide what you want to give away. Do you have an Inner Circle membership you can give away a month of? A book you are publishing? A diet product you can give away samples for? This needs to be something someone would want. My rule of thumb is to give something away that I would want.
2. Next you need to decide how long you are going to run the contest and if they have to comment also to be entered to win. Pinterest will not show all your re-pins, so you want to make sure you have your email notifications set to notify you when someone does re-pin so you will know who did re-pin it.
3. Once you’ve decided what you are giving away, build a graphic to promote it. You do not have to be a graphics master to create one. If you have Photoshop or InDesign you can create on there. You can get creative at PicMonkey too. Here is one I did for one of my PITWIs…
These are not too hard to create – if you do need help, there are a lot of people who can help out.
4. Once you’ve got your graphic, it’s time to Pin it to your Pinterest board.
I 
have my own PITWI board (click the link and you can get some great ideas). When I run a contest or participate in one, I pin it to this board. It’s a great way to keep it all organized. Make sure you link the pinned graphic back to your Facebook page or website. You want to direct traffic to where the pinners can get more information about you and your business.
5. Now that you’ve pinned your PITWI contest, it’s time to promote! Post it on your blog, Facebook page, Tweet it, post it to your Google+ page – you want it everywhere! Once you’ve posted it everywhere – and you will want to make sure it posts multiple times – sit back and watch the re-pins!
6. When your contest has ended, plug the names into random.org and let it pick your winner!
And that’s how it’s done! PITWI contests are very easy and gain you a lot of visibility.
Still have questions? Social Media Examiner just posted this great article, “9 Businesses Using Pinterest Contests to Drive Traffic and Exposure.”
Have you tried a PITWI contest? If so, how did it go? If not, I challenge you to put together a contest this week! When you do, post it to my Facebook page so I can re-pin it too!
