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Pinterest is a valuable tool for every small business’s social media strategy. With just a little bit of time and effort, Pinterest users can grow a loyal following and in turn drive more traffic to their webpage. In this social media training tip we’ll look at some of the strengths of Pinterest and how you can promote your page to gain followers

The Value of Pinterest

One thing that separates Pinterest from other social media sites is how big sharing is a part of the culture. Each pin is repinned an average of 10 times, which easily outweighs how often the average tweet is re-tweeted, which hovers around 1% of the time. Additional sharing via repinning leads to additional exposure for you and your brand.

A recent study by Piqora revealed that one Pinterest pin generates an average of $0.78 on eCommerce sites, a 25% increase from the end of 2012. The monetary value of pins will obviously vary greatly from business to business, but the fact that this number is trending upwards is a good sign for all businesses.

General Tips to Gain More Followers

Pin Colorful Images – Images with medium lightness have been found to be 20 times more likely to be repinned than dark or mostly black images. Pictures with reds and oranges are especially popular, two times more like to be repinned than blue images.

Comment On Popular Posts – Visit the “Popular” feed and chime in on pins that you enjoy. Instead of just saying “great picture!”, actually construct an interesting and relevant comment. These comments will lead to exposure to your pins. Limit these comments to only two or three pins a day so that you aren’t mistaken for a spam account!

Invite Followers To Contribute – In addition to making your followers feel more valuable, allowing them to contribute to your boards is another great way to increase exposure as their followers will see the pins that they add.

Hold Contests – Require that participants follow you and then pin to a contest board with whatever rules and prizes you come up with. Contests are a great way to generate interest and increase exposure.