Podcasting is is not a visual medium so is it a good fit for Pinterest? Logic would tell you no. But a podcaster can use their Pinterest page to help gain exposure and send traffic back to their podcast landing page.
Are Podcasters Pinners?
When producing a podcast you probably create a blog post for your show notes. Every good post should have at least a couple great images to make the post more interesting and shareable.
These images should be pinned.
It only takes a few seconds to pin an image to Pinterest and if you are taking the time to produce the image you might as well get some potential extra traffic from it.
When posting your image to Pinterest you want to add an eye catching description using keywords that will help make your content more discoverable within Pinterest. The keywords you choose should be related to your Pin so that you attract people who are searching for the specific content your Pin covers.
You can also use the description field to add another link back to your website. Pinterest will automatically link back to the source of the image if you double click on the image. However, not everyone will click the second time to see where the image came from. But they may click a link in the description. Putting this link in your description increases the click through rate.
It is bad form to place a link back to your own site if the pin is from someone else’s site. Don’t come across as a spammer and only place your own link in the Pin description if it is your own content.
Isn’t Pinterest just for crafts and weddings?
What if my podcast isn’t in a niche that is popular on Pinterest?
Pinterest, at least in North America, has more female than male users and has a few categories that are very popular. The more visual the content the better. Intererior Design, Wedding Planning, Arts and Crafts and Home Improvement are categories that do vey well on Pinterest.
There are a lot of people on Pinterest that are interested in other topics though. So don’t be discouraged if your show is not related to these popular categories. Pinterest can be used to drive traffic to your website. Whether or not you can get the visitors to convert to your offering is another story. You will have to experiment with Pinterest just like other social networks in order to maximize the value of the traffic generated.
Pinterest is more than just an image sharing site:
Pin your videos to Pinterest!
Most people think of Pinterest as an image sharing site. But you can also Pin video from Youtube and Vimeo. If you make videos as part of your online strategy then pinning them to Pinterest can increase the distribution of your content. Your videos are playable within Pinterest so Pinners don’t even have to click through to your site or to Youtube to watch your content.
In order to get the best response to your videos on Pinterest make sure you choose a good thumbnail image for your Youtube video prior to pinning it. The more interesting the image the more plays you will get. The more plays you get the more likes, Re-Pins and click throughs to your website (which is the ultimate goal).
It is important to have a good title and description for your videos as well. Let your viewers on Pinterest know that the Pin is a video by putting [VIDEO] at the beginning of your description. This will help draw attention to the Pin because most Pins are images.
If you are pinning a Youtube video the link under the video will say found on youtube.com but after the pin is published you can edit this link so that it points to your own site. This way your blog post or show notes will get the traffic instead of your Youtube channel.
Don’t change this link if the video is pinned from someone else’s channel. Once again, that would be bad form.
If you don’t want your video to play in Pinterest you can create an image that links to the video on your site. It is a good idea to add a video player button to the image so people know that it is a video. When pinning videos to Pinterest, pin them to whatever board makes the most sense but also create a board for all your related videos. This way if a user finds a video in one on one of your boards and really enjoys it they will be able to find all your videos on one board instead of searching through all your boards for more videos.
Pin your SlideShare presentations to Pinterest!
SlideShares are another great way to repurpose content. If you are a podcaster that posts show notes for each episode, you may want to consider creating a SlideShare presentation for each episode. This will increase the exposure of your podcast in another platform and build on your existing content portfolio by leveraging existing content. You can also create SlideCasts from your SlideShare presentations but that is the subject of another post.
You can Pin SlideShare presentations to Pinterest just like you can Pin images and videos. Your presentation will look like an image on Pinterest but there will be a small play button on the bottom left side of the picture. It is a good idea to optimize the description (with a link to your site of course).
As with videos you can create a cool image or info-graphic that links to the SlideShare just as we can with videos. You can link the images directly to the SlideShare or to the post where the SlideShare presentation is embedded on your site.
A good SlideShare has a lot of visually appealing slides or have a great graphic or quote.
A good strategy is to Pin each of these visual slides as an image that links back to the full presentation. By doing so you are leveraging each part of the presentation within Pinterest and generating an attractive board with pins that promote your presentation which links back to your website.
And finally you can Pin Podcasts to Pinterest!
Audio files that are hosted on SoundCloud can play on Pinterest. Pinterest users may not have the patience to listen to a long form podcast though. They are expecting images and are not in the long form audio consumption mode. So if you have a short form podcast it may do well on Pinterest. If not, you could upload short clips from your podcast episodes to SoundCloud and Pin those. Of course if you did this you could share these clips on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and on other sites as well.
And of course there will be a link back to your site where the podcast episode and show notes can be consumed in its entirety. This strategy applies to video as well and short form video probably works better too.
You can Pin your podcast (SoundCloud) so it plays directly from your Pin but you can also Pin your episode specific image that will link to the podcast episode. Don’t use your podcast album art for every episode you pin because you will have the same image for each episode.
You can create your images using Canva, Pic Monkey, Gimp or Photoshop. I like to use Canva because it is easy to create an image with a text overlay that describes what the episode is about.
Recently I discovered a great app called Share As Image which makes creating and modifying images on the fly very easy. Whichever image editor you prefer you can quickly create an episode specific image for you Pin. This pin will link to the Podcast episode on your site.
Note: You may be thinking that creating all these images isn’t worth the time and effort.
But you will be leveraging these images across multiple platforms.
This image will be used for your Podcast Specific Album art, Your featured image or in post image on your blog post (or show notes), your episode specific Pin and as a slide within a SlideShare presentation. In addition, this image will be shared to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google + and wherever else you choose to promote.
If you post images within your Podcast Shownotes like we did with the Bunker Project Podcast and Meetup, then you can easily take a quotation or topic from your show and turn it into an image.
Pinterest is a viable option for content creators that are looking for more ways to get their content out there. And if you are already creating images, infographics, using instagram, SlideShare or video then it is a no brainer…
Pin them!
