If you want to grow your blog or business than you should have a plan for your marketing, and strategies for your content, Pinterest, social media, product creation, sponsorships and more. Is it important to have a strategy specifically for Pinterest? With 300 million monthly users, it sure is! Take a look at these stats: “93% of active pinners said they use Pinterest to plan for purchases and 87% said they’ve purchased something because of Pinterest”. Here are the steps for creating a Pinterest strategy that will help grow your blog and business.

Retailers know that many people start their planning and shopping early whether it’s in a brick and mortar store or online. The holidays are a busy time… buying gifts, planning and attending parties, traveling to visit relatives...there's a lot to do. Holiday sales has actually been increasing each year and is predicted to hit as much as $730 billion this year!* So how can you get in front of these shoppers with your blog content and products? Figure out who they are and what they're looking for.

There are many ways to make your blog more appealing - stock photos, infographics, distinctive fonts, icons, textures, illustrations... Here are my suggestions for some great sites that offer graphics, fonts and more for your blog.

Just like your social media accounts, you will need to take the time to build the trust of your followers and others on Pinterest. You do that by being consistent, honest and helpful. If you do this, your Pinterest experience will be very positive and can be profitable for your blog or business.

The main difference between those who are successful and those who aren’t is trust. People like to read blogs and buy from people whom they trust. Here are 7 ways you can build trust through Pinterest and gain more followers.

If you're a blogger with graphic design ideas you will want to use the right graphic design programs. Adding  visually appealing graphics to your blog is one way to make it stand out and reinforce your brand. In addition to blog graphics you will need to create pins for Pinterest, social media graphics and more. If you're just starting out, you may not have the budget or want to spend the money for professional graphic design software. The industry standard is Adobe, with products like Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. These are the programs I use and prefer because they offer quite a bit of options.  The company developed Adobe Creative Cloud, a monthly paid subscription alternative instead of spending hundreds of dollars to own the software.

It’s important to promote your Pinterest account as that is a major traffic generator.  According to Pinterest: 93% of Pinners say they find new ideas on there and 72% of Pinners find new brands and services. That's all potential readers for your blog and customers for your products. So what are some of the ways you promote your page? Well first you should integrate Pinterest with your social media accounts. Note that I didn’t say Pinterest was also a social media platform… because it’s not. Remember it’s a search engine. So when you first set up your Pinterest account, connect it with Facebook and Twitter using the tools available. Use that to find and invite the friends you already have. Be sure to cross-promote as much as possible and always mention or link your Pinterest account or pins when appropriate.