Using Pinterest To Grow Your Blogging Audience With Mike Allton

The first installment of the newly re-launched The Manly Pinterest Show couldn’t have come at a better time.

What, with the announcement (the day before this HOA was held) that Pinterest will soon allow users to have one-on-one and group conversations about specific pins, effectively closing the interaction gap Pinterest users have long lamented.

So who better than blogger Mike Alton to lead us through the labyrinth of details bloggers need to know about using Pinterest to boast their visibility and get people to read and connect with their efforts?

Does Mike have the Pinterest bona fides? Well, besides enjoying nearly 12,000 Pinterest followers, he is well-versed in getting the most out of the platform, like catering your images so that they standout amongst the Pinterest crowd, using multiple images to pin the same post multiple times, and creating new art to get a little more life out of an old blog post.

A social media manager and Internet consultant, Allton literally wrote the book on HootSuite. He also is the editor at The Social Media Hat, where he regularly pumps out high-quality articles on social media, writing, SEO, and Internet marketing.

Oh, and before he was full-time Internet marketing genius, Mike sold a ton of swimming pools and hot tubs, becoming one of his employer’s top salesmen in his very first year with the business.

However, there is no need to worry. Now, if you follow Mike’s advice, I promise you won’t end up underwater – unless that’s what you were looking for.

Here is a list of questions we discussed:

1. What is your blogging background and tell us why you started? (1:32)
2. What is your blogging schedule? (3:18)
3. How do you come up with blogging ideas? (5:04)
4. What drew you to the Pinterest platform in the first place? (6:58)
5. Why do you think so many more women than men us Pinterest? (9:51)
6. Are men at an advantage or at a disadvantage on Pinterest? (12:28)
7. Why, if you’re a blogger, do you have to be on Pinterest? (14:35)
8. What advice would you give to a new blogger about creating high-quality pins? (18:45)
9. Do certain posts get a special Pinterest photo? What is the process for deciding that? (25:25)
10. How much time per week do you spend on Pinterest (28:57)
11. Should you double check a pin’s link to make sure the graphic and the content are connected? (30:30)
12. What can Pinterest do to make it ‘manlier’? (31:41)
13. Are you excited about Pinterest’s new chat feature? (34:48)
14. Is it important for bloggers to be active on group boards? (37:33)
15. What advice do you have for a new blogger to maximize Pinterest’s potential? (39:19)

Thanks For Watching And Listening!

I really appreciate you joining me for this week’s episode.  Have questions or comments?  Leave a message in the comment section below!

If you’ve enjoyed the show, please share it using the buttons at the top or bottom of the page.

Also, please leave an honest review for The Manly Pinterest Tips Podcast on iTunes!  Ratings and reviews mean a ton to podcasters and I would really appreciate it.  They matter in how iTunes ranks the show and I honestly do read every one of them.

If you’d like to learn more about a certain topic or have something you’d like me to talk about during the show, feel free to contact me.

Thanks to Mike for being such a great guest.  See you for the next episode where we’ll be adding testosterone, one pin at a time!