Pinterest is often overlooked by sports betting affiliates, as they’re just not sure how to approach the channel. While you may initially be attracted to using Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest shouldn’t be overlooked as it can bring good results at a lower cost.
Who uses Pinterest?
This platform is used by more than 200 million users, with 40% of these being male and 67% are millennial’s. That’s a lot of potential customers for sports betting with these users tending to have a higher average income than those on other social platforms. They’re primarily on their mobile device and looking for a project or task to complete.
They expect a visual representation and tend to have a high click through rate to the source site. For sports betting affiliates, this means that you have a primed base of new mobile users who are eager to learn. So how do you tap into them with sports content?
Reaching People through Pinterest
The first step to reaching this fresh audience of new sports bettors is to set up your profile on Pinterest. This should be an accurate representation of your portal, so your users know what to expect from you if they do click through. If you have a recognisable brand name then be sure to use it on your profile.
There is an option to use Pinterest as a paid media platform, by using their Promoted Pins. This works in a similar way to many other paid media options on social media, you pay money and then you reach a wider audience than those who have opted to hear from you.
The great advantage to using this option, when compared to other paid advertising options, is that it’s much cheaper. The competitiveness for sports betting affiliates is also reduced when compared to Facebook or Twitter, as these are mostly dominated by the big brands. These brands can afford to spend a lot of money, which drives the costs of ads for others up too.
Posting Content on Pinterest
Pinterest is a highly visual platform and you really have to put the effort in when it comes to using it. Blurry images or spam won’t engage your audience here and will actually work against you. Infographics are just about the most popular medium on this platform, while these can take a bit more resources to make they can also get you a lot of exposure.
So what kinds of posts should sports betting affiliates be making?
Some of the top performing pins in this sector are explanations of how the industry works, rookie mistakes you should be avoiding and guides explaining the odds. These add value to the platform and users are genuinely interested in reading them.
Using hashtags will allow those that are interested in similar content to find yours. When users add your pin to a board, your affinity with that user goes up as does your position on the trending pins. It’s important to categorise your pins to make them more easily discoverable by those looking for similar content.
It’s a good idea to use similar content as a starting point, but don’t just copy what others have done. You may want to think outside the box and create an infographic on the history of a league, footballer’s salaries or most outrageous novelty bets. Then, you can link this into the information that you give on your site. The link should be strong enough that your user knows who you are, but it doesn’t need to be dry facts on sports betting.
When people start to interact and pin your content, follow them and interact back. This is a social platform, so be social!
Linking your Site
When posting a pin, you are given the option to add in a related domain. This will come up when the user hovers over your pin and they can easily click from the pin to your site if they want to. Make sure that the domain looks authoritative and safe for the user to visit. Generally speaking, Pinterest doesn’t allow shortened domains, for example tiny.cc links, as they could be directing their users to spam.
If you can direct these users to a relevant post on your site, perhaps with more information on the topic they’re already exploring then this will help them to make that transition easily. Directing traffic from social media can lead to drop offs if you don’t ease the user into your site. Having some content in place that is related to the pin makes your user feel more at ease and they’ll be likely to have a browse on the site.
Pinterest presents a fantastic opportunity that is largely being ignored at present. Simply testing out new platforms and creating bespoke content can help you get ahead in carving out a niche that others aren’t using.
