10 Pinterest Mavens Every Marketer Should Follow

If you spend time marketing your business, making connections with quality Pinterest users is an excellent way to create synergistic relationships and a network of perfectly curated content.I follow business professionals who have developed an original style, have something unique to share, and pin content that I know will be of interest to my followers. It’s a win-win in my opinion. I like, share and re-pin their content and in turn, my hope is that they will do the same.While the list below only scratches the surface of my favorite pinners, it is a group of marketer’s who share ridiculously fantastic content day-in and day-out! Plus, as a bonus, there's a few tips and tools thrown in to help you take your pinning to a whole new level!

10 Pinterest Marketers to Follow

1. Ching Ya

Ching Ya is a self-proclaimed social media addict, freelancer and enthusiastic blogger who writes fabulous articles surrounding social media marketing.She has a wonderful way of taking the most complex social media task and turning it into an easy to absorb topic. As a pinner, her boards are a social media goldmine offering tips, tools, tricks and how-to's surrounding anything and everything social media and online marketing.

Ching Ya's Tip:

You must learn and know about your audience. Starting a new social network is easy, but to gain maximum results from it you need to know what to provide and how to attract your audience to engage (repin, like) for brand visibility.Make use of Pinterest's 'Analytics' option to find out how your pins are performed and if you can improve the content or design of your pins (colors, dimensions etc) to suit your audience better.

2. Donna Moritz

Donna is the founder of Socially Sorted, a social media & visual marketing agency in sunny Australia. She actively pins social media Infographics, her favorite apps, brand building tips and goodies from top social blogs across the web.She's also a blogger, putting together share-worthy images to maximizes her time spent on Pinterest. She is an excellent example of how to use Infographics to mesh blogging and Pinterest into one powerful marketing tool!

Donna's Tip:

The way that content is shared online is changing dramatically. Although it is important for marketers and brands to consider the content they are sharing to Pinterest (brand generated content) it is actually the “organic” content (images being shared organically from websites by consumers) that is growing exponentially.Up to 70-85% of all content shared from product-based businesses is organic. This means that consumers are sharing your content even regardless of whether you have a business page on Pinterest or not. Brands need to look at not only what they are putting out there, but also how to optimize both images and their website to allow sharing to happen easily.

• Is there at least one great “pinnable” image on each web page?
• Are they encouraging their community to share?
• Do they have the PinIt button on images? Do a ‘test run’ of your website and view it how the consumer would view it. They are out there, wanting to share the things they love – make sure you are ready to help them!

3. Gina Schrek

Gina is the self-proclaimed "Chief Hooligan" at SynapseConnecting and has a bright and vivacious personality that's absolutely infectious. Her love of life, people and anything "shiny" is seen from the moment you land on her boards.While Gina shares business tips, she also shares beautiful landscapes and her memories of childhood that had me conjuring up a few of my own! However, it's her "Tech Goodness" board that had me ooo'ing and ahhh'ing. What would a girl do without her tech toys?I need this![caption id="attachment_5740" align="alignnone" width="500"]

MP3 Player Creative[/caption]

4. Jenneil Peters

Jenneil is the CEO and Found of Modern Working Woman, an environment created for women who are looking for support in their business endeavors.If you're looking for content marketing strategies, Jenneil has two boards committed to this niche. You will find hundreds of articles designed to help you curate and create to your hearts content!

Jenneil's Tip and Tool:

My top tool would be pic monkey "release the monkey!" and my top tip would be "to create resource boards (example Pinterest marketing, Instagram marketing). It creates credibility within your industry and you will be looked upon as a resource.

5. Kelly Lieberman

Kelly is the Founder of Pinterest Chat #PinChat, a weekly Twitter chat that discusses best practices for both personal and professional use and offers a forum where anyone with a passion for Pinterest can connect and engage with other like-minded pinners.You won't want to miss her board of over 1000 Pinterest tips and tricks. It's a veritable mecca of Pinterest education and discovery! Kelly is also a fellow coffee lover and has a fabulous board of nearly 200 pins that puts makes my coffee loving heart go pitter-patter!

Kelly's Tip:

Pinterest works so well with other social channels. Cross-promote on other social channels and with email to increase followers and engagement (repins/likes/comments).Showcase top Pins of the week, Pin of the Day, Pinners that you love to follow, and make emails Pinnable.

6. Keri Jaehnig

Keri, aka the Idea Girl is the founder of Idea Girl Media where she works with business brands, non-profits and political candidates to help them achieve social media success. I have connected with Keri across multiple social media channels and can attest to the fact that this girl knows her stuff!Keri shares social media and blogging tips, how-to's and a board full of her well-branded training and tutorial images.

Keri's Tip(s):

1) On all images related with your brand, put your logo - with company web address if possible on the lower left corner to brand it2) Make your top brand pins & boards part of your regular social platform content streams.

7. Kim Reynolds

Kim is the Founder of QwikR.me, SocialNotz.com and Pinterest-ing.com and another fellow blogger that uses social media to support and promote her extremely active online presence.Kim is someone I just recently met face-to-face after getting to know her via social.She is every bit the hard-working, empathetic, confident woman that she portrays online. I am always impressed by her courage to say what others might shy away from and believe that is a major key to her success.If your eager to find more fabulous Pinterest marketing mavens to follow, just check out her board with over seven hundred hand picked networking superstars.

8. Louise Myers

Louise and I first met as bloggers, but I quickly became a fan of hers on Pinterest after seeing the quality social media and marketing goodies she shares.With everything from blogging tips to awesome Infographics, Louise offers a little something for any marketer, no matter the industry.

Louise's Tip:

Get creative with shapes! Cut-out shapes stand out in the Pinterest newsfeed. Catching more eyes means getting more repins and followers!Instead of square or rectangle, can you make a graphic with a rounded or offbeat shape? If showing a product, try photo’ing it on a crisp white background so the item creates a graphic shape of its own. And be sure to add your company or website name to your images, so whatever happens to them, they’ll always lead the viewer back to YOU.

9. Peg Fitzpatrick

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Copyright: Peg Fitzpatrick[/caption]Peg's tagline tells you everything you need to know about her - Rockin' a positive attitude • passionate about social media • writer • Google+ evangelist • and so much more. She is all of that in one amazingly powerful package!Peg is also the amazing brain behind Guy Kawasaki's social media marketing and actively pins incredible content for authors or anyone interested in publishing their own book.Check out her boards "APE" and "APE Author Interviews" for tips and tools on the where and how behind self-publishing.On top of that, she puts together beautiful graphics that are perfectly created for Pinterest. Read about how to craft a shareable image for both Pinterest and Google+!

Peg's Tip and Tool:

Preplan your important brand boards since you can't rearrange the individual pins on the boards yet. I'm hoping that Pinterest will change this. And, of course, as with all marketing, don't pin only what you are marketing. Your Pinterest boards should appeal to your audience, not be a billboard.And since Peg is one of the most giving women I know, she's offered a tool tip as well:PicMonkey is my top tool since the size of the photo is essential for getting your pins seen. I shoot for 600 pixels x 900 pixels.

10. Stacy Zapar

Stacy is the CEO for Tenfold Social Training, a social media trainer for recruiters and talent acquisition teams. She is also one of the most genuine people I've met on social media. What you see online is exactly what you get offline. Spunky, savvy and always willing to lend a hand whenever and however she can.Stacy pins everything from travel to style, social media and of course recruiting tips, but I think it's her "Girl Power" board I love the most. This pin from her aptly titled board encompasses everything I love about Stacy!