Pinterest is one of the more versatile, affordable, and impactful marketing tools for businesses that are looking to convert more leads, drive traffic to their websites, organically increase brand awareness, boost conversations, increase sales, and create long-lasting relationships with their target audience and buyer personas. Pinterest users have the highest purchase intent of any other social media users.
You might be asking – What is Pinterest?, How does it work?
Pinterest Is a social network that allows users to visually share and discover new interests by pinning (similar to posting) images or videos to their own or others’ boards and looking at what others have pinned. You can like other users’ posts or start your own.
Pinterest is a visually oriented social network that focuses on the concept of a person’s lifestyle, allowing you to share your tastes and interests with others and discover those of like-minded people. Just like other social media networks people on Pinterest can perform the same standard functions. Such as following friends, liking and commenting on content (boards), re-pinning content to their own boards, and sharing others’ media on Facebook, Twitter, or via email. You can run a search, and even embed individual pins on their website or blog.
According to Datareportal Pinterest had 433 million monthly active users in April 2022. Recent data shows that Pinterest’s monthly active users have grown slightly over the past 3 months. The total number of people that use Pinterest each month increased by roughly 2 million in the 3 months leading up to April 2022. The latest figures show that roughly 5.5% of all the people on earth use Pinterest today.
Pinterest converts more browsers into buyers. It reduces the number of steps from discovery to conversion. This means that visitors from Pinterest convert into leads or sales faster than from other social media sources.
As marketers, we love it when people share our content and link back to us. What’s really great about Pinterest is that every pin includes a link, leading back to the source of the image. About 95% of the images on Pinterest were either pinned or re-pinned from the web. Any link directing visitors back to your website is always beneficial.
Pinterest Integrates with your website, Twitter, and Facebook.
What seems to be a critical factor to success for social media websites is connectivity. The site connects with Facebook enabling users to automatically post new pins to their Facebook news feed for others to see. This means more eyes from other channels get access to the images you post to Pinterest. That being said, Pinterest only connects with Facebook profiles, not business pages, so you can’t automatically share to Facebook pages. In order to do so, you must manually share the link to the pin on their business page.
Reflect your brand on your page
Think of your Pinterest account as an extension of your website and content. That means your brand image should be clear and easily identifiable. This includes your name, logo, cover photo, and Pin designs.
Create keyword-driven boards
Start by creating 5-8 boards relevant to who you are, what you do, or the products you sell. Use keywords in both the board title and board description. If you already have boards, clean up and delete those not relevant to your brand anymore. Don’t mix your personal boards with your business ones. Keep your personal pins in a separate personal Pinterest account.
Pin engaging, captivating content
Pinterest is a visual platform, so effectively using it for business means producing high-quality, engaging visual content to share.
What makes a captivating Pin?
- Vertical images: Most users browse Pinterest on mobile. For best results shoot or crop your photos at 1,000 x 1,500px and a 2:3 aspect ratio to avoid ending up with awkwardly cropped images.
- Image and video quality: Avoid pixelated photos by going with the highest quality image and video that Pinterest recommends.
- Descriptions: Good descriptions can help you improve SEO, add context to your images, and encourages users to click on links.
- Text overlay: Consider using a headline that reinforces your visual message.
- Branding: If it makes sense for your brand and corresponds to your Pinterest marketing strategy, Incorporate your logo in your Pins so your brand doesn’t get lost in the re-pin shuffle.
- Links: Broken links won’t help your brand! Make sure they work! Ensure the link with your Pin won’t go to a 404 error and that it loads quickly to give Pinners the best user experience.
Be consistent!, daily Pinning is more effective than creating a board and filling it up at once. Pinning regularly ensures your content will reach a wider audience.
Promote your Pinterest profile
Make sure your loyal followers from other platforms know you’re also active on Pinterest. Promote your Pinterest profile by:
- Linking your Pinterest profile on your website
- Include the link in your email signature
- Cross-promoting your Pinterest business account on your business’s other social channels.
- Sharing your profile in a company newsletter.
When using Pinterest for business
Make sure you’ve created a Pinterest business account and not a personal one because a business account allows you:
- Access analytics to monitor and measure your Pinterest marketing strategy
- Run a wide variety of Pinterest ads
- Set up a Shop Tab
As Pinterest evolves, I’m sure there will be even more great reasons to get started on this fast-growing social network.
