If you wonder what Pinterest is and how it can help your business, this article is for you.
What Is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a social platform that resembles a virtual scrapbook where users (pinners) can compile and organize their favorite ideas and inspiration into boards for other people to see. It is great for bloggers, marketers, and content creators who are looking for fresh ideas to try. Users can ‘pin’ or link to images that interest them – boosting traffic and engagement.
It has started to gain traction amongst brands and businesses of all sizes and across. According to Pinterest Insights, most of the people on Pinterest are unbranded. That means that they do not swear by a few particular brands but are instead searching for fresh ideas and inspiration. With that said, your brand might just be the solution to what they’re looking for! Around 83% of people admitted to purchasing from a brand after seeing their content on Pinterest!
So before using Pinterest as part of your social media strategy, there are a few things that you should consider. This article will look at the kind of businesses that can benefit from Pinterest and some notable examples of how brands leverage this visual platform to connect with consumers.
Is Your Business A Good Fit For Pinterest?
Pinterest opens up new avenues of conducting business for brands. Around two-thirds of Pins on the platform are about a brand, product, or service, making it easier for customers to shop virtually from almost anywhere!
However, to stand out in a vast array of competition, you need to find which area of your business will attract the most users. Pinterest has a comprehensive list of filters and categories to organize your interests, making it easy for people to discover your brands. Does your niche fall into more than one of these categories?
Because Pinterest is a search platform, it recommends products to users based on their boards, promoted pins, and suggested pins. Users can also mark their interests for each category, so there is a high chance for people to stumble across your business based on these categories.
If your business falls under any of the following headings, you should consider incorporating Pinterest in your marketing strategy:
If Your Business Sells Highly Visual Products
Pinterest is great for brands that rely on visual media and aesthetics to garner their audience’s attention, such as food brands and designer companies.
Visual media is on the rise. Due to the increase in the adoption of social media platforms, 62% of Millennials and Gen-Z prefer to search for products through images. And as the only social platform that offers searches based on visual content, it is no surprise that more and more businesses are leveraging the power of Pinterest.
Visual branding is gaining popularity because visuals are your customer’s first point of contact with the brand. A creative identity can also help your business stand out from the competition and get 94% more views than text-only content.
Like Chobani, a Greek yogurt brand, brands have become a multi-million dollar company solely based on their highly visual social media strategy. Its Pinterest feed is a brilliant example of how a brand can focus on its central message by creating various types of content.
Along with posting aesthetic visuals of yogurt’s different flavors, Chobani also posts recipes that consumers can make using their products. Their board “Dishing With Chobani” offers recipes for customers to try, and needless to say, it has been one of their best marketing tactics so far.
Another example of a brand with a great visual engagement strategy is Burberry. Their Pinterest profile became instrumental as they set out to raise awareness for its new product, the Cat Lashes Mascara.
To market this product, Burberry wanted to engage on a more one-to-one basis with its consumers. They asked the audience to fill out a survey about their beauty habits. Their marketing team then created a recommendation board on Pinterest that included all the tips and tricks that the survey respondents wanted to learn about.
The result was a well-curated board by Burberry that created brand awareness and gave consumers a memorable brand interaction. Of course, their product had a prominent presence on the board, driving more people to check it out in-store.
If Your Target Audience Is Mainly Women
Pinterest may still not have an audience as targeted as the teen-preferred TikTok or Millennial-dominated Instagram. However, 71% of Pinterest’s audience are women as compared to 21% of men. Pinterest is so heavily dominated by women because the contents being pinned usually cater to women’s interests.
Home decorating and interior design tips continue to be one of the most popular searches on Pinterest, followed by DIY crafts like embroidery, hand-made gifts, or crochet. Additionally, fashion brands don’t just invest in a visual catalog but also post the latest fashion trends such as Fall Trends of 2021 or a day and night make-up look.
For example, Lauren Conrad uses her influencer and brand status to spread awareness among her young female audience combining a range of fashion and lifestyle inspiration. One of her most popular boards among women is “Get Fit,” which features a series of workout regimes and instructional health guides. It may sound targeted towards a specific niche; however, it allows brands to capitalize on Pinterest’s product discovery tool, boosting brand awareness.
Pinterest also announced a new “Try On” feature that uses augmented reality to let users “try on” the pin’s products, such as a lipstick shade or a foundation color.
Demographic statistics show that Pinterest is especially popular with mothers as it offers a wealth of kid-friendly content such as ideas for birthday themes, workbooks, coloring pages, and more. Oh, Happy Place is a Pinterest favorite amongst moms, having a monthly viewership of 1.5 million people.
Also, you can read 5 Social Media Trends to Integrate to your Social Media Strategy
If Your Business Uses An Influencer Marketing Strategy
A social media influencer ‘influences’ people based on their online content creation and product reviews. As the pandemic gave way to a global lockdown, brands turned to influencer marketing to increase their brand exposure and improve conversions amongst their audience.
Since Pinterest is one of the best platforms for product discovery, it is a valuable channel for any digital marketing strategy, especially influencer marketing. Influencers have to be thoughtful and creative with a great aesthetic sense since their followers rely on getting valuable information out of their content.
Pinterest is the hub of feel-good motivational posts, so popular influencers have lifestyle content that inspires creativity.
Bekka Palmer is one such influencer who pins a wide range of visuals based on nature photography and textiles. Her most followed board, Things To Make, has inspired many of her followers to get into nature photography, earning her a viewership of more than 8.5M followers.
Make A Pinterest Business Account
Once you have decided to incorporate Pinterest in your marketing strategy, create a business account on the platform. This will give you access to more tools that you can use to increase brand exposure.
If you already have a personal Pinterest account, you can switch to a Business Account with the following steps:
- Click the drop-down menu on the top right of your profile page.
- Click Settings > Account Settings
- On Account Settings, scroll down to “Convert To Business Account.”
And that’s it!
In just three easy steps, you can convert your personal account to a Business account.
Here are the benefits of using a Business Account for your brand:
Access To Business Analytics
Pinterest analytics give you detailed information about your followers, the kind of content they prefer, their demographics, and the type of content they engage with. Moreover, it also allows you to see your posts’ overall engagement and the boards getting the most shares.
This can help brands strategize their content and create pins that cater specifically to their audience’s interests. For example, suppose 50% of your followers are likely to pin content regarding home décor, interior design, or bedding designs. In that case, you can create how-to guides for decorating homes, an interactive design quiz to match your user’s style, or a product guide of the best home products.
Pinterest Analytics also shows you the devices your followers are using, which can help marketers and graphic designers design posts accordingly.
Promote Your Pins
Pinterest algorithms keep refreshing their users’ feed every-time they search for a product to show them relevant ads and content that might interest them.
With a Business account, brands can now promote their pins as Ads that can be placed on pages where your targeted audience is most likely to see them. These ads can show up in your audience’s Newsfeed, category feed, and relevant search results.
The amount you pay for each ad depends on the budget you set for your campaign. However, this feature is only available in a few countries as of yet.
There are various ways in which you can promote your pins:
Collection Pins: These appear as one image above three smaller pins, bringing all your saved pins in one place. Once you link your central pin to your brand’s website, you’ll be able to tag your products with links from any domain.
Carousel Pins: These are multiple images bundled together for people to swipe through
App Install Ads: This is a one-pin feature that allows users to download the brand’s app without leaving the Pinterest app.
Shopping Ads: These pins feature one image or a video with a tiny shopping cart icon at the pin’s bottom right, allowing users to purchase products from the brand’s page. The example below shows a Shopping Ad in the form of a video, promoted by Lull’s brand.
Create Product Rich Pins
Product rich pins are enriched with metadata such as product availability, price, and product description to allow customers to shop directly from your website. Some product rich pins may be labeled as “popular” or “bestseller.” Popular rich pins are viewed the most in a specific category. In contrast, bestseller pins indicate that the product is one of the most purchased items in a particular category.
See More:- The Best WordPress Social Media Plugin of 2017
Because rich pins display metadata from your website, any changes made regarding product availability or price on the website is automatically updated on the rich pins too. This is especially useful for small businesses who cannot update their product lists on every social media platform. So Pinterest does it for them!
Increase Your Traffic With These Pinterest Strategies
Use High-Quality Photographs
Since Pinterest is a visual medium, brands must upload high-quality, clear images. A quality image will have an aspect ratio of 2:3 to prevent image obstruction on mobile devices. Interestingly, 85% of Pinterest users use the mobile app; this makes it imperative for brands to optimize their content for smaller screens.
However, along with a quality image, it is also essential to use an SEO optimized description.
So what makes your image pinnable, apart from a high-quality image?
Visual Story-Telling: Your visuals should reflect your brand’s values and communicate the kind of vibe you want your customers to associate your product with. For example, London Drugs uses kids’ images as their Pinterest board covers to highlight their family-friendly brand.
An Engaging Copy: Use SEO keywords and most searched terms so that your image pops up in your audience’s feed.
Headline: Pinterest has two copies with every image – a description and a headline. Your headline should be sharp enough to reinforce the message in your photo.
You can use online graphic design tools such as PosterMyWall to create on-brand. These visually engaging images can add context to your posts. You can use a multitude of Pinterest graphic templates for each of your boards so your audience can tell what each of your board’s content is about.
The best part is that you don’t have to worry about watermarked images. When you design your graphics, you own all rights to use them.
Moreover, you can resize an image to suit different social media platforms, such as resizing a pin to fit a Twitter banner.
Strengthen Your Pinterest SEO Strategy
Besides searching for optimal keywords, there are several ways of optimizing your SEO on Pinterest to make your content visible in search categories.
Here are some of the most effective ways of boosting engagement on your Pinterest boards and website:
Use Keywords In Your Pins
Just like any other search engine, Pinterest also uses algorithms and SEO optimization to make content discoverable to people. This is why it is essential to use trending hashtags and keywords in your pin names and descriptions.
Pinterest is all about planning, so it is ideal for content marketers to plan their content calendars according to trending topics on Pinterest. For example, brands operating in the food industry can consider pinning food images with basic Pinterest “recipe” keywords. However, you can generate extra traffic by seeing what’s popular in the food space on Pinterest in the “related searches” option.
You can track your keyword performance using tools like Moz or Pinterest’s Possibilities Planner for additional keyword Inspiration.
Create Aspirational Pins
Aspirational and inspirational images can inspire people to save and download your pins for ideas.
The top 100 Pinterest keywords list shows that most pinners are planners, organizers, and goal-setters. Pins about motivation, achieving goals, and yearly resolutions have always been in high demand.
So if you want to grab people’s attention, use pin-worthy Pinterest graphic templates and edit them stunning typography and motivational quotes.
Keep Generic Keywords At A Minimum
Generic keywords like “recipes” or “outfit ideas” may be helpful, but to keep your content more specific, accompany them with descriptive words. For example, instead of using “outfits” as a keyword in your description, use “summer outfits” or “fall outfits.”
Being specific about your pins can help you reach the right target audience and help your content appear in new category searches.
Optimize Your Pinterest Boards
To maximize your SEO efforts, think beyond keywords for optimizing your pins.
Remember to have relevant boards for all your pins. To organize each of your boards into a popular Pinterest category, select the pencil icon in the lower section of your board and select the category that best describes it.
Also, use an SEO-friendly board name, fill in your “about” section and upload a profile picture to help the audience recognize your brand boards easily.
Another thing you can change is the arrangement of your boards to keep your content relevant and fresh. For example, if you have a board featuring Christmas themes and decorations, make sure it stays on the top of your profile throughout November and December. You can move it back to the bottom once the Christmas season is over. This ensures that visitors can see the most relevant content without having to scroll too much for what they’re looking for.
Additionally, you can also customize your Pinterest boards’ cover image so that users can easily focus on the information you have to offer. For example, in the picture down below, you can see how consistent boards can make your profile look “clean” instead of showing a visual overload of multiple types of images.
Plan Ahead For Seasonal Content
Suppose your product or service is built for the holidays or sells exceptionally well on Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Hanukkah, or any other seasonal event. In that case, you’ll love what Pinterest can do for your business.
Most people also use Pinterest to search for visual inspiration for gifts, giveaways or décor, etc., on events such as graduation, weddings, or birthday gift ideas for their loved ones. Holidays are also popularly searched topics. In fact, 56 million searches were done on Valentine’s Day alone, 227 million searches for Halloween, and 321 million for the December holidays in 2019.
These numbers show that seasonal content is quite popular on Pinterest. To get more traffic and engagement, you can pick holidays to create your content around. You can also take inspiration from Pinterest’s Seasonal Insights Planner.
Ideally, brands should start sharing seasonal content 30-40 days in advance, so your content is ranking well on the website by the time people start looking for inspiration.
Add Pinterest Promotional Buttons to Your Website
The final step is to link your Pinterest account to your website so that your audience can easily visit your Pinterest page for more inspiration. You can use different promotional buttons on your website to encourage engagement and lead your audiences to your profile.
Your choices include:
Follow Me On Pinterest Button: This encourages visitors on your website to track your Pinterest activity by following your Pinterest account.
Pin It Button: This allows users to pin images from your website to their personal Pinterest boards, helping your brand get exposure.
Once the buttons are up, activate email notifications to get regular updates on re-pins, likes, saves, shares, and other activity on your Pinterest profile. This is especially important for small businesses, helping them track their follower activity and notify them of any potential promotional opportunity for their products.
To Conclude
Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest is not just a visual-based marketing platform for brands but is also a great product discovery tool for consumers and brands alike to increase their brand awareness. Think of it as a search engine where your prospects can look for images that can lead them to your site.
Use it to build your brand, get more traffic, engage and delight your audiences and create a keyword-friendly presence for your brand. Of course, since the platform is entirely visual, your efforts to succeed at it will only be as good as the images and videos you use.
So if you want to ace Pinterest marketing and get people to interact with your pins, make sure to use the right tools. Also, remember to pay close attention to your target market. Know what kind of pins they are engaging with, and don’t forget to interact with them.
Hopefully, this article can serve as a guide to the basics of Pinterest and improve your online visibility.
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