Pinterest extends far beyond a mere social network. It is a critical tool for productivity and serves as a powerful visual search engine that covers nearly every topic imaginable.
Are you simply using Pinterest to try out some new, delicious baked goods to eat or to plan the vacation of a lifetime?
Hidden within, unbeknownst to many, is one of the most effective and free marketing platforms on the Internet today.
Pinterest provides businesses of any size a unique way to advertise through visual search. Consequently, it’s remarkable in its ability to expose a wide array of potential new customers to a brand.
This is due to the fact that Pinners are addicted to inspiration. They can’t get enough new things to try, new ideas to discover, great recipes, and more importantly: great shopping ideas.
Table of Contents 1. A Pin Should Have Captivating Content For Users 2. Experiment With Different Formats 3. Boards Are Your Best Friend 4. SEO Optimization 5. Paid Advertising 6. Track Those Metrics 7. Promote Your Profile
The Numbers Don’t Lie
As of 2022, Pinterest represents the 14th biggest social network in the world by population with approximately 460 million active users on a monthly basis.
It comes as no surprise that its advertising reach is equally if not more impressive. Businesses can reach an audience of over 200 million — with quarter-on-quarter growth of over 6% at no cost to them.
In fact, the majority of weekly Pinterest users have reported discovering a new product or brand directly from the platform. This is particularly helpful if targeting the same demographic. Historically, the platform primarily attracts women
However, it also attracts individuals who desire to shop or start projects of some kind. The best part? Almost half of all Pinners possess an annual household income of over $100k.
They want great ideas, great products, and they have lots of capital to spend. On a platform that is 100% free for any business to advertise on. Need I say more?
1. A Pin Should Include Captivating Content For Users
As Pinterest is an entirely visual collection of boards and images, effective use for business demands the production of engaging, high-quality- visuals to share.
What makes for a successful Pin?
- Vertical photos. Data demonstrates that over 80% of all users browse Pinterest on mobile devices. Aim for an aspect ratio of 2:3 to avoid unwanted crops.
- Consider the quality and resolution. To avoid ugly pixelation, Pinterest recommends minimum dimensions.
- Thorough, descriptive, and enticing copy. A proper description will maximize SEO, deliver context, and greatly encourage users to click on embedded links.
- Overlays. Consider the inclusion of text (at least a headline) to reinforce the message of a visual.
- Good branding. The incorporation of an attractive and easily identifiable logo protects the brand of a business from getting lost in the shuffle.
- Links. Double, no…*triple* check the embedded link of a Pin to make sure it doesn’t 404 and loads fast to provide the best possible user experience.
Lastly: ensure your business posts consistently. Daily Pinning is far more effective than spamming an entire board will all your posts in just one day. Moreover, regular Pinning guarantees content will reach the widest possible audience.
There are a number of tools to even help schedule your pins. Make use of those too.
2. Experiment With Formats
Despite the fact that Pinterest is mainly a platform for sharing images, the pictures themselves don’t represent the whole story.
For example, videos often encourage users to shop on eCommerce stores. You can even stack multiple images together to produce a lovely carousel.
The top brands in the world have variety. Look at PUMA, which often uses video for the promotion of products.
Carousels are included elsewhere to show different angles/products in a single Pin:
Although more than 80% of Pinners find new products and brands on Pinterest, it helps to think beyond the scope of brand promotion and shopping.
Tutorial, how-to pins featuring real customers provide valuable and fun inspiration for Pinners who desire to start projects. For instance, Olqea has an entire video covering how to prepare dumplings with their product:
3. Boards Are Your Best Friend
With the overwhelming majority of searches on Pinterest being unbranded, at a staggering 97%, consolidating your brand’s images into organized boards helps reach Pinners who are curious about specific topics or learning new things.
The boards found on Reese’s page, for example, include Pins targeted for seasonal holidays like Halloween and Easter. Mixing these together with the boards that serve a more generalized promotional purpose demonstrates mastery of Pinterest marketing.
4. SEO Optimization
Like all other social networks and eCommerce stores, Pinterest is a living, breathing, search engine. Therefore, you must ensure that the Pins representing your products and services are easy as possible to find. Include a healthy supply of keywords in your descriptions, boards, and hashtags.
Rich Pins in particular are designed to take content right from your business’s website and avoid duplicates. This sufficiently helps in boosting SEO.
5. Paid Advertising
Although Pinterest offers virtually every tool a business could leverage to get free, organic traffic through proper SEO and keyword implementation, marketers can use targeted, paid advertising for their pins based on keywords, age, location, interests, and various other metrics.
Many folks in online marketing share a common strategy: investing in outreach to immense swaths of customers without any particular filters to “buy data”. Then, based on who responded, they perform what is called detailed retargeting.
Pinterest provides this essential feature as well. The ability to perform detailed retargeting of audiences allows advertisers to reach specific users including:
- Visitors of your website
- Those who engaged with Pins
- Those who engaged with similar content on the same platform
- Subscribers
From promoted pins to curated collections to video ads, there are numerous types to implement on Pinterest. Fortunately, it is all neatly arranged for your reading pleasure here.
6. Track Those Metrics
Including and especially the digital age, the key to successful marketing strategy on any platform let alone Pinterest is through data.
Analyzing, tracking, and measuring key metrics/behavior provide social media managers the insights needed to see which content is getting results and which content is not.
7. Promote Your Profile
Finally, be sure that loyal followers from any other online presence your business possesses know that you are active on Pinterest. That means actively promoting through:
- Linking to your profile on your business website
- Including a link in email signatures
- Posting the account on other social channels
- Sharing information related to the profile in newsletters