John Lincoln November 14, 2021 With a growing number of social media channels to choose from, marketers need to fight tooth and nail to show up on their customers’ feed, especially when memes and food photos are thrown into the mix.
Luckily, this isn’t the case with Pinterest.
Founded in 2010, Pinterest has become an instant favorite of businesses worldwide, proving it’s not only for weddings, recipes, and crafts, but a powerful visual search engine that offers a unique way to market your brand.
Determine if You Can Use Pinterest for Business
Pinterest’s vision is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” As the 14th largest social network in the world, Pinterest currently boasts 478 million active users each month. And nearly 90% of people browse Pinterest for purchase inspiration.
While Pinterest has been proven to work for many different business types, how do you know if it’s right for your brand?
Before embarking on the path of creating a Pinterest-specific online marketing strategy, you’ll first want to consider whether or not your content lends itself to pictures or videos. The suitability of Pinterest to your brand depends heavily on your product or service offerings. To stand out, you’ll need striking, high-quality images that are both shareable and relevant to your business.
For example, a tile company will have a natural fit for home décor–a popular niche on Pinterest–but a water heater installation company may be harder to promote on this platform.
You’ll also want to make sure your target audience is active on Pinterest. Otherwise, investing time and money in a channel won’t give you the ROI you’re looking for.
Why Should You Advertise on Pinterest?
89% of users have learned about a new brand or product on Pinterest, with regular pinners spending roughly 34 minutes on the site per visit. This means that with proper planning, companies have plenty of opportunities to make their products or services appear when a user hasn’t yet made a purchase decision.
Not to mention, Pinterest Ads can be used throughout the entire marketing funnel, from building brand awareness to making the final sale. The site also makes it easier for people to get right to the source of the image, drastically reducing the number of steps from discovery to conversion.
And in many cases, Pinterest often surpasses SEO as one of the top sources of traffic for brands. The numbers speak for themselves:
- A pin is 100 times more spreadable than an average tweet.
- The half-life of a pin is 3.5 months, which is 1,680 times longer than a Facebook post.
- 99.94% of Pinterest traffic is organic, while 33.5% is from search.
How to Use Pinterest: Setting Up Your Account
In its earliest days, Pinterest was an invite-only social network. Now, anyone can create a business account in just a few simple steps:
- Navigate to the “Business” tab towards the top of the Pinterest homepage and click the “Sign Up” button.
- Enter your email address, password, and age.
- Then click “Create Account.”
- Fill out your Pinterest business details, including business name, website, language, country, and profile picture.
- Select one of the options from the drop-down menu Under “What’s the focus of your brand?”
- Choose your business type from the “Describe Your Brand” screen.
- Specify if you are interested in running ads in the future.
Pinterest Best Practices
Unlike many other social channels, quality over quantity is the name of the game when it comes to leveraging Pinterest for business effectively. Here are a few tactics you can use to get more traction from the platform.
Optimize Your Profile
- Include your company logo in your profile picture.
- Your cover photo should be eye-catching and accurately reflect your brand.
- Highlight your best boards as “Featured Boards” to give your followers an idea of what you have to offer.
Share Unique, Engaging Content
- Aim for a 2:3 aspect ratio to avoid having awkwardly cropped images.
- Add context to your descriptions and encourage users to click on links.
- Use Hootsuite to schedule your Pins.
Promote Your Pinterest Profile
- Link to your Pinterest profile on your company website.
- Include the link in your email signature.
- Cross-promote your Pinterest business account on other social media channels.
Boosting Your Results
To ensure you get the best results out of your efforts and better allocate your time and resources, you need to keep a close eye on what’s working and what’s not. This is where Pinterest Analytics comes in.
Offering an incredible suite of tools for content creators, Pinterest Analytics delivers valuable insights via numerous charts and graphs. Depending on your business, these are some of the key metrics you’ll want to track:
- Monthly impressions
- Total followers
- Demographics
- Link clicks
- Page visits
- Shopping cart conversions
- Video play time
By keeping these tips in mind, you’ll be well on your way to maximizing Pinterest as a powerful marketing tool for your business. So what are you waiting for? Get pinning today!
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