So you have decided to include Pinterest in your company’s social media marketing strategies?
Good for you.
Being a largely untapped marketing powerhouse, Pinterest offers many opportunities for brands and startups that know how to use it well.
With over 432 million monthly active users, Pinterest allows businesses to grow their customer base and scale up quickly.
However, reaping these benefits of Pinterest is another matter.
This is because although it falls under social media marketing, making general social media marketing rules applicable, there are unique Pinterest marketing tips and best practices that govern the visual platform and the enjoying of the advantages it offers companies.
The application of these rules, plus those general social media marketing rules, makes Pinterest an exciting and engaging location to test marketing ideas, drive product awareness, and attract and benefit the target market on the channel, amongst other advantages.
In this vein, let us discuss these best practices unique to the Pinterest platform; things to do as you employ Pinterest marketing and things you must not do.
15 top Pinterest marketing tips (The dos)
1. Open a Pinterest for Business Account and Complete your Profile
This is one Pinterest marketing tip you do not want to overlook (you should not ignore any).
Creating a Pinterest for business account opens your company up to more marketing opportunities than a personal Pinterest account can offer.
For one, there is the Pinterest business hub, the Pinterest ads, and the Pinterest analytics (more on later).
These marketing tools are only available on Pinterest for business accounts and give businesses more insight into the performance of their posts, their target market, etc.
These tools inform brands on ways to restrategize and relaunch their Pinterest marketing to attract their target audience like never before.
More so, opening a Pinterest business account is free.
If you already have a personal account, you can easily switch to a business account at no extra cost and without losing any of your work – how sweeter can this deal get?
Upon opening a business profile, ensure to complete your profile, use a unique cover picture and claim your site – nothing like a half-completed profile to make a business appear unserious.
Claiming your site means validating that the website linked to your Pinterest profile is yours.
This action gives you access to Pinterest Analytics, enables Pinterest to show your complete website address at the top of your profile, and allows your followers to discover more about your business.
Pinners can also directly access your website from Pinterest via this link.
2. Know your Target Audience Before you do Anything
Believe me. This Pinterest marketing tip cannot be overemphasized.
Knowing your target market is one of the essential steps every business needs to take in any marketing strategy, including Pinterest marketing.
Like every other social media channel, Pinterest is full of diverse pinners who come to the platform for various reasons.
Some go to the channel for inspiration, some to check out what is new, some to know the latest memes/jokes, some to while away time, and so on.
And like it or not, not all of these individuals are your customers.
Hence, it is vital to pinpoint who your audience is, where they are, and what they need if you want to rightly channel your limited marketing time and resources into displaying your products/service in a way that captures your prospects’ attention.
3. Employ Rich Pins
Rich pins are extra info on a pin and the Pin’s description.
According to Pinterest,
“Rich Pins show metadata right on the Pin itself, giving Pinners a richer experience and increasing engagement.
Information in a Rich Pin is independent of the Pin description, ensuring that important information is always tied to the Pin. There are four types of Rich Pins: app, article, product, and recipe Pins.”
One benefit of this Pinterest marketing tip is that it enriches your market experience with your post.
Depending on your type of Pin; article, recipe, app, or product, rich pins will give your readers more information about your post, allowing them to connect with your brand more and fully appreciate your product/service.
For instance, a rich pin on a recipe post will give readers information on the ingredients used, its cooking time, etc.
This information is useful to a pinner who is pressed for time and is looking for a recipe they can try with the ingredients at hand.
So also, a rich pin on an article post will give pinners more information on the post, such as the author, a snippet into the contents of the article, the date it was published, etc., all of which are information essential to induce an audience to tap on the post.
4. Use the Right Images (size, quality, and uniqueness matter)
Vertical pins within an aspect ratio of 2.3 are the recommended size for posts on Pinterest.
Aspect ratio refers to the width of an image in comparison with its height.
So, 2.3 means that the post is two units wide and three units high.
A post within this ratio could be:
600 pixels wide by 900 pixels high
1000 pixels wide by 1500 pixels high
1200 pixels wide by 1800 pixels high
According to Pinterest, the recommended size for pins of 600 pixels wide by 900 pixels high.
Any smaller than that, and Pinterest would have to resize your Pin before posting it – believe me when I say you probably will not like the results.
Asides from quality, also consider the post itself.
As Pinterest has rightly said, your content should show your product/service and what your market can do with it.
5. Use SEO-friendly Pin Descriptions
SEO is another Pinterest marketing tip that cannot be overemphasized.
Unlike other social media channels, Pinterest is more of a search engine than a platform where you chat and catch up with loved ones.
Hence, it is essential to treat it as such if you want to get the best results out of it.
Like on search engines, Pinterest users carry out an organic search; type in certain words or phrases in the search icon to find relevant pins.
With this search query, Pinterest searches and draws up top posts relevant to the inputted keyword or phrase.
As a brand interested in attracting leads and growing your customer base, your posts must show up among the top search results because that is how you can quickly draw in prospects before the competition snatches them up.
You must search out and input relevant keywords and key-phrases popular among your target market in your pin description to achieve this.
Keywords and key phrases, in this sense, refer to those words potential customers will use during an organic search for products/services related to your brand offers.
Without the right keywords, it is safe to say your pins might never appear before your target market talk more of drawing them into your site to patronize your brand.
6. Use SEO-Friendly Boards
Having SEO-friendly boards are as essential as SEO-friendly pins for the same reason; they place your posts where they should be – in front of your market.
7. Use Pinterest Analytics
With all these Pinterest marketing tips you will be putting to work to ensure your Pinterest marketing is successful, you should want to know whether it is successful, which is where your Pinterest analytics tool comes in.
Available only on Pinterest for business accounts, your Pinterest analytics tool gives you comprehensive info on your pins, including but not limited to data on pin engagement, save rates, outbound click rates, etc.
Pinterest analytics helps you know the pins that sit well with your market and that which do not, the posts they love, and the ones they were indifferent to.
With this data, it becomes easy to reap the advantages of Pinterest marketing fast, as you can structure your future pins according to previous posts your audience loved and engaged with.
8. Employ Cross Sharing
Cross-promoting your content is another beneficial Pinterest marketing tip you do not want to miss out on, especially if you are new to Pinterest and have an audience on other platforms.
Simply defined, cross-promoting is sharing your pins from Pinterest to other social media platforms and vice-versa.
As a brand new to Pinterest, cross-sharing relevant posts from your other social media profiles to your Pinterest account is an excellent approach to let your existing audience know that you are now on Pinterest.
It will help your business gain more followers and boost social media traffic fast.
It will also save time and effort that would have been spent creating content and growing your Pinterest followers from scratch.
9. Boost Engagement with Posts
Boosting engagement with your pins is another sure way to increase your number of followers on Pinterest.
You can boost engagements by creating group boards and communicating with fans who have liked and interacted with your posts.
In case you are wondering, group boards are boards where more than one person has the right to pin a post.
Creating group boards with influencers and industry experts whose followers are your target audience gives your brand more visibility and exposure as your work will be placed in front of more people.
This ultimately increases your fan base, the number of posts re-pins, and customer following.
You can also create group boards with loyal customers where they share their reviews with your brand, discussing things they liked and things they want you to improve on.
Asides from a growing fan base, this kind of connection with your clients breeds customer loyalty as it depicts your business as a brand that is after meeting their needs, not one that is merely after what is in their pockets.
10. Post Regularly and Spread out your Pins
Another Pinterest marketing tip to take to heart is pinning regularly and at different hours of the day.
Although there is no rule of thumb on how many posts you can pin per day, experts agree that a business should post at least 5 – 10 pins per day if it wants growth in its posts’ engagement rate and several followers.
With 5-10 being the minimum, you can do more. However, you also do not want to overdo it not to overwhelm your audience.
Spacing out your posts and scheduling ahead of time are factors to consider alongside your pinning strategy.
Spacing out your posts is necessary if you do not want to be viewed by prospects as an overbearing brand (Imagine seeing 12 posts at once from a brand – just thinking about it makes me exhausted). If you will be pinning ten contents daily, the right thing to do is spread them out over different times of the day.
Scheduling your posts ahead makes things easier for you. Rather than creating a new post every time you need to pin one, you can create multiple posts at once and schedule them days ahead. Pinterest for business allows you to schedule your posts for up to two weeks in advance.
11. Link your Pins to the Action Site
Your pins are like breadcrumbs leading to your website or wherever prospects can take the action you want them to take.
Without linking your pins to this site, you hinder the flow of traffic and reduce your conversion rate.
According to recent research by Hootsuite, Pinterest’s advertising reach as of January 2022 is 226 million people.
This means that advertisers can reach over 200 million pinners with their ads.
Now combine this stat with Pinterest’s Feed Optimization Playbook, which shows that 75% of weekly pinners state that they are always shopping on the platform. You might have an idea why linking your posts to the action site is a Pinterest marketing tip you will need to achieve your marketing goal.
By linking your pins to the relevant site, whether your website, a contact form, etc., you can direct traffic from your Pinterest account to where prospects can take the action you want; buy your product, fill out their contact details, download an e-book, etc.
12. Employ Text Overlaying on your Pins
Using keywords will help your posts appear among the top results, and text overlay will ensure a target market clicks it amidst the top results Pinterest churns out.
Text overlay pins are posts that have text on the Pin itself.
This text could be the heading of the Pin or a description of what the reader will find in the post.
Text overlay pins increases click rates and reduce bounce rate by showing pinners information helpful enough to help them decide whether or not a post contains relevant information before they click it.
These types of pins also emphasize relevant elements of the post that are not visible or clear from the image.
As a brand interested in drawing in your market before the competition, text overlay posts are essential Pinterest marketing tips you should employ.
13. Follow and Learn from the Competition
As Seth Godin, the founder of Yoyodyne, rightly said
“The number one thing to steal from your competitors: Wisdom.”
Bringing this quote home, you must discover competitors’ Pinterest profiles, follow them, and learn from their Pinterest marketing strategies and tactics.
Using this information as a launchpad, you can easily develop unique Pinterest practices that can help you market yourself more effectively.
14. Your Pinterest Profile Should Align with your Profile on other Social Media Sites
Your Pinterest profile should be in sync with your other social media profiles.
Do not try to be creative by using new brand colors, a new name, or a new logo that your existing customers from other social media channels will not recognize.
15. Have fun and be Creative
Marketing is a race without a finish line – Philip Kotler.
Because human needs and preferences are not static, marketers will keep devising new ways to market their products to the target audience.
Being a visual platform, Pinterest offers marketers a wide stage of displaying their products/services to their market in several ways.
Hence, rather than always doing things by the book, feel free to think of new creative ways of using Pinterest to showcase your work to your market.
Dont’s of Pinterest Marketing
1. Do not pin contents irrelevant to your marketing goals
2. Do not always aim to sell; you may bore your audience. Let your pins be a mix of educational posts, gifs, jokes, and all contents related to your work.
3. Do not use low-quality pictures
4. Do not pin all your posts on one board. On Pinterest, organized content is key to attracting and retaining followers. You can separate your pins into several boards based on theme or topic.
5. Do not forget who your prospects are
6. Do not crowd your posts. If you post 15 pieces of content daily, spread it across different times of the day.
7. Do not pin once in a blue moon.
8. Do not forget to add the Pin it button so your audience can save your posts for future purposes and share them with their loved ones.
Pin It!
So there you have it.
Fifteen tried and proven Pinterest marketing tips every marketer should know as they implement Pinterest marketing as a part of their social media marketing strategy.
While this list is not an end to all Pinterest marketing tips list, remember Philip Kotler’s quote.
However, these tips have proven to be effective in aiding brands to attract and retain followers turned customers, increase their conversion rate, drive traffic, and ultimately attain business growth and eventually scale up their business.
RELATED: Pinterest Marketing: The beginners’ guide
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