If you still think Facebook and Twitter are the be-all and end-all of social media marketing tools, think again. Say “Hi” to your business’s new best friend – Pinterest.Just recently, Pinterest hit more than 10 million unique visitors, making it one of the fastest growing websites ever. In the past six months, visits to Pinterest grew by 4,000%, receiving 11 million hits in just one week.
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, and increase brand awareness to use. Plus, Pinterest users have the highest purchase intent of any other social media users.While Pinterest originally was known for being the go-to site for finding recipes and home decor ideas, there is so much more to it than that.In fact, Pinterest has made a name as a visual search engine, housing tons of photos, graphics, links, and inspiration for nearly anything you might want to find.
This means it’s a goldmine social media platform for businesses with a visual aspect to their business, whether it’s photography or original graphics. In fact, 55% of users are specifically on the platform to find photos of new products and the platform is extremely powerful when it comes to driving website traffic.Creating a Pinterest strategy that makes sense for your business is the perfect way to get started with this platform. To help, we’ve created an easy 5-step Pinterest marketing strategy – lets dive in.
Pinterest demographics:
The latest demographics figures published by Pinterest indicate that 250 million people use it on a monthly basis. The split is 50/50 between US users and those based outside.With 80% of new sign-ups from outside the US, their international audience is growing fast. There is a higher proportion of female users, but Pinterest is diversifying demographically and is gaining a broader appeal with millennial men.
If your target audience is active on Pinterest, it is definitely worth adding it to your marketing mix. For categories such as food, travel, home decoration, fashion, and beauty, Pinterest is an obvious choice. However, it can be made to work for practically any type of business, whether you sell products or services. Many service-based businesses do very well on Pinterest.
Creating a Pinterest strategy that makes sense for your business is the perfect way to get started with this platform. To help, we’ve created an easy 5-step Pinterest marketing strategy – lets dive in.
Is Pinterest the right fit for your business?
To decide if Pinterest is right for your business, you need to do a little research.
Even if you are not active on Pinterest, people may already be sharing content from your website on Pinterest. To find out if this is the case, go to the following URL pinterest.com/source/your website address. This shows you pins that were pinned directly from your website, either by yourself (if you are pinning) or by other pinners. If the URL is not returning many results, this could be because your website was launched very recently or because it is difficult to pin directly from your website.
Go to Pinterest and search for keywords and phrases that are relevant to your line of business. If those keywords appear in profiles, board names, board descriptions and pin descriptions, that’s a very good indication that marketing on Pinterest is a viable option.
Ask your current customers if and how they use Pinterest. If you are not getting any results, it may not be a good fit for you. If you have positive responses for all of the above, it’s time to get started!
Set up for business on Pinterest: Once you are clear about your business objectives on Pinterest, it’s time to optimize your Pinterest account and website. To be successful on Pinterest, you need the following minimum prerequisites.A professional, mobile-responsive website, because 80% of pinners use Pinterest on mobile
Regular content publications: For example, you regularly publish your own blog articles, podcasts, videos, photographs. On Pinterest, people are looking for helpful information to solve a problem, to learn something or to find new ideas
A Pinterest Business Account:The configuration and optimization of your Pinterest business account and website are beyond the scope of this article. However, if you do not yet have a Pinterest business account, this is one of the first things you need to take care of. It’s easy to do. You will find a detailed explanation in How to Get Ready for Business on Pinterest.
Install the Pinterest Save button on your website, so that it’s easy for people to pin content directly from your website. You should also apply for Rich Pins. If you plan to pay for advertising on Pinterest, you should install the Pinterest Tag on your website. This will allow you to start building up audiences for future advertising.
Creating a Pinterest strategy that makes sense for your business is the perfect way to get started with this platform. To help, we’ve created an easy 5-step Pinterest marketing strategy – lets dive in.
1. Brand your profile: The first step to having a presence on any social media network is to brand your profile. You first want to make sure you create a business Pinterest account so that you have access to analytics, rich pins, and more. Then you need to take the measures to brand your Pinterest profile so that it’s easily recognizable as belonging to your company. Each social media platform has its own customization features to allow you to add your own touch onto it.
2. Choose a cover board: Pinterest allows users to choose a cover board that shows pins from that board at the very top of their profile. The individual pins aren’t clickable, but there is a link to that board at the corner of the cover design. This is the perfect place to add a branded board that has blog posts, graphics, product shots and other designs from your company. Ensure that they match your brand to give your profile a branded look.
3.Upload a profile photo: Next you’ll want to upload a profile photo that best represents your business. This is likely just your logo set into a square 165 x 165-pixel image.If you are the face of your business, however, this might instead be a professional headshot of you.
4. Determine your content strategy: What types of content will you be sharing on Pinterest? There are many different types of content that perform well on the platform like product pins, infographics, or blog posts.
Let’s cover a few of the most popular types of pins.
If your business is a retailer or an online store, you should absolutely be taking stunning product photos and turning them into pins. People love to browse the platform to find new products, whether it’s home decor, clothing, gifts for the family, and more.
Pinterest is a major discovery engine for shopping, with 72% of Pinners saying they get inspired to shop even when they weren’t originally looking for anything. Beautiful product photos will help catch the audience attention and drive this kind of impromptu inspiration for retail brands.
5. Join community boards : Another great Pinterest marketing strategy to help get your content out there is joining and creating community or group boards. Pinterest allows users to invite others to contribute to a board, and it’s the perfect way to get your content in front of brand new audiences.
Search for prominent Pinners in your niche and check to see if they have group boards relevant to your industry.
Many users will include rules or a link to apply to join within that board’s description, so take a look and see what you can find. Usually, you just have to email the owner or fill out a contact form and give their account a follow for them to add you.Once you join, you’ll want to remain active within those boards, pinning some of your own content, but also curating other content so you’re not only promoting your own business.
6. Focus on Pinterest SEO: Pinterest is essentially a visual search engine, which means it has its own algorithm and its own search engine optimization rules. You need to focus on your Pinterest SEO and implement these rules on your own profile to see your ranking increase.
There are three different places that you need to be focusing on your keyword usage throughout your Pinterest marketing strategy.
Your profile : Take a look at how to set up your pinterest profile.You have 65 characters to fill out your Pinterest name and 160 characters to write your bio, and I suggest that you use up as many as you can to naturally include the most popular keywords in your industry.
Get started with Pinterest marketing : Ready to put your 5-step Pinterest marketing strategy to the test? Start sending tons of new website traffic and customers to your links by ramping up your content strategy with these ideas.
“For retailers, the path to purchase from a social network is no more direct than on Pinterest. ‘See it, like it, buy it’ happens frequently ... Even in cases where the path to purchase is not as direct, rarely do you have a social network where linking to for-sale items is done so frequently. You have clear social proof of the desire for the item, you see a picture of it, and you are only one or two clicks away from being on an ecommerce site.”
As Pinterest evolves, I’m sure there will be even more great reasons to get started on this fast-growing social network. Businesses are already receiving first-mover advantage in their industries by leveraging the platform to drive traffic, leads and sales. Just yesterday, I purchased clothing I found from pins posted by a women’s golf apparel line, and I never would have discovered them if that business wasn’t using Pinterest.
Pinterest is a long-term game that requires preparation, patience and a strategic approach. If you are looking for quick results, Pinterest is probably not for you! However, if you do it right, you can turn it into your best business friend. It will send potential customers to your site for months and years to come.