Pinterest can often be overlooked by businesses in favour of other Social Media sites but using it can be really beneficial to your business.
Content on Pinterest lasts longer than any other social media platform. Its unique algorithms mean that your pins can keep showing up in people’s feeds for months. It’s the perfect platform for building engagement. This is one of the greatest things about Pinterest, you can reach such a wide audience because your content will keep appearing and there’s more opportunity for it to be re-pinned. Because the popularity of pins builds over time, don’t be discouraged if your pin doesn’t get as much engagement as you’d like right away as there is a strong chance that will change.
Pinterest recommends that if you are posting something for a specific holiday or event then you should do it about 45 days in advance. So, if you are selling a product specific to Christmas, then don’t wait until the week before to post about it. Keep this in mind for the popular holidays. This again shows the repetitious nature of Pinterest; pins build up over time.
Make sure to pin consistently, at least once a day. These pins don’t all have to be your own created content, if you find pins related to your business or audience, then definitely re-pin them. Offering your audience variety is much more engaging than just pinning your own products every day. Taking this into account, don’t just have boards for your business, create boards where you can post and re-pin things that are relevant and appeal to your audience, for example lifestyle quotes. Of course, try to have them link to your business too, for example if your business is selling men’s clothing, then it wouldn’t really fit to have a ‘Recipes’ board, but a ‘Designer Fashion’ board could easily fit and appeal to your audience. Having multiple boards also makes it really easy to organise your pins, so users can find content relevant to them.
Quality images. Pinterest is an incredibly visual site, so having good quality images is really important. Different types of images perform differently too, for example, if you’re pinning a product, lifestyle images (showing it in use) perform much better than just general product images. It’s important to make sure that the images you use aren’t too busy but using a small amount of text on them can actually result in a higher click through rate than an image without any text. Just make sure you don’t go overboard, or you might end up distracting from the actual product. You don’t have to use your own images either, there are tons of stock photo sites that offer up high-quality images for you to use, so if you are selling a service rather than a product, or sharing a blog post, these can work wonders.
The recommended image size for pins is a ratio of 2:3, and a minimum of 600 x 900 pixels. By using these guidelines your pins will look more attractive, they will also be optimised for mobile devices, which is important considering approximately 80% of users access Pinterest on them.
According to most sources out there, the best time to post on Pinterest is between 8pm-11pm on the weekends, and most say you should avoid posting anything during typical work hours. Although this is a good place to start, every business is different, so I would say it’s best to experiment. Try pinning at a variety of different times on different days and see what gets the most engagement from your audience. Once you work out the best times to post for maximum engagement, you can work this into your marketing strategy.
Doing all of these things is great, but if no one knows you’re there then it’ll be a waste. To reach your audience, follow boards and accounts relevant to your industry, and engage and re-pin posts related to it too. Pinterest is a community where people share ideas, so being active in it will really help to create relationships with your audience. Another must is adding a ‘Save’ button to your website. This way people can easily pin your content. A lot of websites have these so if you’re just browsing the web and see something you like, you can pin it!
Try creating multiple pins for the same thing. This can work wonders because things that appeal to some people may not appeal to others. By having a variety of designs and visuals, you can appeal to more people. Make the description for these pins unique too, they can lead to the same place, but by using different keywords and descriptions you can increase your reach and cover all bases with what you target audience are looking for.
Rich pins can be extremely useful if you have an online business. Rich Pins pull metadata from your site to give users information on the pin. There are a few different types of rich pins. If you have an ecommerce business, a Product Rich Pin will come in handy. These show the price, availability, and information of a particular product. People must be able to directly buy the product from the link that you provide. Any changes you make on your website to this product will be reflected on the pin, so you don’t have to worry about potential customers having the wrong information, and it makes the overall buying process easier for the customer.
Pinterest like many other social media platforms has its own analytics. Pay attention to these, you’ll be able to tell which pins are performing well and which aren’t so you can decide if you need to make any changes. Pinterest also give you audience insights where you can see age, gender and locations of your audience. They also give you information of what your audience is interested in, which can be very useful because it will help you to target those people and increase your reach.
Hashtags mean you can target the right audience for your pins. Once you’ve got your target audience, you can work out the hashtags that they might search for and apply then to your pins, keep it relevant though. You can also include keywords in your descriptions, just make sure that it sounds natural.