Interested in using Pinterest as a business?
Pinterest is a dynamite platform to use as part of a business marketing strategy. There are a few reasons this is so!
5 WAYS PINTEREST IS GREAT FOR BUSINESS
- Pinterest pins link back to your website. When a user clicks on your pin to see more, they’re sent to the specific page to which you’ve linked it. This might be a service page, product page, or blog page, etc.
- Pinterest pins drive targeted traffic to your website. You’ll get interested eyes on your content or products.
- Pinterest users are known to be curious and into discovering new things. That means that as a new or small business, you can compete with well-known brands if you have a quality website, valuable content and create quality pins.
- People use Pinterest to shop! 50% of US users use Pinterest to shop. Pinterest has fantastic features that make shopping easy.
- Pinterest pins have a long life span (up to a year or more). This means that you’ll have content circulating (due to repins) for months. If you’ve boosted pins by using ads, you’ll see a return on your investment even after you’ve stopped your ad campaign.
Interested already? If you’re keen to use Pinterest as a business, there are a few key factors to take into consideration when creating your marketing strategy. But first:
Should you use Instagram or Pinterest for your business?
Pinterest and Instagram are both strongly visual-based platforms. Choosing which platform to market on depends on what your business needs are.
It boils down to this:
Pinterest is best for generating traffic to your website.
Use Instagram if you’re building brand awareness.
Let’s get into how to effectively use Pinterest as a business.
SET UP A PINTEREST BUSINESS ACCOUNT
A Pinterest business account is a must-have if you’re wanting to use Pinterest as a business and utilize all the amazing business features on offer.
How much does a Pinterest business account cost?
It’s free! All the more reason for you to get it set up today!
3 Ways to Create a Pinterest business account
- If you have a personal account, you can link a business account to your personal account and easily switch between the two.
- Convert your Pinterest account into a business account.
- New to Pinterest? You can immediately create a business account from scratch.
Go here for an easy, step-by-step tutorial on how to set up your Pinterest business account.
If you’re not interested in Pinterest management, and want someone to do it (properly) for you, get in touch!
CREATE AND OPTIMIZE PINTEREST BOARDS
If you’re wondering ‘What is a board on Pinterest?’, go here for a full explanation.
Boards are fundamental to your marketing strategy on Pinterest. It’s important to optimize your boards with relevant keywords to help Pinterest categorize your account.
Your boards are the ‘shelves’ of your online business. Each board has a specific category, is filled with relevant pins and contains a description that clearly states what a pinner will find inside.
Here’s an easy guide for how to create boards on Pinterest.
CLAIM YOUR WEBSITE
An important next step when you use Pinterest as a business is to claim your website for Pinterest. This will give you additional analytics for your pins. You’ll need to insert a piece of code into the backend of your website. Don’t stress – it’s very simple and Pinterest will guide you through it.
Follow this complete guide for how to claim your website.
CREATE A LOT OF CONTENT REGULARLY
Pinterest favors fresh content. This means using new images (always) and new links (as often as possible) for your pins.
The only way to consistently generate new links to your website is to regularly create fresh content or upload new products for sale.
Most businesses can fulfill the content requirement by writing weekly blogs. Each blog link is a new link for which fresh pins can be created.
If you sell products, write blogs about your products or about your niche. If you’re a photographer, write about events you’ve photographed, tips for photographers, etc. If you make fitness videos, create separate links for each fitness video with a short description or some tips about the workout.
There are lots of ways to repurpose content into blogs and lots of clever ways to add new links to your website too when you use Pinterest as a business!
CREATE QUALITY PINS USING BEST PRACTICES
Because Pinterest is primarily visual, it’s essential for your image creation to be top form!
There are helpful guidelines from Pinterest (my go-to source for best practices) for creating pins that will last long and connect with your target audience.
Important Pin Guidelines when using pinterest as a business
- Standard pins should have a 2:3 aspect ratio.
- Include your brand logo or website somewhere on the pin.This makes it harder for your pin to be stolen (yup, it happens).
- Use the pin description and title to add keywords relevant to your business, making your pin easier to find.
- Use a text overlay where possible. (For product pins, this may not be necessary.) Make sure your text is concise and easily readable.
Read more about pin guidelines here.
Tips for Creating Click-Worthy Pins WHEN USING PINTEREST AS A BUSINESS
Pins are basically an advertisement for your business. They’re a billboard whose purpose is to stop a scroller in their tracks.
Try these tips to create pins that catch the eye of Pinterest users and make them want to click through to your website.
Font size
Your font size should not be smaller than size 21. Because most Pinterest users access the app via their phones, small text won’t stand out and might be unreadable.
Use fonts that are easily legible
Many Pinterest users make the mistake of using elaborate fonts that are almost illegible. Use a clear font and use a maximum of 3 font types.
Use bold colors for fonts
Pale pink text on a white background won’t have a chance of being read in a sea of pins. Use strong bold colors for your text. Remember, think ‘billboard’.
Keep your text concise
Use interesting titles that, if possible, contain important keywords. Keep the titles short and easy to scan. If you have a sub-title, use this to insert more keywords and add value. Tell the potential pinner exactly what to expect if they click on your pin.
Use on-brand imagery
There are amazing stock websites, (I’ve listed some of my favorites here), where you can find on-brand imagery.
Create modern pins
Pin designs follow trends. It’ll become easy to spot pins created years ago versus pins that sport creative new designs.
Search for keywords in your niche and browse through the popular pins that show up first in the feed. This will give you a good idea of what your audience is enjoying visually. Get inspired and create pin templates or designs that are fresh and relevant and will appeal to your audience.
Select pin images carefully
Pick images that match your website branding. For example, you don’t want to create pins using images and design that appeals to mom entrepreneurs when your website is very corporate and uses commercial photography.
CREATE STORY PINS AND VIDEO PINS WHEN USING PINTEREST AS A BUSINESS
These relatively new features are currently boosted by Pinterest as they try to increase their popularity. As a result, if you create story pins and video pins, you’re more likely to experience a boost in impressions and reach.
I recommend you create an on-brand template for your story pins to make it easy to create one to two a week.
Story pins don’t link back to your website, but you can add your link to the description along with a CTA.
For video pins, use a short video you’ve created. Add some descriptive text or captions for users who watch without audio. Pexels has some beautiful videos you can use as blog post pins.
IDENTIFY KEYWORDS
To properly use Pinterest as a business, SEO needs to stay top of mind.
The description section of your pin is very important for SEO. This not only helps Pinterest send your pin to the top of the feed, but also helps Google find your content on Pinterest!
Do extensive research on Pinterest into keywords relevant to your business. You can do this via Pinterest search. Type in a word relating to your business. If you’re a lighting fixture design company, you might type in ‘light fixtures’.
A list of suggestions will come up all related to ‘light fixtures’ such as ‘light fixtures kitchen’ and ‘light fixtures for low ceilings’. Make a list of what is relevant.
Then search under light fixtures specifically. You’ll be presented with even more search suggestions.
In this way you can continue until you’ve identified relevant keywords to use in your pin descriptions and board descriptions.
By clicking on the search suggestions and browsing through the content, you can make sure your content would fit well with what Pinterest is displaying.
For example, this is the search result for ‘tiny house’:
These are all image pins. If you’re a blogger that writes about how to live in a tiny house, how to organize a tiny house, how to enjoy simple living, etc., the keyword ‘tiny house’ may be too broad as there are no blogs displayed in the search result.
This is the search results for ‘tiny house tips and tricks:
This looks like a more relevant keyword as there are a number of blogs on display. This may also mean that people searching for blog articles about tiny houses are searching using this keyword.
TOP TIP: When using Pinterest as a business, I recommend deciding on a number of core keywords which you use for all pin descriptions. Add additional keywords relevant to specific pins in addition to these core keywords. Core keywords that don’t change will help give Pinterest a clear understanding of your account and categorize it correctly.
MAKE TAILWIND YOUR BFF
Tailwind is a scheduling program that is an official partner of Pinterest. Because Pinterest favors a high volume of pins being sent out per day (up to 20, that is), it’s a necessary tool when using Pinterest as a business.
Tailwind will send out your pins at times of the day optimized for your niche. It allows you to schedule in evergreen content. You can sit down for an hour or two at the beginning of a week, create and schedule all your pins, schedule in your repins and be done. Let Tailwind do it’s thing!
MONITOR PINTEREST AND GOOGLE ANALYTICS WHEN USING PINTEREST AS A BUSINESS
An important part of Pinterest management is gathering data to analyse your marketing efforts.
Google Analytics provides a reliable record of traffic flowing to your website from social media. Pinterest is one of the platforms you’ll be able to see results for. You’ll be able to learn exactly what type of traffic you’re receiving, and where relevant, what sales you’re making from Pinterest traffic.
Your Pinterest business account will also provide you with analytics. You’ll be able to see pin impressions, followers, outbound clicks and more. In my experience, Google Analytics is more accurate, reliable and detailed, but it’s helpful to use Pinterest analytics to get the full picture.
Tracking your performance on Pinterest as well as individual pin metrics gives you useful data to analyse. You can identify top performing pins as well as specific content that performs well. You’ll be able to fine-tune your Pinterest strategy over time as you monitor your pinning results.
It’s important to view using Pinterest as a business as a long-term investment. Initially, you may see slow growth, but once pins gain traction, they’ll generate website traffic for months.
Interested in whether or not your business would perform well on Pinterest? Feel like you’d be overwhelmed by the Pinterest management necessary to grow your account properly? Get in touch and let’s chat about how we can help!