A lot of businesses today still think that Pinterest is only for personal use and don’t include it as part of their marketing strategy.
What businesses don’t realize is that while the social media platform is fun and creative, at its heart, Pinterest is a powerful marketing platform. It is the fourth most popular social media platform in the USA with over 200 million active users monthly.
On top of this, the shelf life of content uploaded on Pinterest is of 30 days while content posted on Twitter or Facebook has an average shelf life of just a few hours!
We’ve put together 7 ways that businesses can use this growing platform to promote their businesses effectively.
7 Pinterest Marketing Tips for Your Small Business
1. Share Images of Your Products with a Direct Link
Pinterest focuses on the power of images and so the most obvious way to use the platform is to share images of your services, products, stores, and employee bios. You could even create a “best of” board to highlight your popular products, services, or promotions.
It’s important that along with a description of the product, you add a price and include a direct link to your site to allow users to easily navigate to and buy the desired product immediately. It’s an effective point-of-sale for businesses.
2. Create Boards Using Keywords
Treat a Pinterest board like a bulletin board that you can organize, arrange, and present information. For example: if you have a fitness-related business, you could create different boards related to exercise, workout tips, nutrition, and healthy récipes and within each board, you could ‘pin’ relevant material.
Pinterest is known for its amazing search capabilities. So, by adding the correct keywords in each board, you can help people find your brand.
Pinterest is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your company’s blog, so we recommend that one of the boards that you create is dedicated to your blog.
3. Use Rich Pins
Rich pins are considered to be one of the best direct strategies for growing your sales. It’s believed that brands that implement rich pins see an 82% jump in their repin/pin ratio.
Rich pins come in 5 different ‘flavors’: movie, article, product, place, and recipe. They each have their own set of features that will make your content more searchable. The best part is that when you update information about your products, your pins update too, which will keep your leads informed about the availability of products. This feature holds the potential to boost your engagement and direct traffic to your site.
Rich pins are a fairly new feature so if you want to set yourself apart from the competition, consider implementing them.
4. Create a Space for Collaboration
This is a great way to reach a new group of pinners. You can designate collaborative boards and bring teams together to share ideas, learn from each other, and brainstorm in a personal way. If you are successful in bringing industry experts to contribute to your board, even better. It will make your brand more credible.
Don’t worry, as the creator, you will have full control and none of the contributors will be able to change any of the settings. Just be mindful of which boards you join as all the pins will show on your Pinterest presence – you surely shouldn’t display anything that goes against your brand’s image.
5. Engage and Pin Consistently
Visuals play a big role in Pinterest, so it’s important that your images are not only shot well but are accompanied by descriptive copy and good storytelling.
Just like how you engage and respond to tweets, Instagram posts, and Facebook comments, it’s vital to do the same on Pinterest to build a community around your brand. If you see users re-pinning your items, thank them and ask for feedback to provide them the best customer service possible. Engagement is a two-way street so if you follow others, this will only encourage them to follow you back.
It’s recommended that you pin something at least once a day as it ensures your content reaches a wider audience. If you feel you don’t have time, you could schedule pins beforehand to remain consistent. Don’t forget to use Audience Insights to decide when your content gets the most engagement.
6. Maximize SEO
Pinterest is a visual search engine and keywords are its foundation. It’s important that you use the appropriate targeted keywords in your boards, pin names, descriptions, and hashtags to boost engagement and drive traffic to your site.
It’s also a good idea to connect all your social media accounts together so that there are more links to your products to increase your search engine ranking.
7. Set Up Pinterest Ads
With the help of Actalike Audiences, you can display ads to your target audience around interests, keywords, age, and other demographics.
You can also reach groups of people base don their activity. For example, people who have visited your website, engaged with your pin, or engaged with similar content in the past.
Don’t forget to pay close attention to Pinterest Analytics to know what works and to understand which areas need improvement.
Are You Ready for Pinterest Marketing?
If you hadn’t considered using Pinterest before, it’s time you give it a try. Consider the seven Pinterest marketing strategies above to get inspired and strengthen your brand’s presence online.
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