Why Pinterest Should be a Part of Your Marketing Plan
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a visual social media platform. Users (called Pinners) can create pins, save pins to curated boards (like digital bulletin boards), and shop for items on Pinterest.
Pinterest is the fourth most popular social platform in the United States, boasting 440 million monthly users across the globe. These users run about two billion searches each month for products, blog posts, recipes, and more.
Why Pinterest?
Beyond Pinterest’s large userbase, Pinterest pins are proven to be more spreadable than Tweets and have a longer half-life than Facebook posts. The half-life of a post is the length of time it takes to reach 50% of its total lifetime engagement. Pinterest pins spread wide and for a longer amount of time than other social media platforms.
Pinterest is popular for sharing a variety of content, but if you sell products, Pinterest can be a great asset for your business. Pinterest is the second top source of traffic to Shopify. Because People go on Pinterest to find cool products, especially fashion and home décor, pinners are typically ready to buy. According to Pinterest, 80% of regular pinners have discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest and 85% of pinners say Pinterest is where they go to start a new project, like decorating a new home or planning a new work wardrobe. Pinterest has seen this firsthand and created great tools for businesses to utilize, like shop tabs, shop the look pins, product pins, rich pins, and Shopify integrations.
How to Use Pinterest for Your Business
Step 1: Make a business profile. Pinterest makes it easy to change an existing profile into a business profile, or you can make a new one. The business profile allows you to have access to Pinterest analytics, which are key to determining what content performs best and when to post.
Step 2: Claim your website on Pinterest and add a Pinterest tag to your website to track additional analytics, such as how much website traffic is coming from Pinterest.
Step 3: Because Pinterest is visual, it’s important to beautify your bio. Set appropriate cover and profile pictures and write a compelling bio, full of helpful keywords. For help with keywords, search Pinterest and Google to see what words are coming up when people search for businesses or products similar to yours.
What Content to Create
Pinterest content includes product pins, blog post graphics, instructional and informational infographics, recipes, videos, and lead magnets. Educational content does well on Pinterest, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t have clear products to sell. Putting your blog post into a graphic form, or sharing your restaurant's recipes can do really well on Pinterest.
It is recommended that you use simple, clear photos in everyday settings with text overlay, if possible. Include your company logo or URL on your content because pins spread. You want any users who come across your pin to be able to easily trace this product or offering back to you.
When writing your descriptions, use the same strategy that we described for writing your company bio. Find keywords that fit your products and include these keywords in your descriptions.
If you are at a loss of what to create, Pinterest has amazing insights, predictions, and advice available for businesses. You can also always re-pin older posts, helping to increase the life of your most popular content.
