7 Marketing Steps for Pinterest Businesses

How do you use Pinterest? Are you pinning recipes, inspiration for dream vacations and events? Saving projects you want to try or images that match your aesthetic? Or maybe you are pinning products you want to try. Pinterest is not just for those who want to collect inspiration and search for DIY projects. On the other side are businesses looking to engage with Pinners and sell their brand products. Pinterest has 444 million active monthly users and an expansive reach. One post or pin may reach thousands of people instantly, but pins also live forever as they are constantly being regenerated into Pinners’ searches. This is what makes Pinterest such a great marketing tool… if used well. Creating and managing a Pinterest business account with content to attract, engage, and possibly convert Pinterest users, can be an important part of your social media strategy to boost sales. Here’s 7 tips to get you started with a winning Pinterest strategy.

1. Establishing an identity and brand

To establish a presence on Pinterest, begin by making a Pinterest Business account and completing your profile information, including uploading a profile photo and writing a description. Make sure the picture represents your business. It may be a logo or a personal but professionally appropriate image. The description is limited to 160 characters, so keep it simple. Introduce yourself and include keywords that convey your business.

The next step will be to align your Pinterest and brand identity. Easy ways to do that are to feature a color scheme and style representing your brand and personality. Another tip is Pinning and Re-Pinning things that express your identity. 

Other things you can do to solidify your professionalism are verifying your website on Pinterest, Pinning credible content, and not overusing hashtags. 

2. Creating a marketing strategy

A marketing strategy should include Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. SMART goals. Your strategy should also include learning about the general Pinterest audience, your brand’s specific audience, and competition. 

Your Pinterest marketing strategy should be reflected in your management, planning/scheduling, and content performance tracking. 

3. Managing, scheduling, and tracking

Essential tasks for social media marketers include managing the account, scheduling content, and tracking the performance of your content. Pinterest provides businesses with a tool called Pinterest Analytics, which gives you access to audience and conversion insights, specific Pin statistics, and trends. 

Two other applications that make all of those tasks easier are CoSchedule and Hootsuite. Both of these applications allow you to create and schedule pin postings and track user interactions with your content.

Speaking of content, here are the approaches to creating and organizing yours. 

4. Creating Captivating Content 

Pin Formatting Tips

• Use vertical imagery with a 2:3 aspect ratio. This is preferable for mobile Pinterest users and prevents awkward cropping.
• Aim for high image and video quality to avoid pixelation.
• Videos should be between 3-60 seconds.
• Include well-written descriptions, keywords, image context, and include call-to-action links (and make sure they work).
• Consider using headlines (100 characters) and subtext (250 characters/image)
• Text safe zones are aware from borders (exact measurements)
• Try various Pin types. Here are some types of Pins…
  • Rich pins automatically pull information from your website and incorporate it into your Pin. There are three types of rich pins; product, recipe, and article.
  • Video pins feature a video on a loop rather than a static image.
  • Carousel pins allow you to feature multiple images or a combination of pictures and videos. Up to 5 photos or videos can be added to a carousel pin. 
  • Collections pins are more a format but allow Pinners to shop similar products by clicking a magnifying glass in the bottom right corner. 
  • Idea pins are not available for everyone yet, but allow the creator to customize colors and fonts and create guides and collections.
  • Try on Product pins are also not available to everyone yet, but they use augmented reality allowing Pinners to “try on” products using Pinterest Lens.

5. Organizing Content

Boards are a way to organize your collected pins and your content. Boards are similar to folders and group Pins by themes or topics. There are three other types of boards for businesses…

• Group boards allow more than one person to add content, which is perfect for marketing teams to share ideas and plans.
• Secret boards can only be seen by the creator and those invited. This allows you to plan without making content public.
• Protected boards are similar to secret boards but appear at the bottom of your account, and only you can view them if the Pins of the board can be seen on Pinterest if a Pinner has a direct link to the board. Direct links can be shared as a promotional strategy.

6. Connecting with Pinners

• Engaging with Pinners will encourage them to engage with you and your business. Reach out and respond to Pinners who have interacted with your Pins. 
• Create conversation and say “thank you.” You can do this through direct messages or by creating group conversations with like-minded Pinners to discuss your brand, products, or service. You can assist them, answer questions, send personalized discounts or coupons, or simply say “thank you” for Pinning your content. 

7. Promoting Content

• Cross-promoting is using various social media platforms to redirect traffic to Pinterest. Another meaning is promoting similar businesses’ content and reaching out for them to do the same. This creates a community and the possibility to do collaborations. 
• Promoted Pins are another way to promote your content using advertising. Promoted Pins include images, video, carousel, and app Pins that you control as an ad. As an ad they will appear more often in home feeds, category feeds, and search results—more information about creating a Promoted Pin Ad.
  

These seven steps are easy and effective ways for Pinterest businesses to get started. Take advantage of the tips in this blog and the features Pinterest has to offer to establish your brand’s presence, create content, and engage with Pinners around the world!