HOW TO USE PINTEREST FOR MARKETING PURPOSES
In the ever-growing landscape of social media apps, digital marketers fight tooth and nail to make an appearance on the customer’s feed. Amidst the memes, family, and friends’ posts, let alone the conversations, marketers even spend a lump sum amount to make an appearance in the feed. The go-to social media platforms for marketing purposes are usually Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, but Pinterest is often overlooked by many entrepreneurs in terms of marketing. Born back in 2010, Pinterest is a not-so-famous social media platform for sharing images, and videos. Pinterest certainly has its potential to connect with your target audience. As compared to the social media giant Facebook having 2.8 billion monthly active users, Pinterest has 478 million monthly active users charting quite an impressive user growth path. Less than a year ago, the 400 million monthly active users mark was crossed when the platform registered 416 million users in the second quarter of 2020. This implies that in just three quarters, Pinterest was able to grow its active user base by a whopping 19.5%. Much of 2021’s increase so far has come from an ascent in the quantity of worldwide Pinterest users, which grew by 37% year on year. This is more than 4x the percentage increase of US users which were marked at 9%.
Pinterest is a place for every brand. Approximately 79% of the searches carried out on Pinterest are unbranded which gives an edge to new e-commerce businesses. The high percentage of unbranded searches strongly indicates that Pinterest users are using the platform to seek inspiration and discover new ideas. So when it comes to marketing on Pinterest, your strategy must target buyers who are in the early stages of their purchase process. Displaying your product and brand on their feeds will be key here. As per the e-commerce platform Shopify, Pinterest is the 2nd biggest source of all referral traffic to their site, which implies that approximately 93% of users used it to plan their purchases, moreover, the average resulting order value was $50 which is higher than any other social media source. Therefore, it is a huge marketing opportunity for e-commerce startups.
Pinterest is a type of digital corkboard, mood board, or inspiration board that can be utilized as a digital planning platform for people to discover, share, and organize creative ideas digitally from around the World over the internet. Let’s discuss the cornerstone Pinterest marketing strategies for your business account with some secret tips to skyrocket your sales. Let’s dive right in!
1. Make Your Brand The Focal Point
Strategically, place your product or service front and center. Do not use abstract images or lifestyle imagery that doesn’t showcase your brand. Your pins should speak to the customers.
2. Include Your Logo
Keeping your pin board subtle, put a logo on every Pin that you make, except the lower-right corner because that spot gets covered up by Pinterest’s product icons.
3. Get the Pin Button
In order to make it easy and effortless for the browsers or potential customers to engage with you by pinning and sharing a link of your pins to their boards, get the pin/save button which will appear directly on your website’s product pages. By doing that you will be able to know who has pinned content from your website, thus providing you with an opportunity to directly engage with your potential customers.
4. Add the Follow Button
The follow button on your Pinterest profile not only informs people that you’re a Pinner but also redirects them to your profile, urging them to follow you. Incorporate this quick call to action button everywhere you connect with people: your website, newsletters, emails, blogs, or pop-ups.
5. Tell Stories to Grab the Attention
Narrating the stories helps in capturing the attention, creating an emotional connection, and changing how people perceive you. People purchase items based on emotion and telling a story including visuals can trigger emotions. Pinterest being a modern fairytale was made for storytelling. Create Boards that recount a story or create a lifestyle – don’t simply create product Boards for the sake of selling your products or services. As per the statistics, 72% of users said that the platform assists them with discovering new ideas for everyday life: Try to comprehend what stories appeal to your intended audience and utilize this knowledge to fuel your Board ideas, giving your followers the inspiration they’re after. Stay true to your brand, get creative, and have fun.
6. Imagery
The best pins are usually visually compelling as visuals are what make Pinterest. Images are what display the essence of your brand and tell the inside story. These images must be compelling enough that people feel the urge to share and pin them to their own beautifully curated Boards. Therefore, pick vertical high-quality images with the 2:3 aspect ratio that stands out in people’s feeds. Other ratios may cause your Pin to truncate, or may negatively impact performance. Contrast these vertical images with square images (600px x 600px) to make your board eye-catching on the discovery feed. Ensure that your images on the pinboard and the linked website are mobile-friendly as over 85% of Pinterest searches take place via the mobile app.
7. Use SEO Based Descriptions
Although Pinterest is all about images, words are equally important as they are playing their role especially with regards to SEO. For the Pinterest search function and for a good ranking on Google, Keywords are important as Google sees your Board titles, your image descriptions, how frequently you post, and your popularity. Preferably plan well-thought-out long-tail keywords for each Pin of yours while you make sure to include the:
● keywords in your Board/Pin titles, descriptions and images
● price in your descriptions
● a clear and strong call to action for each Pin
● URL
● Descriptions of manageable length, whilst setting the scene and engaging your readers as well
● Add a “#” so as to appear in the “#feed”
The above-mentioned points will not only help Google but also improve your SEO within the app itself.
8. Engage With Your Users
Engage with your customers if you want them to engage with you by:
● Responding to messages promptly
● Thanking people for pinning your content
● Following your followers and liking their Pins
● Following your competitors
The above-mentioned points will not only foster positive interactions with your customers, but also provide you with valuable insights into what their interests, likes, and dislikes are, and why they’re using your products. This information can further be used to fuel your Pinterest marketing strategy. You can also engage Pinterest users by inviting your followers to collaborate by allowing them to pin content on one of your boards.
9. Get More Pin Exposure with Pinterest Ads
Via Pinterest ads, 60% of users discover new brands or products and one out of two have made a purchase from a promoted Pin. In order to build awareness, drive engagement, and increase your sales all you have to do is to create targeted Pinterest ads through the Pinterest Ads Manager.
10. Details En-Riched Pins
Normal Pins with extra detail, such as real-time pricing, stock availability, and brand logo make it easier for users to find and recognize your brand and compel them to click.
11. Buyable Pins
Buyable pins are simple Pinterest Pins that allow users to buy the product without leaving the app or website by clicking on the blue buy button. All products automatically become Buyable Pins if these are pinned from your Shopify store. A seamless buying experience makes buying from you effortless.
12. Content Curation is the Key
As Pinterest is a collaborative platform, therefore you must build your boards by curating content from other brands and people. It not only adds variety but also enables you to pin more regularly, and makes users look upon you more favorably.
13. Play the pin-repin game
Pinterest sorts the most critical content through Repinning. The Pinterest algorithm works by shelving the most repinned pin as essential and useful. Therefore, repinning strategy is a must-do activity. You can find the most popular pins using Pinterest analytics and continue repinning them in short intervals.
14. Check your links
In case your Pin includes a link, make sure the link is active and loads quickly. Your Pinboard informs people what they are about to see if they click on the link to ensure the link directs them to the destination that matches the site’s topic and imagery.
