How to Use Pinterest in Business Marketing

So, you have a personal Pinterest account. You use it for when you need inspiration, whether when brainstorming for your kitchen remodel, designing your wedding invitations, prepping a winning Thanksgiving Dinner or DIY crafts with your kids this summer. Pinterest is such a useful social media platform on a personal level. But when you’re an entrepreneur, you’d want to know how to use Pinterest for business marketing.

Because really, when it comes to business marketing, Pinterest has a lot in there going on.

And if you use Pinterest effectively in your marketing campaigns, you’ll experience a surge of success coming your way. Not only will you be able to make your brand more visible, but also get better conversion along the way. Indeed, there are several benefits of using Pinterest for business.

How do you do this? Well, there’s more than one answer, and it’s best to explore the ways on how to use Pinterest in business marketing one by one.

How Does Pinterest Marketing Work?

Pinterest is a visual-driven website. But apart from being a website, it’s also a social media platform and a search engine. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram come up as the three largest social media platforms today, but Pinterest happens to come second to Facebook in generating traffic to websites.

Pinterest happens to be the largest search engine for visual content. Users can upload, share image and videos, re-pin images from your feed as well as those you’ve found in your search. You also have the option to organize the visuals into boards and modify such boards, so they’re easy to search and discover by other users.

With Pinterest, you get to share ideas and inspirations, while laying them out for the world wide web to see. With such dynamics, it’s easy to see why marketing with Pinterest enables you to perform a highly effective method of getting more exposure for your products and services. Pinterest holds valuable purchasing power than other social media platforms. According to Shopify:

1. 98% of users claim trying new products they’ve discovered through Pinterest.
2. 93% of users say they use the platform to research products and make purchases.
3. 40% of the users earn a household income of over $100,000, giving them substantial buying power.

These are just but three of the most important data with regards to Pinterest use; proof that people who use Pinterest recognize the impact of the platform in their purchasing decision. It also tells us that Pinterest is a social media force to reckon with, and should be integrated into your overall business marketing campaign.

How to Use Pinterest in Marketing Your Brand or Business

Using Pinterest for business is a sound and strategic way for the modern-day, digital marketing. Not only is Pinterest catching up with the top social media platforms, it also offers a unique way to get your brand’s name out. If you’re ready to integrate Pinterest marketing into your overall business marketing campaign, here are the things that you should keep in mind:

1. Build Your Pinterest Business Profile

The very first thing you need to do once you’re on Pinterest is to create a winning business profile. There’s a huge difference between Pinterest business account vs personal.

Your business profile provides information to what your business is all about and what it offers to your audience, so it’s essential that you do this right from the very start.

First, you need to convert Pinterest to a business account. You’ll get richer features and business-specific tools with this account than from a personal one. Once you’ve learned how to convert Pinterest to business, you need to supply the business profile with appropriate information to foster better and broader brand exposure.

Consider your profile photo carefully. If your business is well-known for its logo, then use the logo as the profile photo. But if your brand is easily recognizable with your picture, then use it. Think of it this way: would you recognize Starbucks or McDonalds with the logo or the photo of the owner?

After picking the right profile photo, you need also need to provide a description on the About Me section. This is the real estate where you tell the audience what you’re all about and what you’ve got to offer. Make the description concise and on-point.
Finally, make sure to verify your website. Verifying your website tells Pinterest that your business is legit. Just enter the business URL and tap “Claim.” You’ll be prompted to confirm by uploading an HTML file or meta tag. Once you’ve successfully accomplished this, you can proceed with creating your boards.

2. Create Your Pinterest Boards

The next thing that you’ll have to deal with are the Pinterest boards, pinboards, or simply boards. These boards are where you put together imageries and topics that fall under the same category or plan. The boards serve two purposes: a place where people can explore your interest, and a place where you can distribute or source your pins out from. It’s also essential to remember that other pinners can follow your boards, and when they do, that means they’re interested in that similar topic.

Now, creating your first few Pinterest boards are easy, but require some careful consideration. First, you need to nail down what you want to offer or what value you want your business to provide. Second, you need to determine what your audience needs. Find common ground and, you get the best boards.

If you’re a brand or business, you’d want to create a board for every type of product or service that you offer so it’s easier for others to find what they want and follow you if they’re interested. For instance, if your business is all about party planning, you could make separate boards for DIY party décors, design inspirations, themed parties, party food, and so on. You could even go as specific as you want to be.

After that, you have to decide on the boards’ names. Don’t get too fancy because even naming these boards need a strategy. To ensure that your boards are picked up by search engines, consider using Pinterest analytics to find out what your audience has been searching for and then use a reliable keyword tool like Pinterest Search Keywords to get the best recommendations on keywords that apply to your niche or industry.

3. Boost Your SEO

Search engine optimization is now bigger than ever, and it’s just as crucial in Pinterest as it is in Google or Bing. Some people tend to forget that Pinterest is also a search engine, so when people try to search for something, they always use keywords in their query.

Now, the goal is to use those same keywords in your Pinterest content, so your brand or business shows up during searches. Proper keywording on Pinterest allows you to reach out to a specific target audience, and these are people who will likely appreciate your content or even do business with you. Keywords ensure your content shows up when people look for it, giving you the leverage for exposure.

How do you do keywords on Pinterest? Well, there are a couple of places where keywords must be seen.

• Image file

The first place that you want to optimize with keywords is the image file. Imagine this; you’ve made a thorough, well-researched material on the best toys for dogs. You’ve uploaded the file, made the pin, and placed it on the right board. But you forgot to update the Alt-text file, and the image’s file name is IMAGE001.

You’ve lost a good deal of opportunity for optimization there. When people search for the same topic and finds your material, the image file name sort of goes with the pin. And if the Alt-text is not updated, your image can get lost in there somewhere.

You should always name your images appropriately and optimize the file name with keywords to enjoy better optimization. It’s also a great idea to go back to your old pins and see whether you need to update the Alt-text there. If you think that’s a lengthy process, you can also go to pinterest.com/source/yourdomain.com to see which pins need updating.

• Your Profile

Your business profile is another excellent place that you should optimize with keywords. Consider adding strategic keywords next to your name or business name. Don’t forget to add keywords to the profile description as well. In this area, you should be able to explain well, but concisely, how your business can serve the audience. It’s also best to use the same keywords within the description, similar to what you’ve used next to your business name.

• Pin Titles and Descriptions

Each pin represents your brand or business, so the more professional your pins sound, the better. Of course, you’d want to integrate your keywords in there too for SEO. Be as descriptive as you can when writing your pin titles and descriptions. Pinterest likes it when pins have more specific descriptions because it allows the audience to find and decide whether your pins are what they’re looking for.

• Board Titles and Descriptions

Some people go overboard and opt for board titles that sounds fun and cool. That may work, but when optimizing, you should always consider which keywords work with your audience. You should try to use niche-specific keywords. So, if your boards revolve around fashion, which is too broad, you can go as specific as “summer women’s ponchos” or “spring outfits with jeans.”

If your boards are named appropriately, it’s easier to catch the attention of your target audience, and they’d be more likely to check out your pins.

And while you’re on your boards, make sure to add keyword-rich descriptions as well. Ideally, you should describe the board in a few short yet meaningful sentences.

Finding Pinterest Keywords

If you’re not sure how to start finding the right keywords for Pinterest, you can:

• Use the Promoted Pins creators. You type in a set of general keywords, and it’ll give you a list of keyword suggestions. You can take some of these suggestions and use in your content.
• Use keyword tools like the Google Adwords Planner to find keywords in your niche.
• Take advantage of the search bar. When you type in keywords, the bar gives you recent and trending searches around those keywords.

4. Create Effective High-Quality Pins

Creating pins may sound as simple as finding a photo, uploading it on the site and then writing a description. But that’s hardly an effective, high-quality pin. When you’re aiming for success, you want to make sure that your pins have high potentials for sales, conversion, and traffic, and there are a couple of things you need to take into account to achieve that.

Let’s start with the image. You have to handpick the image that you want to pin carefully. You want to use a high-quality, clear picture for your pins. Vertical pins are preferable because they look beautiful and stunning on mobile phones. The image should be standing at an aspect ratio of 1:2:8. If you’re composing your own pins, you can use tools like Canva, PiktoChart, and Infogram.

Now, you want to make sure that your pin has a striking description. Provide short but concise, meaningful, and useful information on the pin’s description. Also, include the keywords to make the pin more search-engine friendly. The description should be around 300 characters.

Adding a link is also a must to drive back traffic to your website, so you must not forget this. When a pinner wants to learn more about the blog, product, or service, having the page URL of that specific material on the description helps a lot. Don’t use a shortened link though, as Pinterest takes that as spam and may not work.

Add more details to strengthen brand familiarity. You can put the link of your business website, social media handles or logo at the footer of the image. These details make it easier for people to recognize you, particularly when they come across your pin from another source.

5. Know Which Pins to Use

Apart from the regular pin, Pinterest also has other types of pins, such as Rich Pins, Promoted Pins, and Buyable Pins.

Rich Pins are like standard pins, but with added valuable information. Rich Pins are very useful, especially on the business side because you can add real-time product pricing, availability, and link to the product page. But apart from the Product Pin, there are also:

• Movie Pins – which include information on the movie’s reviews and ratings.
• Place Pins – which include information on address, phone number, and maps.
• Recipe Pins – which include information on the meal’s ingredients, number of serving, and cooking time.
• Article Pins – which include information on the description of the article, author, and headline.

Buyable Pins are an excellent way to get people to buy from you even without leaving the platform. It makes the purchasing process simpler and more straightforward. When a user finds your product on Pinterest and would like to purchase it right then and there, then one simply needs to press on the Buy It button. They get to see the product information and price even without directing them to your e-commerce store.
Finally, there are the Promoted Pins. Promoted Pins are advertised pins on Pinterest. These pins allow you to run ads of your business and target demographics, location, devices, and customers who have shown interest in your brand or business. These pins run on CPC or cost-per-click. You get to set a daily budget for the advertising, and you’ll see only when users click on your ad.

Depending on your marketing needs, you can use one, most or all of these pins. These pins serve various needs, and it’s best to study their function properly before selecting the best and most appropriate type of pin to use.

6. Know the Best Times to Pin

You can pin and re-pin any time of the day, but if you want to get the best result, you want to do it at the most strategic times.

According to digital marketing expert Neil Patel, Saturdays are the best days to pin. In particular, 8-11 p.m on Saturdays are optimal. Patel also adds that 2-4 a.m. and 2-4 p.m. are also excellent times to be active on Pinterest.

It’s important to remember though that like other platforms, Pinterest’s algorithm changes frequently. That means that the best times to pin this day or week can change in the next few weeks or months. It’s best to keep yourself updated with the changes, check out the trend, and do your own experiment as well to figure out the optimal pinning schedule.

7. Know the Optimal Frequency of Pinning

The optimal frequency for pinning, both of your own pins and re-pins can vary according to who you ask. According to the website Buffer.com, you should be posting an average of 5 times a day. When you ask other social media strategist, they may suggest between 10-15 pins per day. Others go as often as 20-25 per day.
There’s no clear-cut answer to this, but what remains to be true is that you want to keep pinning consistently to increase your follower base. You can start with a number, say 10 pins per day, and then add or subtract as you deem necessary.

8. Go Social

The good thing about marketing on business Pinterest is that you don’t have to start from scratch if you want to tap your social circles from other platforms. It’s super easy to go social and connect with your friends over at Facebook and Twitter. Just go to your settings, tap the social networks section, and connect your social accounts.

9. Build Relationships

Now that you’re doing quite an activity on Pinterest, the next thing that you need to do to move forward is forge relationships with other pinners, your followers, and even influencers. Reaching out to other people building a relationship with them can tremendously help your business grow on the platform. As you use Pinterest more seriously, you’ll learn to understand what your audience wants and how you’ll be able to serve that. These are just of the benefits of using Pinterest for business that you just can’t underestimate.

Additionally, you want to connect with the audience in such a way that you’re giving your brand its human side. To do that, you should:

• Responding to comment – just as you would react to a Facebook post or Twitter status, you want to address comments on your pins in a friendly and professional way.

• Comment on other’s pins – give your followers some love. Commenting on their pins means you appreciate them. And the good news? They tend to reciprocate.

• Follow the popular boards – if you want to learn more about how Pinterest works with the more established businesses, then follow popular boards (preferably from your own niche and industry).

You’ll see how they use Pinterest in marketing, what their practices are, and maybe you can learn a thing or two from them. Also, commenting on popular pins put you in a position for more exposure. Just make sure to leave sensible, thoughtful, and positive comments to nourish the relationship further.

10. Use Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest analytics is one of the best features when you convert Pinterest to business. With the analytics tool, you get to understand what goes in your Pinterest business account, including:

• Which pins and boards pinners like the most
• The stuff that people save from your site
• Demographics of your Pinterest audience
• How Pinterest drives traffic to your website

Accessing your analytics gives you a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t in your Pinterest marketing strategy. With that said, you can fine-tune your strategy to get your desired results.

Conclusion

Including Pinterest in your marketing strategy in this day and age should be a non-negotiable. Simply put, you can’t afford to be on Pinterest. The platform is growing every minute, allowing you to showcase your business to over two hundred million users. So, whether you want to advertise business on Pinterest, increase your conversion rate, drive more traffic, or improve your following, Pinterest should always be a part of your business marketing campaign.