How to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Business
The days are getting longer, birds are chirping, flowers are ready to bloom. It’s no secret – summer is right around the corner, and that means it’s time to step up your online marketing game. As the weather changes, people are ready to get back to crossing items off their to-do list. Whatever industry you’re in, you can expect competition to become increasingly stiff. If you are looking for new ways to improve online visibility, Pinterest is a great tool to do just that.
What is Pinterest?
For those who haven’t been on the hunt for new and exciting ways to serve mac and cheese or the secret to a longer, fuller ponytail, Pinterest is a social network that allows users to share and “Pin” their interests in the form of an image to their own or other boards. It’s easy to use and it’s free to make an account!
Pinterest, really?
Typical Pinterest?
When people think of Pinterest, DIY home decorating, hairstyle tutorials, and recipe blogs come to mind. Pinterest is great for these types of things, so it’s not surprising that this site is more popular among women, more specifically millennial moms. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use Pinterest to target your male demographic—the number of men on Pinterest DOUBLED in 2014.
Regardless of your audience, Pinterest could be that missing piece that takes your business to the next level. People respond strongly to images and Pinterest is the perfect platform to share your interests, illustrate the benefits of working with a professional business, and why prospective clients should choose yours.
But my brand isn’t Pinterest-friendly!
While Pinning might yield more benefits for industries like interior design, painting, and remodeling, there is definitely room to get creative. More and more business owners are beginning to see the value in using Pinterest to promote their brand and drive traffic to their website. Thinking outside the box has its advantages. Take Ed Klammer for example.
Ed who?
Ed Klammer of Capital House Cleaning. He is just one of our many clients who is taking advantage of Pinterest, and he uses Pinterest in all the right ways. Ed Pins from his website and integrates other forms of social media to his Pinterest board. He Pins cleaning tips and his interests with steady consistency, but not to the point of overwhelming his followers’ feeds. Take a look for yourself by clicking here.
Now, doesn’t that remind you of all the spring cleaning you should be doing? That’s the strong visual marketing power of Pinterest at work!
Let others do the leg work!
Installing the “Pin it” button on your website or blog allows Pinners to share your content with a click of a button rather than copy and pasting your URL.
Pinterest makes it easy!
Pinterest offers a tracking feature which allows you to track your promoted pins. This will give you an indication of what’s working and what isn’t. With this feature, you can track three types of activity: Clicks, Repins and Close-ups, and Views.
Rich pins can make you, well, richer!
Putting a lot of time and effort into something and not getting the desired results can be frustrating, but hang in there! Sometimes all it takes is one pin to make your brand spread like wild fire.
Rich Pins allow businesses to include extra information on a pinned image. Currently, there are six different types of rich pins: app, movie, article, product, recipe, and place. These groups have heavy competition, so it pays to use them if your business falls into one of these categories.
Rich Pins show metadata directly on the Pin, so you may need your website designer to help you out if technical work isn’t in your wheelhouse. Once integrated, Rich Pins can help improve click through rate, increase your visibility, and prompt customers to buy your products.
If you are in the travel industry or are selling a product online, we highly recommend looking into it.
Create targeted descriptions!
Pinterest is so much more than finding ways to get and keep your baby asleep – not that there is anything wrong with that. People need help with this! What do your clients need help with? Like other social media platforms, knowing your audience is critically important, and engaging content can help you maintain a relationship with your Pinners.
The single best way to tell the world of Pinterest who you are and what you’re all about is through the names and descriptions of your Pinterest board. Your titles should be optimized to connect with search terms. Kitchen remodeling ideas: good. Kitchen countertop remodeling ideas: even better.
Don’t overthink it!
People tend to overthink social networks when it comes to gaining followers or friends. The most effective way to get a following on social networks is by being social. Don’t be too pushy, go overboard with self-promoting, or buck wild with hashtags. Engage with people! It’s that simple!
People on Pinterest are super friendly! Don’t be afraid to interact!
This is just the tip of the iceberg!
There’s no doubt about it – Pinterest is definitely catching on. At LinkNow Media, we suspect that Pinterest is going to be up there with other forms of social media, like Facebook and Twitter, sooner rather than later. We recommend staying ahead of the curve – sign up for an account today!
Interested in learning more?
We are always looking for new ways to help get our clients get noticed on social media so be sure to stop by often or follow us on Twitter.
This guest post was written by Diandre Prendimano, a Pinterest enthusiast and a content writer here at LinkNow Media.
