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December 7, 2020
Pinterest is a growing channel for social media marketing, and it has shown remarkable potential, with more referral traffic than other social media platforms. With larger players like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter receiving more brand attention, Pinterest is likely the most underrated social media platform, but recently its advantages have made companies wonder whether it might be time to launch a Pinterest campaign.
A highly valuable marketing tool, it has recorded over 442 million active monthly users, and is the fourth most popular social media platform in the U.S., with approximately 28 percent of adults having a Pinterest account. From the year 2018 to Q3 2019, its global monthly active user base grew 38 percent, from 171 million to 235 million.
Pinterest’s user base remains strong, and aside from sharing information about gourmet food, exotic travel destinations and home décor ideas, you can leverage integrated features within their business accounts, allowing you to access Pinterest analytics, the Pinterest business hub, and details about paid ads.
This will help you narrow down who is looking at your posts so you can tailor the next ones to that target audience, allowing you to build a robust user base of fans who want to interact with your messages. As a visual search engine, it gets your business or brand “noticed.” All you need is to create a strong and effective Pinterest marketing strategy for your business, and you can get started.
There are numerous advantages to using this platform for marketing. It offers myriad opportunities for visual imagination, user engagement, and the potential to drive sales for your business. Listed below are a few ways Pinterest can help you reach your goals.
Studies show that approximately 95 percent of the images circulated on Pinterest are pinned or repinned. If you look at the number of shares your Facebook posts get, you’ll probably find that the answer is far below 95 percent, making Pinterest a great way of getting the word out. This shows that Pinterest users are creating user-generated content for brands. What makes it more effective is the fact that every pin can include a link, which gives you an excellent opportunity to direct users to your website.
Pinterest marketing is not at all complicated. You don’t need a set requirement of skills to market your brand on Pinterest. Visually attractive pins, a basic knowledge of SEO and a strong desire to analyze the results of your campaigns will get you started.
Brands can associate their pins with a geographic location. This will help you get featured as part of a specific location, and can help you target specific areas in your campaigns. This feature can be used both for business networking and cross-promotion.
You see an image, click on it, and instantly get a link that lands on a page where you can buy the product. This is where Pinterest stands out. It cuts the steps from discovering a product to buying it. Research shows that 47 percent of Pinterest users log on to the platform with an intent to make a purchase. Thus, the chances of losing a potential customer is lower than other social media platforms.
Unlike other social media platforms, the goal on Pinterest is not to gain number of followers but just to search, save and share things with people. They are a highly engaged set of users, as they can scan many images at once, pin what they like, and scroll through the pages without the need to “caption, edit and hashtag” a post.
The content available on Pinterest can be pinned or repinned as long as the user wants to, which means no content gets outdated if pinned or repinned. It holds value, can drive traffic to your page, and get conversions. The rule of “new content is better” doesn’t necessarily apply here.
Pinterest can be a great tool to reveal evolving or ever-changing trends in your business or the industry you deal with. On Pinterest, trending products and popular keywords are reflected automatically on a real-time basis. Likewise, you can track your promoted pins, giving you an idea about their performance.
A study from Pinterest for Business shows that advertising on Pinterest offers more success and better ROI than advertising on other platforms. Brands earned $60 more in profit than from other social media platforms for every $100 spent on Pinterest. This has been highlighted in a study by Pinterest for Business.
Pinterest is a great marketing tool for businesses of any size, and it is crucial to have a powerful marketing strategy for your business on Pinterest. Below are a few tips and tactics that’ll help you nail it.
Use Pinterest boards to make people aware of your brand, establish brand authority, and influence them to buy your product. Pinterest imposes no set limit to the number of boards — you can organize each of them (content type, ideas, themes, etc.) in a way that makes sense and holds value for your business. You can even invite users to shared boards. When the user finds your account relevant and reliable in the industry, it’ll lead to brand trust, customer loyalty, and a strong customer relationship. Eventually, you'll find greater results in terms of ROI — repeated sales, happy customers as brand advocates, and a potential customer base.
Pinterest is all about visuals. The content you share, from images, videos and infographics and beyond, must be rich and appealing to the user. Engagement starts right here. Therefore, you should ensure that the content you post (every pin), is high quality, has brand relevance and meets your goal.
On Pinterest, people search the same way they do on Google. Therefore, you need to choose your keywords wisely when creating a board. The right keyword for your pin will boost the organic traffic and appear more on the feed. In addition, Pinterest's keyword-targeting tool will help you understand the performance of the keywords.
Pinterest users are connected to shopping, so sharing your content around holidays and other shopping periods will help you reach a larger audience base and increase engagement. You need to be aware of both seasonal content and what’s trending. While you define your marketing strategy, you should also be aware of your competitors who are highly active on Pinterest. Monitor their boards to understand their performance – what works and what doesn’t.
When creating your Pinterest account, choose the right category for your business or brand. As users search for defined categories and their related pins, it’ll be easier for them to find your pin.
Pinterest is a visual search engine, with its own algorithm and set SEO rules. In order to increase your ranking, you need to implement the SEO rules on your account rather than relying on the Google SEO program that you may be accustomed to as part of your web-based marketing strategy.
Ideally, you should pin at least once a day. According to Pinterest, pinning consistently ensures that your content reaches a wider audience. As a brand, you need to connect with pinners through compelling content. Give them a strong reason to follow your board – create DIYs, educational videos, infographics, how-tos, and more informational content. But before creating any content, know your audience type and what content they like.
On Pinterest, you can even use targeted ads to target the right pinners, around keywords, location, age, demographics or interests, but the mantra remains – “Pinterest is all about visuals!”
Tasnim Ahmed is a content writer at Escalon Business Services who enjoys writing on a multitude of subjects that include finops, peopleops, risk management, entrepreneurship, VC and startup culture. Based in Delhi NCR, she previously contributed to ANI, Qatar Tribune, Marhaba, Havas Worldwide, and curated content for top-notch brands in the PR sphere. On weekends, she loves to explore the city on a motorcycle and binge watch new OTT releases with a plateful of piping hot dumplings!
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