How to use pinterest for your business

When people mention Pinterest, it often conjures up thoughts of wedding inspiration or home decor aesthetics. But is Pinterest a good marketing tool for your business?

The answer is yes, a very good one indeed. Not only can it help you decide what you’re having for dinner tonight, but it can also become the biggest driver of traffic to your website.

he most common misconception about Pinterest is that it is a social media platform, when in fact, it is more similar to a search engine. This means that there is an entire audience searching for what it is you have to offer. The best part? 9 in 10 Pinterest users are on the platform for purchasing inspiration (Sprout Social, 2021).

So now that you know why you need to incorporate Pinterest into your marketing strategy, let’s talk about how!

Ensure your account is a Business account + Apply for Rich Pins

Converting your account to a business account will give you access to information about when your audience is active. It will also provide analytics as to what content is performing the best. Additionally, applying for Rich Pins will mean that information from your website will automatically sync to pins. So for example, a product Rich Pin will include information on the price and availability. If you make any updates on your website, this will also be automatically updated on the Rich Pin. The easiest way to apply for Rich Pins is as follows:

Activate the Yoast SEO plugin.

Go to the social tab and then the facebook tab.

Where it says ‘Add Open Graph meta data’ make sure it is enabled.

Then go to the ‘Rich Pins Validator’ page on Pinterest (you can google this and it will come up).

Enter a URL from your website and click validate – if it says its been approved then that’s all you have to do.

Target your ideal customer

Before you get started on Pinterest, it is a good idea to get very clear on who you’re targeting. From here, it is much easier to determine what type of boards they will want to see. Not every board has to be directly related to the product or service you are selling, but they must be aligned with your brand. A company that sells activewear might have a board dedicated solely to their activewear, then another board featuring fitness advice, and another with healthy recipes. All pins within these boards are something that their target audience is interested in and all will contain pins that link back to the business’ website.

Use a scheduling tool

The most efficient way to manage your Pinterest marketing is to use Tailwind (or another scheduling tool) to plan your content well in advance. This will take your Pinterest game to a whole new level. Tailwind also allows you to join groups with other creators where you share their content and they will share yours. This is a great way to get new eyes on your pins and thus increase the chances of getting more traffic to your website.

Repin other people’s content

The best part about Pinterest is that it really feels like a community. Sharing other people’s work is not only allowed, but encouraged! Though sharing your own high-quality content should be your main priority, re-pinning from other people that align with your brand can still be a valuable part of your strategy. In order to gain traction with Pinterest it is important to be pinning very regularly. It will be difficult to do this if you are only using your own content.

Create beautiful Pins using Canva

First things first, Pinterest is a visual tool. It doesn’t matter how great your content is if the imagery you are pinning is not appealing. This will mean that people will not repin from your boards, resulting in fewer eyes on your content and thus, less click-throughs to your website. Canva is a great tool that allows you to create gorgeous pins – and better yet, it’s free! It’s super easy to use, particularly since they provide Pinterest templates that you can customise to your brands aesthetic. There are also a range of other free design tools available online as well.

Pro tip: If you have a blog for your business, be sure to make multiple Pins for each post with different headings and/or imagery. You can then test to see which is performing the best.

Incorporate SEO and Hashtags

Like I said earlier, Pinterest is a search engine. Consequently, it is vital to incorporate an SEO strategy. If you don’t know what SEO means, it is referring to search engine optimisation. In simpler terms, it involves designing content in a way that will mean it is more likely to appear close to the top of the search results. In order to do this, you have to incorporate keywords into your description. Or better yet, think of them as key phrases that you think your target audience might be searching for to solve a problem they have. Here’s an example:

If you had a dancewear shop and were pinning a blog post about how to nail a dance audition, your key phrase would be something like ‘dance audition tips’. This phrase would work much better than using ‘dance’ as a keyword, which is far less specific.

Hashtags can also be used in your pin descriptions. However, be sure to use less than you normally would for Instagram. 3 hashtags would be enough for Pinterest.

Pin your Instagram posts

Connecting your Instagram account to Pinterest is a great way to get more eyes on your Instagram account. Instagram posts shared to Pinterest have a direct link back to your Instagram account. This will give your audience on Pinterest a chance to also follow you on Instagram. Given that Instagram posts often have a short lifespan, it’s a great way to make your content go further. Fear not, sharing your posts from Instagram to Pinterest can all be scheduled very easily using Tailwind.

These tips are only touching the surface of what Pinterest marketing can do for your Business. Trust us, Pinterest is about to come out of the shadow of Instagram and Facebook!