How to use Pinterest for business in 2021
Today we’re going to talk about Pinterest. How to use it, why use it, and how to implement this platform into the social media marketing strategy for your business in 2021.
Whether you’re a small business owner or a blogger, a freelance social media manager, or work as a part of an online marketing team for a large corporation – when used right, Pinterest can be your best friend when it comes to free social media organic resources.
There are many benefits to using Pinterest for business. First, its large audience – there are 459 million active monthly users on Pinterest. Second, the platform can boost your brand exposure and attract potential clients. Third, as of today, Pinterest is the only platform that is based on a visual search at the same time operating as a search engine such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. And last, but not least – it is free!
How does Pinterest work?
Let’s start with the basics. Pinterest works by allowing people to create collections of fancy website bookmarks – aka “Pins”. A Pin is the main item you interact with on Pinterest. Each Pin contains a webpage link, a short description of page content, and a form of visual representation – an image or a video. The main reason to use Pinterest for business is to drive traffic organic to your website. The time of posting is not as relevant on Pinterest as it is on other social media platforms where only your most recent posts display in people’s feeds. This means, the content you provide is timeless and can be a constant source of information about your company, services, and/or products.
As a business, you must take advantage of the Rich Pins. The difference between regular Pins and Rich Pins is that the latter provides more information about the featured content (the current product price, list of ingredients for a recipe, the date an article is published, author’s name, calls to action buttons, and more). Think of an ad you may see on Facebook – the image or video is always followed by the text copy that explains what the ad is about. Adding a Call To Action Button navigates the readers directly to the page you want them to visit.
Rich Pins is something you have to apply for. If your web pages contain one of the following: an article, a recipe, or a product, you can add rich meta tags to each of those web pages, use the Rich Pins Validator to get approval, and when approved, you can post your Rich Pin. It may take up to 24 hours to receive the approval.
Pins are organized into “Boards” (typically, those are grouped by a specific topic or an area of interest). For example, you can create a board dedicated to the best travel spots in North America, and pin just about any webpage relevant to this subject. Creating boards for a business Pinterest account is extremely beneficial. By organizing your Pins into boards you communicate with smaller groups of people and learn more about the micro-audiences within your community. Adding new pins keeps the conversation fresh within each board, yet reminds people of the older content. By providing diverse content, you also start a conversation with people who have not heard about your brand before and could be potential clients.
Group Boards are a great feature to get your content exposed to larger audiences. Group Board is essentially a board multiple people can add pins to. You can own a board and invite others to pin to this Board. Other pinners can invite you to participate in their Group Boards. Group Boards typically have a higher following and are very popular amongst the Pinners (Pinterest users).
Why do people love Pinterest?
“It’s like window-shopping! Just imagine your boards are shopping carts – you add things for FREE and never have to pay!” – haven’t you ever heard this before?
On a more serious note, Pinterest has become a platform where people look for topics they’re interested in. It is a perfect place to search for inspiration, how-to’s, ideas, trends, and all kinds of useful information about any industry.
Wondering why people don’t stick to Google or another search engine? This is a valid question. There are a lot of people who prefer Pinterest because it helps to find high-quality content in a matter of a few clicks. But the main difference is a strong visual element. It is much easier to remember colorful Pins than endless Google Search links. Organizing the discovered content into boards is similar to mood boarding – especially if you’re brainstorming ideas for a project such as a wedding or home decor or travel planning. You can gather pins in one place and easily access the source of each pin to get further details.
As a business, you can bring value to your audience by providing information they’re already searching for. Pinterest is extremely SEO-focused and each pin and board are searchable on Google, Bing, etc. What this means for your business is with the use of the right keywords and hashtags, your website gets a free boost of organic traffic from the platform itself as well as search engines.
How to succeed on Pinterest in 2021?
The “algorithm” of Pinterest has been updated at the beginning of 2021. Here are a few tips that will help you optimize your time spent on the platform and make your Pinterest strategy more effective.
Tip #1. Quality is your top priority.
The quality of your content matters more than how many daily pins you add. Pinning more than approximately 50 times a day is likely to be considered spam-like behavior. Instead, try to focus on giving value with every pin.
Fresh Pins are favored by the algorithm. Fresh Pin is created by adding a new graphic, even when you repurpose old content. Try adding 3-5 Fresh Pins daily. Experiment with the type of featuring images and videos, get creative. Use strong visuals – your company logo, imagery, videos, and text. Do not forget to add the flavor and personality of your brand. Make sure your graphics are vertical – Pinterest recommends using the 2:3 ratio (1000 x 1500 px). You can create multiple graphics for the same webpage (product, service) to see which one performs better.
Tip #2. What to post and how often you should post.
Focus on what’s trending. Create content that’s already searched and is popular. Search for trending keywords and topics to figure out what type of content would be beneficial for your brand at this time. Marketers recommend pinning 15 – 25 times a day (not just your own pins but also other people’s pins). You can repin the same content to up to 10 different boards, as long as it’s relevant to those boards. It’s better to wait about 2 days before repinning the same content to another board. For example, if you added a pin on Thursday, pin it to another board on Saturday using a different graphic.
Let’s aim to create 5 fresh pins a day. If there are 30 days in a month, you would need 150 fresh pins – 150 designs you can easily create using Canva or another similar graphic design resource. Here are a few tricks to help you with time management.
Let’s say you publish one blog per week on your site (4-5 articles a month depending on the length of the month). You can pin each article to 10 different boards, which gives you 40 – 50 monthly pins. Knowing that you will be pinning the same content on 10 different boards, use Canva to create 10 different designs. Incorporate videos, images, graphics, loud text boxes, anything and everything that would make your Pin pop. Use a third-party scheduling tool, and schedule your Fresh Pins to be published to a different board every other day.
Pin your posts from other Social Media channels. You can pin your Instagram feed posts, IGTV, Reels, and even Stories; YouTube videos, LinkedIn articles, etc. You can create a fresh pin for each of the pieces of your original content.
Tip #3. Promote Your Pins
A great thing about Promoted Pins is they look exactly like the regular pins. Make sure to create an attractive image or a video, or select content that’s already performing well organically, and boost your visibility. Promoted pins can help increase organic traffic as well.
If you need help getting started with your Pinterest Business page, request more information below, and we’ll happily get on a call with you and discuss your Social Media Strategy.