With over 322 monthly active users who are looking for new products, Pinterest can be
a powerful marketing tool for your online store.
Hey, Noni from Printful here.
Pinterest isn't just a moodboard for "pinspiration" like recipes and home decor ideas.
When you use Pinterest as a brand, you can organize and share content that inspires people,
increases your brand exposure, and gives people another way to shop.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a rapidly growing visual search engine and a tool for planning your dream
life.
Pinners come to the app for "pinspiration"—they're planning parties, wardrobes, and vacations
and they're looking for aspirational content.
Pinterest is based around the concept of saving and sharing visuals or pins onto themed boards,
which can then be followed by other users.
Think of it as a visual bookmarking tool, which makes it a platform perfect for photos,
graphics, and videos.
You can follow the boards of your friends and businesses, like and comment on pins,
re-pin content, and collaborate with other users.
With business accounts, you can even link to your website so people can buy products
right from the app, but we'll get into that later in the video.
So why use Pinterest?
Why use Pinterest?
With over 2 billion searches per month, Pinterest is the fourth most popular social media platform
in the US and pins are more spreadable than tweets and have a much longer half life than
Facebook posts.
Pinterest is also the #2 source of social media traffic to Shopify stores, which makes
it a marketing tool worth investing in for online sellers.
Another huge plus is that people go to Pinterest to look for new products!
75% of Pinterest users have said they're very interested in new products and 50% of Pinterest
users have bought a product after seeing a promoted pin.
Pinterest also converts well to sales!
On average, each page on Pinterest is also worth around 78 cents in sales, drives two
site visits and 6 page views, and is repinned around 10 times
And if you sell women's fashion and home decor—you're in luck!
These categories are in the top five most popular categories on Pinterest so you'll
have a better shot at becoming successful on Pinterest.
With all of that in mind, let's get into how to build your profile.
1.
Build your profile
You're going to want a business account so to get started you can either add a business
profile to your personal account, convert your personal account into a business account,
or create a new business account.
We'll create one from scratch.
First you'll want to change your name and add a profile photo that represents your brand.
Most pins and pages are discovered organically so feel free to throw in a couple of keywords
in your name that showcase your specialty.
And be sure to write a good, keyword-rich description of your business as well.
Then claim your storefront!
This allows you to track your website analytics.
You'll also want to add the Pinterest tag to your website's HTML, which will allow you
to track conversions and see what people do on your site after engaging with your pins.
2.
Plan your content
Now you're all set to start planning and creating content!
The main types of content you can create on Pinterest are product pins, blog post graphics,
infographics, gifs, videos, and lead magnets.
To decide which of these to focus on, you'll need to find out what kinds of content are
getting the most shares and pins in your niche.
So to start, you'll want to do some keyword research.
Head to Pinterest and Google to see what words people use to find the products you sell.
Write these keywords down and look back at them whenever you publish new content.
To learn more about search engine optimization and how to incorporate it into your marketing
strategy, check out our video on SEO.
The link is in the description below.
Another way to figure out what types of content to create is to research your competition.
Take a look at what popular creators in your niche are doing and look at their boards to
help you understand what works and what doesn't.
Some factors to take into account are the topics they're choosing, which content types
work, and what their engagement rates look like for different types of content.
Now we'll get into some content best practices.
Pinterest supports vertical images so aim for a high-quality image 2:3 aspect ratio.
You can create an image with these dimensions in an app like Canva or Pablo, which come
with templates that have been pre-made for Pinterest's aspect ratio.
These apps are also great for creating text overlays, which work famously on Pinterest.
In terms of your images—simple, clear, and attractive photos work best.
For clothes and accessories, use real people to model them in everyday settings so your
audience can envision themselves using the product in real life.
The same thing goes for home decor—rather than posting standalone product photos, show
how your product would look in a real house.
And keep in mind that brighter images and images without faces perform better.
And just because Pinterest is mostly for visuals, doesn't mean you should skip on copy.
Tell people the story of your brand and products and allow them to envision themselves as customers.
Your descriptions should be positive, helpful, keyword focused, and give the reader something
to do.
However, don't add any "sales-y" calls to action or reference Pinterest functionality.
Also it's good to avoid promotional information and use hashtags sparingly.
And because content on Pinterest is re-shared so frequently, include your logo subtly on
your original content so it can be traced back to you.
After you've got some content ideas jotted down, pay special attention to crafting keyword-rich
titles and descriptions and related hashtags for your pins.
This will make it easier for your audience to discover your boards.
Then upload a high quality image that you can crop, and add logos and text to the photo
in the Pi n editor.
After that, hit publish and choose the board you want to pin your content to.
Just remember that the first 15-20 pins on each board are the most important because
they're the first thing people see when they look at your board.
These pins especially need to be relevant, valuable, evergreen, and useful.
You can organize your boards by seasonality, product types, or type of content like infographics
and blog posts.
Then select up to five showcase boards, which will appear right under your name and bio.
This is where you'll want to host your best original branded content that establishes
your authority and shows your audience what you're offering.
You'll also want to add a cover board to your main profile.
You can either showcase some of your boards as your profile cover or set an image or video
as your profile cover.
Just make sure that this cover photo will tell your audience more about what your niche
is.
Now, let's get into how to optimize your pins.
3.
Optimize your pins
One of the major perks of having a business account on Pinterest is how easy the app makes
it for users to buy from a pin.
You can make buying easy for your customers by using Shop The Look pins, the shop tab
for business profiles, and integrating Rich Pins.
Shop The Look pins allow you to click on a specific product that interests you and takes
you directly to the product page to buy.
However they're only available on Android and iOS in the US and for specific platforms
like Shopify.
Then there's the Shop tab for business profiles.
This allows you to go to a businesses' profile and shop for products directly from their
page.
Lastly, there are Rich Pins, which are regular pins filled with information about your product
like the price and what your brand is.
It also features an automatic price drop tool so everyone who pinned it will be notified
about price drops.
The complication with Rich Pins though is that they involve metatags and you need to
wait for Pinterest's approval.
And be sure to link your pins to your website and integrate Pinterest into your website.
You can do this by using the Pinterest widget builder that's available for WordPress, Wix,
and Blogger.
Connect your social accounts to Pinterest and cross-promote your presence across all
platforms.
After you've optimized your pins, it's time to schedule your content.
4.
Schedule your content
For best results, you'll want to pin 5-30 new pieces of original content throughout
the day.
You can do this by curating your pins on a secret board and pinning them publicly as
the day goes by.
The best times to post depend on your audience so be sure to look at your analytics to see
when they're most active.
In general, the best times to post are between 2-4PM EST and 8PM-1AM EST.
Saturday mornings in general are going to be your best bet.
If you want to pre-schedule and automate your posting, check out Hootsuite and Sprout Social,
both of which manage post scheduling for you.
And once you've pinned some content, don't be afraid to re-pin your older pins!
Not everybody is going to see everything you post so repin content that has a proven track
record of good engagement.
The next step after you've optimized your pins, is to engage and collaborate with pinners.
5.
Engage and collaborate with pinners
Repin, like, and post personalized comments on pins relevant to your niche so you can
build a relationship with other pinners and their followers will check out your brand.
Answer commenter's questions and be sure to thank people for re-sharing or liking your
content!
This will help you build that brand loyalty that will keep your audience engaged with
your pins and your business.
You can also join community boards!
Community boards on Pinterest allow multiple users to contribute to one shared board.
It's a smart way to get your brand's content in front of new audiences in your specialty.
Start out by following popular boards that are relevant to your niche and comment on
their new or pop ular pins for brand visibility.
If you're interested in joining that board, check out the board's description for a link
to apply or email the owner.
You can also start your own community board by inviting your followers and industry experts
to join.
Before you invite them to join, you'll want to build a relationship with these experts
and influencers first.
Start by repinning their pins, following their boards, and leaving thoughtful comments on
their pins.
After some time has passed, then feel free to ask them if you can post on one of their
boards or if they'd like to post on one of yours.
And make sure you have an idea of what you're looking for on your board so you can share
a detailed vision with them.
To track your followers, monitor group board activity, and research trending content, look
into using apps like Pingroupie, Loop88, or Pin Follow.
And lastly, be sure to track your analytics.
6.
Track your analytics
Pinterest Analytics shows you which pins and boards are getting the most engagement, who
your audience is, what devices people are using and what your referral traffic from
your website looks like.
Overall, it'll help you understand what content you should focus on posting for best results.
For even more detailed analytics, check out Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Tailwind, or
Sprout Social.
And that's everything you need to know about Pinterest Marketing!
How do you use Pinterest for your business and what content do you like to see from other
brands?
Let us know in the comments below!
Hey!
I hope you enjoyed that video.
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videos on our channel to help your store become more successful.