I am a huge fan of Pinterest, both for personal use and for my business. It's always been an exciting way to group together my interests, but now as an entrepreneur, it enables my customers to visually experience my brand. If you're looking at Pinterest for the first time or you're unsure about a business account, this article will help you understand how your business can really benefit from using Pinterest.
What is The Purpose of Pinterest?
This is a question I have heard multiple times. While many appreciate its unique visual aspect, but are not always sure where to begin. Pinterest is the ultimate discovery platform that has become a powerful tool for small businesses like yours. Using Pinterest for business can enable you to really showcase your products, build brand awareness, and help you to connect with your audience, all whilst monitoring your progress along the way!
Imagine Pinterest as a digital storefront that draws customers in with visuals, stories, and ideas. Done right, it can become a core part of your marketing strategy.
How To Set Up A Pinterest Business Account
Setting up a Pinterest Business account is straightforward:
Visit Pinterest’s Website
- Choose the option to create a business account.
Enter Your Details
- Fill in your business name, email address, and password.
Optimise Your Profile
- Upload a high-quality profile picture of your logo or a professional image of yourself as the founder. Write a clear bio that tells followers what your brand is about and why it exists.
Claim Your Website
- Add your website URL in settings and click “claim.” This gives you access to analytics and branding tools, which are vital for monitoring traffic and engagement.
Pro Tip: Ensure your branding (colours, fonts, and tone) is consistent across your profile to make your business memorable.
Creating Pins
A Pin can be thought of like a post. It requires an image, a title, a description and a link. However it is the image that is most important here. It must be an original image of high-quality and a standard size of 1000 x 1500 px. Your headline should be compelling to attract your audience to your individual pins, followed by enticing content. You can create pins about your products, your brands inspiration, your industry and whatever else you know would be valuable to your customers.
Pinterest also enables you to create 'Rich pins', which are directly connected to your site, enabling real-time pricing, stock levels and the latest product information. This can increase the likelihood of conversions as customers have access to relevant information.
Here's an example; A boutique bakery creates Pin's on recipes, cake designs, or decorating tips, while linking each Pin to their online store or blog.
Creating Pinterest Boards
It's time to create your first board! This is where you let your creativity take over. A board is like a category, it enables you to group ideas together. One board could consist of pins all about your products and services, another could group together all your blog posts! Ensure all your boards are relevant to your business and will appeal to your target audience. It is also very important to include keywords in the board descriptions to boost their discoverability. There is no point having beautifully crafted pins gathered in a board, no one can find!
Promoting on Pinterest
Like all the other social media platforms, Pinterest also offers advertising opportunities which are called 'Promoted Pins'. These pins can improve the visibility of your content to help you reach a wider audience. Promoted pins allow you to reach a more specific audience in terms of demographic and interests etc. However, I do not recommend running promoted pins until you have a good understanding of who your target demographic is, or you risk spending money on the wrong market.
How To Make The Most Out Of Pinterest
Pinterest is an excellent tool that can give your business the boost it needs. Here are some of the things you can do to make the most out of Pinterest.
Increase Your Website Traffic
If you have already verified your website on Pinterest, every pin you create can contain this website link. This direct link ensures a seamless journey for your customers and once you get a link click, it means your pin enticed consumers enough to want to learn more! Well done, you are moving them down the sales funnel!
Another way pinterest can bring traffic to your site it through your blog. If you regularly publish articles on your site, it make sense to connect your sites feed to your Pinterest! This means a pin will be automatically generated every time you publish an article.
Build Your Brands Identity
Ever heard of visual storytelling? Pinterest provides your business with the opportunity to fully express your brands personality, everything from its tone of voice to its values can be communicated through your pins. Utilise powerful imagery and share your businesses story with your consumers. Storytelling is an effective way to evoke an emotion in people, and they will love you for it.
Be sure to remain consistent with your pins to help make your brand memorable, consistency also enables consumers to trust your brand, so make some branding decisions and stick to them.
Engage with your Audience
Ultimately Pinterest is a social media platform and so it is wise to be social! Your small business can engage with your audience by responding to comments, creating polls, and collaborating with users on shared boards. This interaction, however small not only fosters new relationships, it strengthens the relationships you have with existing customers. And remember it is always cheaper to retain customers than gain new ones.
Search Engine Optimise
Just like with Google, it is necessary to optimise your content on Pinterest. You should conduct keyword research to understand what your target audience is searching for and incorporate those keywords into pin descriptions, board titles, and even your profile information.
How To Use Pinterest Analytics
Arguably one of the most important tools on Pinterest. After you have been operating a business account for a short time, you will start to see some figures gathered on the performance of your pins. This will be new to you if you have only ever operated a personal account. So you should use this data to identify what works and what doesn't. Which pins performed the best? Which pins received the most saves? This will give you an idea of the kind of pins you should create next. Audience insights will take a while to display so give this time. In the meantime you can focus on making sure your pins match consumer interests.
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