Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is key to being successful on Pinterest. As a brand, who are you looking to appeal to? Establishing a target audience and discovering what matters to them provides a foundation for building an effective Pinterest presence. Delve into the profiles of competitors and similar businesses – look at who they follow, what they pin and how active they are. You can also check out the pinners who follow them, as this is likely the community you want to be appealing to.

Maintain Relevant Boards

Keeping your target audience in mind, come up with a list of a few relevant themes. Starbucks, one of Pinterest’s top brands, has achieved success with boards such as “Coffee Moments,” “Handcrafted,” “Coffee DIY” and “Beautiful Objects.” Pin appealing images that suit the themes – be conscious of how the boards are developing and aim to provide value and inspiration. A web design company’s boards, to offer another example, may include “Flat Design,” “Responsive Design” and “Portfolio of Work.”

Consider Employee and Customer Boards

A neat idea for staff is to implement employee boards, where each employee can showcase their work and collect relevant images that resonate with them. For example, a boutique digital agency may have separate boards for their web designer, web developer, copywriter and social media specialist. You can also consider allowing users to pin to your boards, or dedicating a small number of boards to that purpose. This is a great way to heighten user engagement and interact with clients and potential customers.

Provide a Variety of Content

Variety is the spice of life, and the same holds true for Pinterest. While visual content in and of itself is highly engaging, it’s important to remember to mix it up and have value as the top priority. Don’t fall into the trap of only pinning photographs of your products – as long as there is an image to go alongside it, you can pin videos, blog posts, how-to’s, eBooks and more.

Integrate Your Website and Social Media Accounts

Enhance your Pinterest account by connecting it to your website and social media profiles. Connectivity is key in social networking; with Pinterest, your pins can be viewed on your business’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. A great way to advertise and engage with users, you can also add “Pin It” buttons to images, which allow users to pin to their boards directly from your website.

Knowing your target audience, maintaining a variety of relevant, interesting boards, integrating your website and social media profiles with your account and providing a valuable assortment of content types are four great ways to use Pinterest for business. The Web is constantly growing and changing, and it’s up to marketers to keep their online presence fresh and engaging. One of the most popular websites since its launch in 2010, Pinterest is today’s top social media network.

Image Credit: CT Social

It Drives Traffic

Though it hasn’t been around as long, Pinterest drives more traffic than social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Having surpassed 10 million unique views in February of 2012, Pinterest is a top channel for advertising businesses’s products, services, brand personalities and overall online presences. This drives website traffic, which is great for companies because a growth in visitors is essential to generating leads and, in turn, sales.

It Increases Inbound Links

Pinterest increases inbound links to websites, which are gold in the marketing world. Each pin includes a link to the source of the image and the majority of the images that are both pinned and repinned come from the Web. While it’s important to note that the links on Pinterest are nofollow, which means that they do not boost the rank of the page being pointed to, the presence of a link directing users to your site is valuable in and of itself.

It Generates Sales

Every retail company’s dream, Pinterest converts more visitors into customers than other social networks. It accounts for 25 percent of all retail referral traffic and up to 60 percent of social traffic for home and furnishings. Consumers who shop on Pinterest also spend significantly more than those who shop on Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest offers a direct path to purchase for consumers via pinned and repinned images of products that link directly back to, in many cases, eCommerce business websites. Conversion rate increases and the amount of time spent in the sales funnel decreases.

It’s the “It” Thing

Many Pinterest users will admit that, at first, they didn’t see the appeal. However, those same users are the ones who confess to becoming hopelessly addicted after deciding to see what all the fuss is about. People love Pinterest – it’s the fastest-growing social network of all time. User engagement is incredibly high and this is evidenced by the number of brands that have succeeded on the network. The excitement and popularity is unlikely to die down anytime soon, so get in there.

Pinterest is a great business marketing tool because it drives traffic, generates sales and increases inbound links. Arguably today’s most popular social media site, user engagement is at an all-time high and brands are reaping the benefits. Pinterest integrates seamlessly with websites via the “Pin It” button, which allows site visitors to pin images directly to their boards, as well as Facebook and Twitter profiles. Stay tuned for Part 3 of Pinterest 101, which will dive into the best tips for businesses.

Image Credits: We Build Buzz & The Pinterest Queen 

Create An Account

When Pinterest was first created, those who wanted to join had to receive an invitation from a registered member or, by request, the site itself. Nowadays, signing up is quick and easy and can be done via your Facebook account or email address. You then develop your profile by adding as much, or as little, information as you’re comfortable with. The options include first and last name, location, a profile picture, short bio, website URL and Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Building a Board

Boards are used to organize pins by topic. Open to interpretation, users and businesses can organize their boards in whichever way suits them best. When you create a board you’re prompted to choose a name and a relevant category. Popular categories include Fashion, Arts and Crafts, Holidays and Home and Garden, and your boards can be as broad or narrow as you desire, from the general “Wedding Ideas” to “Wedding Dresses,” “Wedding Decor” and “Wedding Colours.” Businesses can create boards that reflect their products, services, staff and creativity. For example, Home Depot’s boards include “Tools and Equipment You Can Rent” and “Outdoor Living.”

Finding and Following

Pinterest has a handy feature that allows users to connect their Facebook, Yahoo! and Gmail accounts to find out which of their current friends are active on the site. From there, you can follow “pinners” to stay up to date with what they’re posting and repinning. This can encompass all of their activity; if you’re only interested in a certain category, you can also follow individual pinboards.

What’s a “Pin”?

Not surprisingly, pins form the basis of Pinterest. A pin is an image or video that you add to a board you’ve created. This can be done by directly uploading an image from a computer file or by using the “Pin It” bookmarklet, which allows you to pin directly from outside websites such as lifestyle blogs. While many users do indeed upload their own pins, over 75% of pins are, in fact, repins. Repinning, which is when you pin an image that belongs to someone else to one of your boards, makes the Pinterest world go round. When you pin or repin an image, a pop-up window appears that allows you to select the appropriate board and enter a comment or description.

User Interaction

Pinterest is a social networking site and engaging with other users is a primary function. While following and repinning are great ways to make contact (users are notified) Pinterest, much like Facebook, has a “like” option. Liking a pin is a great way to let someone know that you enjoy their post without saving it to one of your boards. You can also comment on your own and others’ individual pins; in a similar fashion to Twitter, fellow pinners can be tagged using the “@” symbol.

With 5 million articles pinned on a daily basis, Pinterest’s growth and popularity has nowhere to go but up. A solid understanding of the basics is crucial to navigating any social media platform and getting a handle on the difference between pins and repins, and how to create and navigate boards, is the first step. Having recently emerged as a profitable way to showcase and market companies of all sizes, Part 2 of Pinterest 101 will discuss how and why it’s a great tool for businesses.

Image Credits: The Pinterest Queen & Jeff Bullas