Social media is relentlessly helping businesses to grow. True as this is, the debate continues- where to start? Which social media channel to use? Wishpond had compiled data from social networking sites last year. The result as quoted on Entrepreneur showed that “business owners would be wise to ramp up their presence on the social sharing site Pinterest.
43 percent of Pinterest users interact with retailers or brands they like on the site, compared with 24 percent of Facebook users. In fact, 70 percent of Pinterest users surveyed say they use Pinterest for inspiration on what to buy. Pins that include an item’s price get 36 percent more likes than pins that don’t.”
There is no denial that content with images that catches eyes are bound to get more views and clicks. 92.6% people make their buying decisions on what they ‘see’. Courtesy Pinterest’s “rich pins” feature, you can now display extra information on the pin itself. There are five types of rich pins doing the rounds currently- movies, product, recipe, article and place. Businesses are now turning to Pinterest- because visual content is more enriching than a plain blog. Here are few tips you can add to your checklist while using Pinterest for your marketing needs.
#1 First things first
- Give a kickstart to your Pinterest marketing by first setting up your brand page and account. Get your marketing team on board, and off you go.
- The next step is figure out what type of collections will help you showcase and leverage your business. For example, if a brand like Etsy went on to pin food recipes, that would be simply out of the league. Their boards talk about the brand.
- Once you are done with “what type of boards”, next is a name that is appealing. It need not be something ‘never-heard-off’, but should be able to strike a chord with your audience. For instance, the Grillin’ and Chillin’ board from Aggies Kitchen with its mouth watering pictures has earned almost a million followers.
- After that, its time for pinning and re-pinning. Start with pinning images from your website and brand. Browse categories related to your business and re-pin to your existing boards or may be you can do with creating a new board. Sort out pins that are rich in visual content and have been repinned by others too. It need not be your products specifically when it comes to repinning. You can repin a highly popular image to a new board ‘miscellaneous’. This way you can create a better awareness about your account and increase your pinterest followers.
- While repinning helps, what is also essential is connecting with other pinners. Following, connecting and commenting on pins posted by others can help you grow your network as well as spread the word about your brand. That obviously cancels out irrelevant commenting.
- Your every attempt will go for a toss if you are not consistent. Your every single move gets noticed. So its highly recommended that you put up pins regularly, comment on relevant pins where you can promote your brand, and follow boards.
- While you put your focus on Pinterest, you still cannot ignore the power of other networking sites. Use them to talk about your new Pinterest account. You can also do an email campaign and invite your audience to check out your boards.
- Get your employees on board as well. Your employees will be the first to point out if your boards are appealing or not. Also they can help in spreading the word via their social media profiles.
#2 Give a heads-up to the Pinterest community
Pinterest is not just about pinning! There’s a lot more to it.
- To start off with, your content is your king. Like any other marketing strategy, content speaks volumes about your brand. Now you cannot write a whole blog on Pinterest, but this is what you can do- Pinning only your products will not pull audience. You are being self-obsessed in the eyes of your followers. Interesting content need not be from your desk alone- find interesting content on others’ portals that are worth sharing, and pin them. This not only entices your audience with new rich content but also creates a goodwill for your brand.
- Pinterest doesn’t have a “brand” page like that in Facebook or Google+, or even Twitter. A brand is known by its name, logo and boards. It is essential to sort out and categorize your brand. Segregating each product might bring in the risk of followers to ‘unfollow’ you. If a user finds you via a Pinterest board, then he/she will definitely check out all other boards before making a decision to buy. If you visit Etsy’s pinterest profile, you will discover that boards are categorized systematically and beautifully. Each board talks of a different topic- Etsy Pets has everything about pets, starting with pet tattoos, portraits, things for pets, and more. The Jewelry board has the most beautiful collection. The idea of separating Wedding Jewelry board only justifies the idea of sorting out your products keeping in mind your customers’ needs and demands.
- Too much of self-proclamation may backfire all your efforts. It is necessary to acknowledge other brands. Its same everywhere- you follow others, acknowledge good work and in return you get the same from them.
#3 Do more than pinning and following
- Pinning, following and increasing followers is something that you need to do all the time on Pinterest. That doesn’t mean you cannot do more than that. Hosting interesting contests can surely make Pinning more fun. Let your viewers know about a contest where pinning can win them prizes. Giving out goodies or gift cards can pull a large audience at one go. Also it adds to the fun of sharing and pinning. The “Star-Studded Style Contest” by Famous Footwear had a great impact on its followers. They offered a ‘trip to Los Angeles during TV’s biggest weekend for the ultimate star treatment’ last year between July 22nd and August 3rd.
- Another good way to engage your viewers is allowing them to create boards- that is, a fan curated board. This helps you in establishing a deeper connection with your brand-fans and loyal followers by allowing them to contribute their pins. Such a fan curated board is the Fall Decor Board that has handpicked pins from Shutterfly and other brands.
- Keyword analysis is no more restricted to blogging. Today pins are showing up in Google and Bing search results. Hence, the 500 characters that you get to describe your pin needs to contain relevant keywords that will help in SEO.
#4 Hashtags and Pins go hand-in-hand
The culture of hashtags first began on Twitter to highlight important news requiring immediate notice. With days, the idea of ‘important hashtags’ underwent a global change. Today hashtags stand for “forget everything, THIS is important”. It is like a head-turner, a trend setter. A common phrase like “Lets do it” will not have the desired impact. But put it as #LetsDOIt- and the impact it has on social media will marvel you. Hashtags have gone beyond Twitter. It is now everywhere. So why not use them while pinning?
Here are some pros and cons associated with the use of #tags on Pinterest
- Hashtags help in leveraging the search results for those relevant keywords. So use them wisely. For example, if you type #GardeningTips on your desktop version of Pinterest, a search result as follows may come up.
- Again not every hashtag gets indexed. So it is advisable to do a research before adding hashtags that will not reap anything in the end.
- Pinterest hashtags do not work same everywhere. It is clickable on desktop version but not in mobiles. This is important factor to keep in mind because around 75% of the traffic comes from mobile users. So adding too many hashtags may not only make your description look overcrowded but also decrease the traffic inflow.
- If hashtags interests you so much, then you might want to generate a unique hashtag for your brand. For instance, Cadbury Silk’s Valentine hashtag #FirstLovels did quite strike the chord with its customers, although it was mainly used on Twitter.
- The last point to keep in mind is- never to include a hashtag in board and account descriptions. Board names should have relevant keywords rather than that being preceded by a hashtag. This is because a board name can show up in Google search results, and as far as searching on Google concerns we never do a search like #Gardeningtips!
Pinterest is growing steadily to become one stop for businesses to market their brands. The potential of this platform is slowly being unveiled. At this moment Pinterest has captured the imagination of people, especially women and brands are making full use of this opportunity. Keep up with the trend and keep your boards colourful and catchy!
