Does your business have a Pinterest marketing strategy? If not, then you can get started and open up a more opportunities with this fast growing platform.

In this article you’ll find out:

• Why you should use a Pinterest marketing strategy

• What type of content you should consider

• How to grow your audience

• Which Pinterest marketing tools you can use

First thing’s first – Pinterest is not a social network. Pinterest themselves have recently announced that  they are removing the like button and differentiating themselves from social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. What Pinterest are trying to do is encourage people to live in the real world and not the virtual one where content should be shared, read and commented on, not likes for certain vanity metrics Making Pinterest the perfect platform if you want your audience to interact with your business.

But before you start fumbling around and begin figuring out what to do, you should assess its several features and why and how to use them to improve your brand’s presence.

Pinterest has over 150 million monthly active users with over 50 billion pins and 1 billion boards. 80% of its users are women, but its male presence is a fast growing trend. All these potential customers are right at your fingertips if you know how to reach them.

Content marketing on Pinterest

A very important part of building your brand and business using a Pinterest marketing strategy is which content you choose to pin there. The question is which content do you choose that is unique to your brand’s identity but still stand you out from your competitors?

A successful Pinterest marketing strategy has engaging and high quality content and to publish it regularly. Regular posting throughout the day is key to success.  The optimal amount of pins to post in your feed is around 15-20 pins per day and at various times. It is crucial to post a variety of content because a variety of content types build’s a more versatile Pinterest presence.

One option is to check out the competition and view how they are branding themselves. You don’t have to learn from your own mistakes or triumphs you can also learn from others and simultaneously get some ideas on which keywords to use for your own pins.

If you believe you do not have a typical Pinterest-friendly brand you should adapt your Pinterest marketing plan and aim for a more visual story to tell. This is the ideal way to raise awareness of your brand and its inspiration and not just about your products.

For example, we at Blu Mint Digital place a heavy emphasis on colour to stand out against other boards with beautiful images and products. Digital marketing has no images per se, so we utilise colour instead.

Growing your audience

The next step of your Pinterest marketing strategy should be finding more followers. This can be achieved by various means but its main purpose is to have a bigger following and thus a bigger chance of being noticed by your target group.

One or preferably all of the following methods will increase your visibility and presence in Pinterest.

• Connect your other channels to your Pinterest account. This includes linking and sharing your pins in other social media channels including adding a pin widget to your website to increase the chance of your customers moving with ease from your website to your Pinterest account and other way around.

• Using short and simple keywords, that are popular within your target groups, can boost your reach and following significantly as keywords increase the possibility of people who are not your followers finding you. Even in your Pinterest name – the more keywords mean you’ll get found easier in searches.

• An easy way to reach your audience is to collaborate or create group boards. This way people who follow one of the contributors will see all the posts in the shared board and all collaborators will benefit from the board and each other’s followers.

• Important part of pinning is also repinning. This should be done carefully and in consideration of your goals and your brand. When doing this think about your target group and how to appeal to them and reach them with the content on the repins.

Pinterest marketing tools

Pinterest has built in features to empower to make the most of your Pinterest marketing strategy - including rich pins, picture optimisation and Pinterest analytics. things like Rich Pins, picture optimising and analytics. These options are only available if you convert your account to a Pinterest business account.

Rich Pins allow you to add more context to a pin by showing additional information about the content behind the pin. There are five different kinds of Rich Pins including: recipe, product, app, article and place. Each has their own valuable features that boost traffic and engagement. An 82% increase in repin ratio has been noticed whilst utilising the Rich Pins feature for your business.

Another way to increase the chances of your pin being noticed is optimised images. To stand out in a sea of high quality images you’ll need to be noticeable, recognisable and visual enough to get your message through. To do that it is advisable, or even necessary to have images even for your text based pins like quotes and articles. Optimised images significantly increased traffic, sales and of course increase your following.

Pinterest Analytics is a vital part of your Pinterest marketing strategy because you can measure your account’s growth, the types of audience you are attracting, which content is being repinned and how many people are visiting your website.. With the invaluable information that Pinterest Analytics provides, you can determine how to moderate and optimise your Pinterest marketing strategy.

Pinterest offers a plethora of features to begin driving traffic and sales from your website that can yet be replicated by other platforms. This alone is reason enough to begin your Pinterest marketing.  the possibilities of Pinterest can help your business reach new audiences plus improve your brand’s and virtual presence.

Need help getting started? Contact us about Pinterest marketing here.