Pinterest Marketing Guide for Beginners

By Charlie Patel October 07, 2019 0 Comments
Pinterest Marketing Guide
  • Save

When you think of social media marketing, you probably think of Facebook, Twitter, even Instagram.

But have you ever stopped to consider the benefits of Pinterest marketing?

Though the channel is frequently overlooked and underappreciated, it’s actually an incredible place to facilitate brand growth. At the beginning of 2019, Pinterest had 291 million monthly active users, and an average awareness reach of 72% too

As other channels like Facebook and Twitter continue to lose organic reach, struggling to overcome the demands of a changing audience, Pinterest is earning increasing engagement from its audience. One study from RJMetrics found that around 84% of the women who signed up for Pinterest four years ago are still active on the platform. 

If you’re not using Pinterest as a solution for social engagement yet, then you could be missing out on an incredible opportunity. 

Read on to learn everything you need to know about Marketing on Pinterest. 

How Does Pinterest Marketing Work?

So, how exactly does Pinterest marketing work? Well, Pinterest is a visual social media marketing site where users, or “pinners” can share images or videos from around the world with friends and family. These pinners also have the opportunity to create specific boards packed full of “pins” of the content that they like. Often, each board will feature a description, and so will the individual pins on that board, making it easier for other people to find the content with keywords. For example, Triberr’s Pinterest profile has a board entitled Content Creation Tips. This Pinterest board includes pins from Triberr and repinned items from other Pinners who share content creation tips.

how Pinterest marketing works
  • Save

Users can make their board public when they want to share their creativity with others or keep it private if they’re using the content specifically for personal inspiration. What’s more, when it comes to finding images, pinners will be able to either manually upload and share visuals, re-pin content that their friends share, or re-pin material that they find online. 

Though many people assume that Pinterest is reserved for moms and lifestyle bloggers, the truth is that any company can grow with a Pinterest account. 50% of people make a purchase after seeing a promoted pin, and 67% say they discovered a new product or brand from the network. 

Here are a few insights into the Pinterest user base to help you decide if this channel is right for you. Pinterest users are:

  • 41% of women and 16% of men
  • 31% from suburban areas
  • 84% between the ages of 18 and 64
  • 70% US mothers and 33% US dads
  • 55% of shoppers

Getting Familiar with Pinterest Features

Before you can dive head-first into Pinterest marketing, you’re going to need to learn some of the basics about how this unique platform works. There are no status updates like Facebook, and no mini-articles like you’d get on LinkedIn. Instead, Pinterest features unique components like:

  • Boards: Boards are containers that are packed full of categorized content for a specific customized theme or interest. For instance, you might design a board that’s all about new advice for moms. 
  • Secret and Group Boards: Some alternative forms of boards include “Secret boards,” which require an invite to see, and Group boards, which involve content from various pinners at once. 
  • Pins: A pin is an image or video connected to a board. The pin might link to an external webpage like a product page, sales page, or blog post, which means it’s excellent for getting links back to your site. 
  • Re-pins: Similar to sharing or reblogging, re-pinning is when you take someone else’s content and add it to your own Pinterest profile – often mentioning the original poster in the meantime. 

Setting up Your Pinterest Business Profile

Once you’ve determined that Pinterest might be a good place for your marketing strategy, the first thing you’ll need to do is set up a Business Account. Fortunately, it’s 100% free and quite simple to convert from a personal profile to a business account. 

Start by going through the steps presented by Pinterest for filling out your profile and connecting other accounts. Ideally, you’ll want your bio to contain as many keywords as possible without sounding cluttered or unusual. This will make it easier for people to find you on Pinterest. Fortunately, Pinterest has a pretty good onboarding process to help you optimize your account for more exposure. For example, once your account is converted to a business profile simply navigate to your Business hub on Pinterest. For new accounts, the Business hub will provide action steps to conveniently walk you through the optimization process.

Getting started with Pinterest marketing for busienss
  • Save

Once you completed the optimization steps you can start looking for ways to customize your content, for instance:

  • Start adding board covers: Board covers are like profile covers on Facebook or LinkedIn. They’re uploaded as photos and applied to your account to give you a more cohesive and professional appearance online. Remember to make the most of brand colors, fonts, and icons where you can. Check out this example from Who What Wear UK for instance. 
  • Adjust your board title: You can also alter the way you name your boards to make them more customized. Keep your titles as short and snappy as possible, and remember to take advantage of any opportunity to use keywords. 
  • Transform your descriptions: Speaking of keywords, one of the best places to upgrade your SEO on Pinterest is on your category and board descriptions. Do a little SEO research to see what kind of terms you want to rank for before you get started. If you’re not sure where to start, type some seed keywords into the search bar on Pinterest and see what comes up. 
  • Choose the right categories for your content: Remember that you need your Pinterest content to appeal to your target audience. Choose categories that you know your customers are going to be looking at. For instance, some of the most popular types are health, travel, beauty, and wellness. 

Creating Your Photos and Images

Like many other social networks, Pinterest comes packed full of fantastic images and videos to delight and inspire users. The key to success for most companies on this platform is making sure you’re posting pictures that promote your brand and market your products. Of course, you don’t just want to advertise on Pinterest. 

Remember, social media channels are about building an emotional connection with your target audience. You want to stand out as a source of useful and informative content – otherwise, users will avoid following you in the first place. 

To get your images right, start by sticking to the correct dimensions:

  • Expanded pins have a minimum width of 600 pixels
  • Image aspect ratios are 2:3 to 1:3:5

Choosing the right dimensions will get you started on the right track with Pinterest, but you’ll also need to make sure that the content of the visuals you’re posting is designed to engage and attract users too. For instance. Here are some top tips:

  • Images without faces receive 23% more pins on Pinterest than those with faces 
  • Create and share branded videos for company promotion. 75% of Pinterest users say they’re likely to check out branded video content. 
  • Make the most of Pinterest’s promoted video feature to help draw focus to your most valuable video content. 
  • Images with 30% less blank space in the background are more frequently pinned – avoid excessive space in your pictures. 
  • Create videos between 30 and 90 seconds long to get the highest performance rates. 

You can use tools like Canva or PicMonkey to help you quickly and easily create custom graphics and video animation. For example, Canva has specific Pinterest templates that are already properly sized to fit the platform’s dimension requirements. In addition to this Canva users can also export content as either images or video. Making in quite easy take leverage high performing video on Pinterest.

Pinterest Templates how to use Pinterest for Business
  • Save

Building your Pinterest Following 

Unfortunately, as is the case with most social media channels, just having the right images on Pinterest won’t be enough to get you the audience engagement you’re looking for. You’re going to need to track down and connect with the customers that are right for you. 

Start by developing buyer personas for the customers that you want to reach on Pinterest if you don’t have any personas already. You can do this by:

  • Researching your customers and making notes about their defining characteristic
  • Surveying and asking your current followers for feedback 
  • Examining your competitors to determine who they’re trying to reach
  • View the boards that your current followers and customers follow to get an insight into their preferences. 

Basic knowledge of who you want to reach on Pinterest will help you to start developing your following more effectively. You’ll know what kind of categories you should be sharing in to make your material more compelling in the right circles. Additionally, you’ll be able to determine what sort of content is more likely to speak to your customers based on their defining factors. For instance, younger customers looking for information about products are more likely to be drawn to videos. 

As you begin to develop and publish your content, don’t forget to start taking steps to promote your Pinterest account. You can use a Pinterest ads account for the occasionally paid pin, or you can:

  • Engage with influencers to gain more engagement and reach for your posts
  • Follow accounts that might want to follow you back
  • Use keywords in your posts to make your information more searchable
  • Promote your Pinterest account via other social networks like Facebook and Twitter

Best Practices for Better Pinterest Content 

Like any social media strategy, making sure that you’re creating the best content on Pinterest will take some time, focus, and testing. 

However, to make sure you start moving in the right direction, there are a few steps you can take. 

For instance:

1. Include Hashtags and Keywords in Content

Perhaps more than any other social media site, Pinterest relies heavily on a basic understanding of SEO practices. You’ll need to ensure that people are finding your content, both on Pinterest and through the search engines. The only way to do this effectively is with keywords and hashtags. 

Keywords are simple enough to use – you just need some fundamental insight into what your most searched terms are. On the other hand, hashtags on Pinterest can take some getting used to. 

The good news is that hashtags work very similarly to tags on any other social site on Pinterest. When users click on the hashtag that’s included in your Pins, they’ll be delivered to a page where they can view all the content posted in the same tagged space. Adding hashtags to your promoted content, boards, and pins improve your visibility. 

2. Cross-Promote Your Social Content

While Pinterest has an excellent social reach in its own right, you can always make your brand awareness on this channel better by promoting the content that you want to share on other social channels too. For interest, you can claim the same Pinterest username on Etsy, Instagram, YouTube, and other visual channels where your audience might turn up. 

This will help you to expand your opportunities when it comes to connecting with new potential followers. Additionally, you’ll also be able to link your Pinterest profile to Facebook accounts so you can take advantage of one of the world’s most popular social media channels too. 

3. Implement Pinterest into your Website

Adding social media buttons and content to your website has become a common practice for companies that want to spread brand awareness and improve engagement. When you add Pinterest to your website, you’ll be able to drive traffic from your site to your Pinterest account, and vice versa. 

Your website visitors will also have the option to “pin” the content on your website on their own social media boards if they’re interested in what you’re doing. The network’s widget and button builder on the Pinterest website makes it easy to start developing your strategy. 

4. Engage with People on Pinterest

By this point, you should know that success on any social media channel requires you to be “social” In other words, you can’t just post content and wait for the crowds to flock to you. Instead, you’ll need to actively seek out relationships with potential fans, followers, and even influencers. 

Initiating relationships with Pinterest followers will help to deepen the loyalty and respect they feel for your brand, which ensures they keep coming back to you for ideas and inspiration. Remember to:

  • Follow the accounts of people who show that they’re interested in the kind of content you post. You can do this by searching for keywords and hashtags that you want to rank for. 
  • Re-Pin, comment and like the content of your fans and followers as often as you can. 
  • Respond to messages sent to your Pinterest page to let your audience know that you hear them.
  • Create engaging material that shows your thought leadership in your industry and gives your brand more credibility. 

5. Always Analyze your Work

Finally, like with any other social media strategy, it’s still a good idea to keep track of the performance of your various pins and content on Pinterest. Using the native analytics in Pinterest will give you an insight into what your most popular pins are, so you know where to invest in the future. 

Remember, an effective Pinterest strategy will require constant work and optimization – just like any other social media campaign or being an effective tribemate. You’ll need to be willing to get to know your audience and their preferences, so you can build a strategy that really works. 



Charlie Patel

Charlie is always up to something. As a serial entrepreneur, he is CEO of Triberr - a content marketing suite and influencer marketing platform, Podcasts.com - a leading podcast host and directory, 99 Robots - a digital marketing & WordPress development agency, Ampfluence - an Instagram growth agency, and several other ambitious startups. He likes random emails from users, loves story-telling, but dislikes being in the spotlight.

0 Shares
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap