20 best tips for brands on Pinterest

20 best tips for brands on Pinterest
Ah, Pinterest, the social vortex where you can lose hours drooling over designer duds you can’t afford, bookmarking DIY projects you’ll never do, and reading inspirational quotes you wish you wrote (or maybe that’s just me).
However you spend your time on this virtual pinboard, there’s no denying that Pinterest is becoming a social force not only for personal use, but also for driving business. Check this out:

  • Since May 2012, Pinterest traffic has more than doubled in size and is now the third largest social network in the world, just behind Facebook and Twitter.
  • Nearly 20 percent of women Internet users are now on Pinterest.*
  • 12 percent of all U.S. Internet users are on Pinterest.*
  • The average brand using Pinterest increases website page visits per pin by 400 percent, doubles the page views per pin, and boosts revenue per pin by 50 percent, from $0.14 to $0.21.*
  • Pinterest users tend to be well-educated and have high income.**

So how does a brand cut through the clutter and make its content pinworthy? Here are the top 20 tips from content marketing thought leaders on how to use Pinterest to increase online business or awareness:

Develop a Pinterest strategy that supports your overall content marketing strategy.

Start relevant boards. For each audience, short list a handful of themes and kick start boards aligned with some or all of these themes. Pin images that are visually attractive and are aligned with the theme for the board. Don’t aim to sell. Aim to inspire your users. Ideas include the values behind your brand or business, DIY projects and moods, among others.” – Jim Yu via Search Engine Watch
Use it like a focus group. Millions of people use Pinterest to keep track of objects they love, places they enjoy, foods they devour and things that inspire them. Look at the pinners who follow your brand — see what they’re pinning and who else they’re following. They’re volunteering a lot of information about their interests, passions, dreams and sense of humor in a more natural way. Use this information to your advantage to glean insights about your target consumers.” – Lauren Drell via Mashable
Get strategic with guest pinners. Create a valuable community on Pinterest with the help of others. This association benefits the creator of the board and the contributor and forms a strong relationship between the two.” – Mitt Ray via Social Media Examiner
“You have 200 characters of free space in the About section. Take advantage of this ample space and mention your company’s name as well as a few popular keywords for SEO. This will improve your Pinterest profile’s search engine visibility for those keywords.” – Mitt Ray via SalesForce Marketing Cloud 
Show what inspires you. Instead of just showing off your products, show what inspires them. Create boards for the ideas, places, people and moods behind your brand.” – Pinterest for Business
Pin… Repin… Repeat. Like any other social media outlet, it is important to stay active and give your followers a reason to follow you. Be sure to update your Pinterest account at least 3-5 times a week. Use hash tags in your pin descriptions so it can be found in relevant search queries.” Kristie Vossler for Flying Cork Media

Improve your own website for optimal pinning.

Optimize your site for Pinterest. It’s not just enough if you keep pinning, repinning, liking, and commenting on images on Pinterest. You need to encourage others to actively share your content with their followers. This will help you attract a lot of website traffic.” – Mitt Ray for Jeff Bullas.com
Every article, blog post, social media update or press release should have some facet of multimedia to it. Whether it be an image, audio or a video or the more multimedia you use the more views you will get. Yes, it can be that simple.” – Allyson at Elements Design
Ways to make sure your website is Pinterest-friendly: title photographs correctly, have a Pinterest follow button, make photos vertical.” – Melissa Taylor of Pinterest Savvy
Track your pinning activity. Find out how many people are pinning from your website, seeing your pins, and clicking your content. Pick a timeframe to see how your numbers trend over time.” – Pinterest for Business

Get creative with your content. (And yes, visuals are content.)

Content is one of the best ways to engage your audience and drive traffic to your site through social media. Don’t just share the content you create, but what others create too, if you want this method to be effective.” – Mitt Ray for Jeff Bullas.com
“Include rich descriptions along with your pins. While it’s not clear which factors matter most when it comes to Pinterest’s search algorithm, we do know that descriptions matter. A lot. When pinning content, keep discoverability in mind and remember how consumers are using the platform: often to search and unearth new content.” – Chloe Mathieu-Phillips via Blog 360i
Create custom infographics. Businesses can compress entire white papers into these bite-sized, brightly colored pictures, and increase the odds that busy clients will view and share them.” Steve Glauberman for Content Marketing Institute
Create a resource. Teach Pinners about something they want to know about. The Wall Street Journal created an informational board to help new Pinners understand the social network.” Courtney Seiter via Marketing Land 
Make it easy for pinners to buy your stuff. Product pins include real time pricing, availability, and where to buy.” – Pinterest for Business
Be selective. Don’t pin every single product in your store, every image from your blog, etc… Pin the best ones.” – Jayson DeMers for The Huffington Post 
Promote deals with graphics. Translating any deals, sales, or special offers into smart-looking graphic coupons is a powerful way to boost their circulation and further develop your company’s brand as one that doesn’t just offer great deals, but looks chic while doing so.” – Forbes
Include ideas and how-tos. Rather than just showing off your products, explain to users some of the ways in which they can use your products.” – Ken Mueller via Social Media Today
Increase your brand authority. To help position yourself as an authority in your field, share from a carefully vetted combination of sources to ensure your boards contain the most accurate and useful information available.” – Cynthia Sanchez for Social Media Examiner
“Focus on evergreen content. Pinterest content is much less time sensitive than most social media content. While Facebook and Twitter (and even Instagram) are all about being in the moment, Pinterest is about planning for the moment. As a result, Pinterest content is prone to being re-pinned over an extensive period time – keep that in mind to extend the “repinnability” of your images.” – Chloe Mathieu-Phillips via Blog 360i
What do you think – any tips to add or best practices to share? Add to the comments below. And check us out on Pinterest!

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  • Hi Emily! this is an outstanding article, I’ve found all your tips extremely useful for me and my clients accounts! right now I’m developing a blog about social media marketing and i would love to get some feedback from you! check it out and tell me what you think http://www.tweetangels.com/creating-pinterest-business-account/

    NitaMorales - September 25, 2014 at 1:29 pm

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