Pinterest - an often overlooked social media platform by businesses. Even though Pinterest has a current total of 442 million monthly active users, the majority of businesses still stick to just the mainstream social media networks, like Facebook, Instagram & Twitter. Now, 36 percent of Pinterest’s users are between the ages of 18-29, however, there is a fair spread amongst the generations, with millennials, Gen Xers, and Boomers all regularly pinning.
In this blog post, we are going to provide you with a beginners guide to using Pinterest in 2021. We will go over how Pinterest works, the main features of the platform and how you can start pinning today!
How Does Pinterest Work?
It may come as a surprise to you that 40% of Pinterest users have a household income of $100k+, meaning it is a platform that has users with strong spending power. The platform itself is predominantly used to find inspiration and ideas for people's interests and hobbies. For example, someone who is decorating their home, may use Pinterest for inspiration and to find products they can purchase.
Every ‘idea’ is represented by a pin, which is an image or video that is searched and saved for by Pinterest users. The great thing about pins is that they can link back to websites. This is exactly why Pinterest is great for businesses as it can help drive traffic and sales.
Most importantly for businesses, Pins help Pinterest users to find more information on products or services they’re looking to buy.
When understanding how Pinterest works, it is best to think of it as a cross between Google and Instagram. It has the algorithm of a search engine when it comes to finding and viewing content, but also has that social aspect to it, much like Instagram.
Now, when you pin a post, you will be given the option to add that pin to one of your ‘boards’. These boards act as storage folders, so both yourself and other users can view them within your profile. Refer to the picture below to see what boards look like within a Pinterest profile.
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Much like other social media platforms, Pinterest shows your follower and following count. It also shows your monthly viewers. Monthly viewers indicate how many people may have seen your own content that you save to Pinterest, as well as your own content that others have saved to Pinterest. The bigger your monthly viewers, the greater reach your content will get within the platform. Refer to the picture below to see what a Pinterest profile looks like.
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To set up your Pinterest business account, click here.
The Main Features Of Pinterest
Pinterest’s has a great formula for getting users to spend hours on the app and this can be narrowed down to four key features: Pinterest’s Search, Feed, Pins, and Boards.
Pinterest’s Search
As we mentioned earlier, Pinterest operates very much like Google, in that it has search engine capabilities. For example, a Pinterest user could search for “living room cushions” and thousands of Pins from home decor brands, online retailers, DIY stores and other Pinterest users will show up. If you’re a home decor brand, you’ll want to make sure that your images will appear within this search, in order to have the best chances of gaining the user as a customer.
Just like Google, with Pinterest, you simply write a keyword within the search bar and relevant results will show. An advantage of Pinterest’s search functionality is that there is no page 1, 2, 3 etc. They use the ‘infinite scroll’ meaning if you want to see more search results, just scroll down!
Pinterest Feeds
There are three types of Pinterest Feeds- Home, Explore and Following.
Your Pinterest home feed is a collection of pins saved by the people, topics and boards you have chosen to follow. It also includes pins inspired by your boards or your recent activity to help you find similar pins you might like.
The Explore Feed is much like Instagram’s. It is a page where Pinterest users can get inspiration on the current trending topics and most popular pins on Pinterest. This feed is ever-changing so each time you come back, there may be something new to see. Another one of Pinterest’s efforts to increase the time spent within the platform.
Finally, the Following Feed. This feed shows just a collection of pins from users and topics that you are specifically following. If you have missed the chronological feed of Instagram, don’t worry, Pinterest uses it here, and you can keep up with any new posts by accounts and boards that you follow.
Pins
Pinterest revolves around pins. Without pins, there would be no Pinterest. The pin is how you upload your own content to the platform. Just like you would post an Instagram photo, you can upload a Pinterest pin. One of the big advantages of pins is that you can add a website link and SEO attributes to said pins. Refer to the image below to see an example of the ‘create pin’ screen.
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In addition to creating and posting your own pins, you can save pins to your relevant boards. This helps to increase the content within your profile and is a great way to increase your monthly viewers. However, choose your pins wisely as there is a limit of 200,000 pins you have on your account at any given time.
Boards
Pinterest Boards are where you save your Pins. We recommend having a collection of boards to organize and categorize your pins so your followers can easily search, find and follow the boards that interest them most. For example, if your business sells home furniture, you could have separate boards based on rooms within the home, or certain style eras etc.
Using Pinterest To Reach Your Business Goals
There are many ways that you can use Pinterest to reach your business goals. We have chosen 3 things that we recommend you implement.
Add A Pinterest ‘Save’ Button To Your Website
By adding a save button to your website under your products, this will allow website visitors to pin your products to their Pinterest boards, helping them circulate within the platform. If one of your business goals is to increase brand awareness and reach, then this is definitely something you should be implementing.
If you want to add the Pinterest Save button to your website, you can find instructions on how to do so here.
Enable Rich Pins for Your Pinterest Business Account
Rich Pins add extra details to pins from your website. There are four types of Rich Pins you can start using:
- Product
- Article
- App
- Recipe
Rich Pins are brilliant for making the pinning process efficient and making sure each pin has all the relevant information along with it. You can get set up with Rich Pins by following the steps on Pinterest here. Bear in mind, that creating Rich Pins does require a bit of technical work.
Write Search-Friendly Captions for Your Pins
We all want to increase our website traffic. More traffic leads to more customers and more exposure for our businesses. Pinterest is a great way to get more traffic, and by optimizing your pins with search-friendly captions, you are going to be well on your way to using Pinterest as a new and highly effective traffic source.
The most important way to make sure your pins are showing up in the search results is by creating captions that include your key search terms. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, you will want to create captions that include key search terms like ‘wedding photographer in Los Angeles’’ or ‘professional wedding photography in London’. Don’t be afraid to get specific with your location as well, since this will only benefit you in the process of acquiring new customers.
Conclusion
So, are you going to start using Pinterest for your business? Let us know in the comments below!
If you are interested in finding out how VEVS Business Software & Website and our team of experts can help your business when it comes to marketing, please visit our digital marketing page for more information.
We have some other great blog posts for you to view:
> How To Increase Your Facebook Page Likes & Get More Exposure For Your Business
> Why Every Personal Trainer Needs A Website In 2021
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