Pinterest is a highly unique social media platform that launched back in 2010. It allows people to share and discover new and interesting topics by “pinning” large long-form images or videos.
Almost like a digital version of a notice board, just a little more slick and sexy!
Users are able to pin images and videos on their very own boards, on communal topically relevant boards or on boards owned by other people (with their permission of course!).
Pinterest differs from the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram by centering everything around the search function. In fact, it’s one of the only social media platforms that fundamentally functions as a search engine.
People who browse to Pinterest are presented with a large search box where they put in keywords to find the type of pins they’re looking for.
Sound familiar?
Yes, it works just like Google, Bing and all other search engines.
This functionality makes Pinterest special.
Search engine traffic has been proven to convert really well because anyone searching for something is trying to solve a problem. The mindset of someone searching for “how to start an online business” is very different to someone just browsing their Facebook news feed and seeing an ad about starting a business online.
The latter is called Interruption Marketing.
The point I’m making here is that Pinterest has the highest visitor value of any social media platform.
Facts And Figures That Tell a Story
- The average order value of a Pinterest referral customer is 126% more than Facebook.
- 31% of all internet users use Pinterest (26% of all Americans).
- Pinterest refers 5% of the entire internet’s referral traffic! That’s more referral traffic than Reddit, Youtube, and Twitter, combined.
- 30% of Pinterest users have an annual income of $100,000+.
These statistics reveal the powerful potential that Pinterest has for generating more sales in your business.
How To Use Pinterest To Explode Website Conversions
Now that you know a little bit about how to use Pinterest. It’s time to reveal the three core things that will help you take advantage of this fantastic visual platform.
Whether you’re trying to sell physical products in your e-commerce store or get more subscribers onto your blog’s email list. The fundamentals of marketing on Pinterest remain the same.
Gaining More Followers
Your marketing efforts on Pinterest should be focused around gaining more followers. The more followers you have, the more exposure your pins will get. This usually results in more repins for your content which means more precious referral traffic for you!
Unlike most other platforms, the number of people that see your pins isn’t limited to the amount of followers you have.
Users will often come across your pins after searching using relevant keywords. Some of these people will repin your content, which then gets shared with all their followers.
With that being said, focusing your efforts of gaining more followers is a great way to grow your referral traffic on Pinterest.
There are three core things that have the biggest impact on the number of followers you have:
#1. The Number Of People You Follow
When starting out in Pinterest, it’s a good idea to find and follow the big players in your niche. Even better, you can see who their followers are and start following them too.
This is a great way to build up your base of followers when you’re starting out.
It’s also a good idea to see what your competition is doing. What kind of engagement are they getting with their pins? How do their pins look? Are they strikingly beautiful? Do they draw you in?
Reverse engineering your competition is one of the best ways to get amazing results with almost any marketing campaign.
#2. The Number Of Pins You Have
The social media scheduling service, Buffer, saw a 150% increase in engagement by increasing the number of daily pin posts from between 1-2 to 10 times a day.
Pinning consistently is crucial to your success on Pinterest. A higher number of pin posting results in increased exposure and engagement for your business.
There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to the number of pins to post every day. It depends on a variety of factors like the country you’re based in, the industry, and the demographics you’re targeting.
As I mentioned earlier, looking at the people who are killing it in your space is a great way to get good ideas for posting. Find out how many times the top people in your niche post every single day and implement something similar.
Consider setting up a schedule for posting pins on Pinterest. This way you’ll know exactly how many pins you’ll need to create along with the exact times you should be posting them.
Consistency is the most important thing here.
#3. The Number Of Boards You Have
Think of your Pinterest boards like chapters in a book. They should cover the same theme but they can be topically different.
For example, we’ve just started a brand new Pinterest account centered around the topic of our blog. Online business and entrepreneurship. But we’ve created boards that fit into the lifestyle and general message we promote. So we have boards on things like fitness, meditation, and financial freedom.
Even though we’ve only got a small number of followers at this point, we’ve seen huge amounts of referral traffic from the re-pins we’ve had on our images.
This strategy enables you to cover your niche from all angles and allows you to reach people that would’ve never seen your content if you just stuck to your main topic.
Another way of increasing your exposure on Pinterest is to hop on boards that already have a big following. All you need to do is reach out to the owners of these boards with a friendly email asking them to add you to their boards. Once they’ve done this, you’ll have the ability to post on their boards.
Some of these boards have thousands of followers! It’s a quick way to explode your visibility on Pinterest.
Other Ways To Get Better Results On Pinterest
Now that we’ve covered the three fundamentals on getting more followers for your Pinterest account. Let’s cover some of the more technical things that can have a huge impact on your results.
Pinning At The Right Time
Pinning at the optimum time can have a drastic impact on the level of engagement for each pin you post. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to timing.
But according to the latest research, the best time to pin during the day (in the US) is between 2 – 4 PM eastern time. During the night it is between 8 PM and 1 AM.
The best way to find out the optimal time for posting is to start with these ball-park figures and test things out for yourself to see what works best.
Optimizing The Size Of Your Images
Size really does matter. Dan Zarella completed a study of more than 11,000 images and found that the height of an image has a direct correlation to the number of re-pins an image received.
Taller images with more content receive much more re-pins on average.
Colors, Faces, And Saturation
This is probably the most nuanced part of Pinterest marketing but it’s surprising how much of a difference little changes in your images can make.
- Starting off with colors. Red, Orange, and Brown outperform the color Blue for re-pins by a ratio of 2:1. Sticking to these colors will be best.
- Images shared without faces receive 23% more re-pins compared to images with faces in them.
- Images that are 50% saturated receive ten times more re-pins compared to images that aren’t saturated.
- Images with multiple dominant colors are repinned 3.25 times more than images with just one dominant color.
Bringing It All Together
Pinterest is a powerful platform that is yet to be utilized by plenty of businesses. It has experienced huge growth in monthly traffic figures over the years. It is something you should definitely consider as part of your marketing strategy.
Following the three core principles for gaining more followers and staying consistent with it can help you create a powerful source of additional traffic to your website.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little guide on how to use Pinterest!
Are you crazy about Pinterest marketing? If not, what’s stopping you from taking the plunge?
