If you are like most business owners or marketing professionals, using Pinterest is probably fairly new to you, at least as far as content marketing goes. Now that you have started using Pinterest, you are probably thinking about your next steps. Specifically, you want to know what you can do to get the most out of this new social platform.
Here is some good news. There are actually several things that you can do with your boards, your pins, and even your profile that will increase your audience appeal, earn more followers and get people engaged.
Here are six ways to get maximum results from your Pinterest marketing efforts.
#1. Start With Optimization
If you want to get more followers, you should begin by optimizing your Pinterest page. To get started, try looking at the following
Your Profile
Use your company name or your own name for business name, depending on if you are promoting your business or personal brand. Then, choose a profile image that is recognizable. This could be a nice photo of yourself, your logo, or a picture of your business name. The goal is to make sure that people who find you on Pinterest recognize your brand. If you do use a photo of yourself, make sure you look happy.
For the purposes of searchability, make sure your user name and business name match. If you cannot do this because the name is not available, create a username that matches as closely as possible.
You don’t have much space for your bio, only 160 characters. Do the best you can to let users know about your business, and the type of content they can expect to see on your page.
Let people know your location information. This will help people in your area find you and follow your page.
Finally, don’t forget to link to your other social media accounts. This will increase your chance of engaging with visitors across multiple channels.
Your Pin Boards
Create a large variety of boards, at least 10 if you can. When sequencing your boards, make sure that the ones you most want followers to see are in the top row. Be sure to optimize the names of your boards just like you would titles of blog posts, and find cover images that adequately represent the purpose of each board.
You may also wish to create a few secret boards for pins to be used in the future and for pins that are works in progress.
#2. Make Sure Your Marketing Goals Drive Your Pinning Habits
Ask yourself what you want to accomplish by engaging with followers on Pinterest. Do you want to drive traffic to your landing pages? Do you want to increase your social media presence? Then, before you create a board or pin content, ask yourself how that action is contributing towards the goals you have set.
You can also rely on Pinterest analytics to help you determine the pins that are working best for you. This will help you to understand what you should pin in the future. If you want to access anlytics, click on the gear and then select analytics.
Once you choose your goals, you can determine what to pin by reviewing your Pinterest analytics. To access this data, click the gear icon and choose Analytics from the drop-down menu. You can then look at the level of engagement your pins are creating. You can see what pins are being repinned, liked, and viewed. The pins that are being liked and repinned are creating engagement. The pins that are being viewed are driving traffic.
Analytics will also let you view your most popular boards. Finally, you can view information about your audience. You can tell which countries they live in, the languages they speak, their interests, and other demographic information. Best of all, you can see what your followers are saying when they repin your content and any hashtags that they use. The more you know about your audience, the more you can determine what pins and what social content will work for you in the future.
#3. Don’t Forget That Strategy is Important When it Comes to Pinning
Once you realize which boards are getting the most traction from followers, it can be tempting to neglect your other boards. Remember that your followers have the choice of following you, or of following one or more of your boards. If you want to improve engagement, make sure that you are pinning content to all of your boards. Ignore one board, and you could lose a very important follower.
There is no need to pin the same things to every board, or to pin to every board equally. Just be sure that your followers have something new to see on a regular basis, no matter which board they view. Finally, remember that timing counts. Make sure that each board receives new content a few times a day. Then, make sure your top performing boards receive even more content.
#4. Tall and Thin Images Work Best for Pins
If you have content that you want to pin, you have to create an image to go along with that content. If you want, your images can contain pictures. They can also include photos of products, article titles, clever phrases, or any other image that will draw your user’s attention. Just don’t make your images too tall. You will get more repins that way.
If you are not naturally artistic and don’t have much experience working with images, you can try using a free tool such as Canva. You can even use website such as freedigitalphotos.net to access free stock photos and images.
#5. Create Meaningful Descriptions
Never pin an image and assume that your followers will understand what you are trying to communicate. Instead, write a detailed description of each pin. To increase your chances of getting repins, try to make your descriptions around 200 characters. This seems to have the best results.
Whatever you put in your descriptions, be sure to close with a call to action. If your goal is engagement, ask followers to like and repin what you have posted. If you want to increase traffic, add a link to your website and invite your followers to visit. Here is something important to remember. If you link to your website or any other website, use your full website name. The powers that be at Pinterest see shortened URLs as spam.
#6. Do Some Testing to Determine The Best Times For Adding New Pins
For most businesses, the best time to pin is from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, and between 8 at night until 1 in the morning. If you cannot pin everyday, you may find that Saturday should be your pinning day of choice. However, every business is different and your pinning schedule may need to be adjusted according to customer response. If you are interested in scheduling your pins, a tool like Viraltag works very well.
Finally, don’t forget to mix some curated pins in with your original content. This will keep your followers more engaged, and will help you develop relationships with fellow ‘pinners’.
Images “WIELICZKA, POLAND – 25 JUNE 2014. Pinterest logo on computer screen./ Shutterstock.com“
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