A Pinterest Guide for Your Business

Pinterest is an excellent social media outlet for businesses to showcase their products and services, but more importantly, businesses can give their customers content and visual ideas of how to use their products and services. Those customers, in turn, can share the content on their own social channels, which will help increase your company’s social exposure.

The goal for businesses on Pinterest is twofold. The primary goal is to increase exposure, which leads to increased sales. The secondary goal is to post the type of content and imagery that encourages sharing and keeps them coming back for more. Make sure that you are continually posting content that is consistent, organized, descriptive, memorable, and useful.

How to Be Descriptive on Pinterest

Yes, Pinterest is a visual social medium; however, content is still king. Not only should the images you pin be visually stimulating but the descriptive content also needs to be there. Pinterest has an internal site search and you want to make sure that your company’s profile, boards, and pins show up in all relevant search query results.

• Descriptive Pinterest Profile: This is achieved with your profile first. Make sure that your profile is completely filled out with descriptive keywords. Make your profile image recognizable and branded, but above all, visual. Instead of just using your regular logo, develop an image that represents your company’s product or services with your logo incorporated into that.  Your Pinterest profile should be descriptive and concise so that visitors can immediately see what your Pinterest page is about, what your company is about, and what type of pinning you do. Do not forget to link to your company website from your Pinterest profile page and link to your Pinterest profile from your website and everywhere else that you share your social channel links.

• Descriptive Pinterest Boards: Use up all the available description space on each of your Pinterest boards. Make sure to use descriptive and relevant keywords to describe what each board is about. Make sure that visitors that see just this board know about the board, your company, and what your Pinterest page is about.

• Descriptive Pinterest Pins: Each pin should have a description and a link to the relevant product or service on your website or at least your blog. Use descriptive keywords for each pin and say something describing it. You can quote customer reviews and you can add links to more than one place if it makes sense. Of course, make sure to give attribution for images.

How to Be Organized on Pinterest

If your boards are scattered and are not organized by similar content, it will drive Pinterest users away.  The whole idea behind Pinterest is organizing pins on boards so that they can be easily accessed at any time. Think of your boards as an information resource for your customers. If they cannot find everything they need organized in one place, it is not as helpful to them. Organizing your Pinterest boards should be an ongoing process, not just something that is done when you set up the page. If boards get too cluttered, take the time to separate and organize them properly.

How to Be Relevant and Memorable on Pinterest

There are quite a few companies on Pinterest that are doing a great job of optimizing their boards and pins so that they can be found through the search feature on Pinterest and when you arrive on their page, it is very well presented and organized so that Pinterest users can get the most out of it.  Just like adding written content and keeping your boards organized are continuous processes, so is maintaining your Pinterest page. Continual and consistent postings are necessary to stay relevant and make your page memorable. Make Pinterest part of your social marketing schedule and decide how often you want to add pins or new boards. Then, stick to that schedule at the bare minimum but make additional posts when something comes up that warrants it.

Conclusion and Takeaways for Your Business’ Pinterest Page

• Treat your Pinterest profile just like all your other social channels. Develop a marketing plan and stick to it. Do not make the mistake of thinking that it is just a sight for pictures and is not important. Many businesses receive a great deal of traffic and sales from Pinterest.

• Set up goals for your Pinterest page and always keep those in mind when posting and interacting.

• Look to companies that are successful on Pinterest and evaluate how you can apply what they are doing to your company.

• Once you get set up on Pinterest, pay close attention to what visitors to your boards and pins like and expand on those types of posts.

• Gain exposure for your page by liking and repining on a regular basis. Repin your old (but relevant) pins to get new exposure for them.

• Keep up with new developments on Pinterest. Pinterest is still a very new platform and they are developing new features all the time. You can participate in group boards, invite others to pin to your boards, make VIPs feel special with secret boards, sell merchandise on Pinterest, and set up place pins to showcase store locations.