Businesses can successfully promote their products or services by taking into careful consideration the Pinterest culture of popular pins and searchable pins. Before you begin pinning, it is wise to find out what the followers are actively seeking by gleaning over the well liked Pinterest categories to discover boards that can be a perfect match for your business. A key strategy in Pinterest marketing is to build meaningful relationships with followers and influencers to grow the reach of your pins. You should be aware of what users are looking for when following other boards to contribute usefully. Interestingly a study by The University of Minnesota, it was found that there are three factors for Pinterest users in their decision making process on whether to follow or not –
- The number of accounts you are following or that are following you
- The total number of pins you have
- How many boards you have
You may showcase an awesome pin but there are still tricks you need to employ to make it engaging and optimize it for sharing.
- Pin Content from Your Sites
To ensure there is interaction between your site and your Pinterest account, add a hovering Pin It button to any image on your site to direct visitors on your site to check out your Pinterest boards. With WordPress, there are simple to integrate Pinterest Pin It Hover button plugin for visitors to directly pin content from your site to their own accounts.
- Post Frequently
To increase Pinterest followers, you should post between 5-20 new pins every day and space it throughout the day. The content should be original and unique and not just repins from other boards. To save time, you can collect and load your pins in a Secret Board at once, to grab the pins you need from the board to pin on live boards.
- Pin time
It is best to test for optimal posting times specific to your content and your target audience’s browsing habits before reaching for your mouse to pin it. Generally Saturday morning is considered a favorable time for posting your pins and a study by SocialFresh found that on average 2PM to 4PM EST and 8PM to 1AM EST; may be preferable for posting to maximize audience reach.
- Use a Call-to-Pin
You can use a call-to-pin, just like a call-to-action, to improve the engagement of your pins. Studies have found that a simple CTP like “Repin to your board” can get you a significant increase in engagement of over 80%.
- Connect with Other Social Media Platforms
Do find friends and followers from other social media platforms by connecting your Facebook and Twitter accounts to your Pinterest for Business account. You can use the ‘Find Friends’ button on the Pinterest homepage to start building your followers from your existing contacts on other social media platforms. It will also enable you to successfully channel your content across multiple platforms to reach more users.
- Engage to Gain New Followers
Just like on other social media platforms where you reply to tweets, comments or Facebook posts, you must engage with your followers on Pinterest directly by responding to their questions and comments on your pins. Show genuine interest by following your customers’ Pinterst boards, leaving comments and repinning content that you like. Show some love and you will get more back. You can even address them directly or @ tag usernames in comments, like Twitter and Facebook.
- Build Influencer Relationships
In order to gain more followers and reach newer audiences, you should reach out to influencers in your industry by following their boards, repinning and opening a communication channel with them. You can even offer to contribute to their boards, or discuss ideas for collaboration. This way you may be closer to a positive response from them.
- Engage with Popular Boards
Your Pinterest strategy must include following and engaging with popular boards to see their boards, get inspired by their pins, and finally leave comments on these popular pins to advertise your brand name to the innumerable people who follow those boards. But it is best to follow boards that are relevant to your business but they will have a following that is similar to yours. That is your target audience and the people you will want to reach out to.
- Contribute to Open Boards
Use Open Board for marketing by getting your community involved and allowing users to contribute their own pins. You can invite your followers to engage and contribute but they cannot change the board name or description. They can get access to it just by adding their name or email. You can even ask industry experts and popular leaders to contribute to your boards and reach out to many more followers.
- Send Pins in Your Newsletter
Use your newsletter to send out your latest pins and direct subscribers to your Pinterest account. Grab their attention with a simple ‘Here are out most popular pins. Check out our Pinterest for more!’ You can automatically pin your blog posts or newsletters in specific boards in related categories.
- SEO for Pinterest
To reach your target audience, you can implement some SEO strategies so that more users can see your pins by optimizing them for Pinterest searches. You can research keywords using Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find relevant keywords for your pins and add the keywords to your pin titles. You can use keywords for pin descriptions and image file names too. But don’t go overboard peppering keywords everywhere as it would seem robotic. More people may discover your pins if you use proper keywords in the right context.
Local Directive can help your business grow with Pinterest marketing. Keep up with the changing habits of Pinners and grow your reach to newer audiences.
