Why Pinterest Matters… The Beginner’s Guide To Pinterest

Who’s On Pinterest… And What Are They Pinning About?

So, before we start, let’s take a little look at who uses Pinterest, shall we? From the above infographic, it’s easy to tell that women far outnumber men as users on this popular social network, four to one. They’re pinning about Food and Drink, DIY and Crafts, and Home Décor, among plenty of other things, like weddings, flowers, families and more, but these are the three most popular categories. The highest age group using the site is aged 25-34, and there are over 70 million users worldwide.

By the way - ‘Pinning’ is a verb which derives from the name of the site itself – it sort of just means posting, but imagine you’re actually doing it on a real notice board…

How Can This Help My Brand?

That women are the biggest users of Pinterest should be of a very high interest to you. In America, for example, statistics have shown that women have a huge amount of consumer spending power there – up to 85%. You do not want to ignore this, and as Pinterest can certainly convert to revenue, you’ll need to start using it, and fast. The statistics do not necessarily 100% correlate in the UK (for example, the UK’s usage of Pinterest is far lower than in the USA), however, there are still over 2 million UK users (a number which is growing), and they are still relevant as the groups most likely to be using Pinterest tend to still be those with spending power.

One other very remarkable point to note is that pins tend to be aspirational. People are sharing content because of things that inspire them, or things that they desire – not things that they necessarily have. This is why it’s key that any pins you pin for a business should align closely with these traits. It’s no coincidence that Etsy remains the most popular site that the URLS on pins tend to come from – their content closely aligns with the demographic of home-made and original, visually inspirational images. You ought to replicate this model, but in a relevant way to your individual brand. It’s a hotbed for, and thus is perfectly tailored towards, aspirational consumerism.

How Do Users Use Pinterest, And How Can We Interact With Them?

Users of Pinterest are loyal. In fact, women have an 84% retention rate for using the site, so you need to keep their attention. In general, people on Pinterest like visuals, and as we’ve seen, they like things that inspire them. Treat the network like a little storyboard, telling the brand’s story in a visually appealing way. It’s also good to note that people also like information, but there are ways to make this look great, too. Have a fantastic quote? Make it into a graphic. Have loads of bulky stats? An infographic can make these far more shareable. Pinterest is becoming the fasting growing network for sharing – Facebook has more content shared, but Pinterest recently has taken much grander leaps!

People enjoy sales, offers and deals. This is nothing new, but you can take advantage of it fully on this platform. 50% of American mothers would follow a brand if discounts and so on were offered to them. Considering we’ve seen that this demographic are the most involved, it would do more harm than good to ignore them.

It’s also ideal to note that people are much more likely (up to three times!) to use Pinterest on their mobiles, so make sure your own site is optimised for mobile, and that it’s clear you encourage pinning, or you’re potentially missing out on a key group.

Finally, you should get involved with scheduling for Pinterest – peak time is actually at night time, outside of business hours, so you can queue your pins to be seen at a time that works best for your followers.

Anything Else We Should Know Before We Start?

Pinterest allows you to create many different boards, and you should use these to share versatile content. Individuals can choose to follow only the boards that they relate to most, meaning they won’t see content that doesn’t interest them on their dashboard, but this can work to your advantage, as you’re literally able to assess what people want and give it to them. You can vary your boards seasonally – seasonal trends on Pinterest are definitely apparent, particularly around different holiday seasons, so pay attention to the time of year and pin accordingly.

Some brands curate content more than the create it, and others do the opposite. You should do a fair mix. You want people to see your creativity, but on Pinterest, it can be how you gather and share (curate) the content that you see from other brands or individuals that really matters. You’ll want to add descriptions on these things, but we’ll come to that! Make sure you also credit everything properly to avoid nasty copyright battles! Ensure a versatility of content being shared, no matter the source, and make it visually appealing.

You can share videos, quotes, images, geographically enhanced data which can look great pinned on a map, and more. You’ll want to find a balance between aesthetics and genuinely useful information or advice that people could share to help their followers, in turn. The list is endless, it just has to stimulate people to actually pass it on.

How Do I Get Started & What Should We Pin?

First of all, you need to set up a Business Page on Pinterest. This will allow you to get some insights about your community, and it’s one of the major rules for brands using the network. When it comes down to what you should actually pin, you should never, ever be too promotional or salesy. The inherent nature of Pinterest is ALREADY highly coveted items that people want, so use that to your advantage. Promote your brand, not your products directly, although you can always intersperse these on relevant boards.

Remember, although you can post about humorous things from time to time, memes about kittens and so on are not going to work as a cop-out, unfortunately. They’ll look cute, sure, but they won’t drive sales. Say for example you’re a stationery company. Try pinning things about activities relevant to your brand, instead of just 100 images of pencils. So, for example, you could make a ‘back to school’ board, which includes some of your products, but also some useful educational quotes, some cool school shoes, the next ‘big thing’ on the playground, and so forth. You could dedicate different boards to your clients, if you’re doing B2B marketing, with their permission of course, or whole boards dedicated to trends within the industry. If you’ve been to an event? Make a board and pin photographs, as well as quotes and comments, along with explanations, presented in an appealing way. People also may find reading lists, infographics, quotes, webinars and tops all super useful when they’re pinning themselves, either for business or pleasure, just think about what might be popular. 81% of female American users trust Pinterest as a reliable information source – so make the most of this confidence factor.

How Should I Promote and Increase My Following (And Traffic)?

As with pretty much everything these days, you’ll want to optimize your Pinterest account. There are numerous ways to do this, and as a starting point you should use an optimized company username. Then, us keywords wherever possible (to rank in Google), keep descriptions at around 100-200 characters (not too long or short), optimise your ‘About’ sections, and include backlinks to your website. As well, you ought to ensure you’re speaking your main customers’ language, making the most of pin descriptions, incorporating hashtags and just generally differentiating the stuff you’re posting and the descriptions you’re writing. You can even “Pinjack” relevant search terms and images – this basically just means honing in on other trends and events your followers care about and ‘showing your face’, so to speak.

Once you’ve got this side down, in order to retain people, the most important aspect of Pinterest is that you should start trying to use it as a go-to resource for your customers. Whilst sharing on Pinterest is high, it’s not usually cohesive with people’s daily activities – often people will switch back to other channels when they’re done sharing pictures, and they want the nitty-gritty information. It doesn’t have to be this way though, so you should make an effort to include plenty of business information, such as a brand logo for authenticity, and a great business description. Additionally, add the telephone number and similar details, and remember not to do yourself a disservice by placing all the relevant web details on there too. Answer people’s questions, and use boards to reflect the activity of the business, targeting key questions people tend to have, for example, FAQs. When you’re posting pins, you should also write detailed descriptions, and add prices where applicable, as this is very helpful and can even promote sales.

Try and fit Pinterest into your general business strategy, sharing content much like you might on your blog. By this, we mean that you should aim to be not necessarily promotional, and talk about related things to your brand, or inspirational things. As above, you can share out infographics, too. All of these things can act as an introduction that might lead to conversions, and you should make this really obvious and link back to your website or store page wherever possible! In harmony with your actual site, you can share your own content directly, and allow others to do the same – just make it clear you’re on Pinterest to them and install a Pinterest hover button for added simplicity, and this will help further. You can bring your other networks into things, too, by all means - Share your best performing pins on Twitter, Google+, and/or Facebook. Invite people to pin it and give them a direct link to pin. In turn, you could label one of them as “Pin of the Day!” and promote it as such.

Some great ways of encouraging users to visit your boards is by running contests, perhaps by asking them to submit user generated content which will then drive yet more visitors to your boards, and hopefully, traffic to your site. Follow relevant brands, and most importantly, engage with people who comment on your stuff. Wait, does all this sound familiar? Of course it does. Just because you don’t use Pinterest in your daily life (and can probably live without it, on a personal level…) doesn’t mean it doesn’t operate in interacting with those who do in very similar ways to other networks…

It’s Time To Show Off

Pinterest gives you the perfect opportunity to get personal with your customers, and it works. Time and time again, it’s being proven that people want to buy from people, not corporations. Whether you’re B2B or B2C, you need to be social – just adapt the tone accordingly, just as you would elsewhere. It’s all about identifying what your customers want and identifying what they’re interested in and helping them find exactly what they need in your organization.

You can dedicate entire boards to charitable organizations that you help, to promote an ethos of corporate responsibility. Pinning their recent projects, images of your employees working hard to help, blog posts about the cause and so forth will go a long, long way.

How Is Pinterest Evolving To Help Brands?

Pinterest is expanding its horizons, and is evolving from a place to store your dreams, to an actual discovery platform that can help you find what you didn’t know you were looking for. With their guided search facility, Pinterest is becoming like a search engine, showing relevant things to the right people. If it catches on, this could be more important than Google – well, maybe to certain niche businesses!

The business side of Pinterest also allows a basic look at insights and analytics. You’re able to discover how many people are Pinning from your website, seeing your Pins, and clicking your content. You can also select any timeframe to see how your numbers trend over time, as well as keep an eye on what Pinners like so you can tailor your board accordingly and hopefully drive revenue per click, although at present, unfortunately your stats through Pinterest won’t allow you to see as deep as that. On an analytical level that you can study yourself, if you’ve pinned something and it’s still in high demand long after it’s sold out, you can tell what’s popular and what might sell again. It’s all about learning to interpret your data and listen to your audience.

When it comes to ads, Pinterest has long been a commercially pure environment, but this is changing. Promoted Pins are now showing up in searches, although they need to be relevant, too, and at present it’s just a trial with big brands. This is something very new, and so it’s not clear how users will react over time.

Tips To Enhance Your Experience, Get Ahead, And Remember.

Whilst you definitely shouldn’t ignore Pinterest, don’t expect it to drive all of your increased traffic to actual sales. Think of the platform as an introduction to your brand, which may or may not lead to actual conversions. Getting the name out there can be just as important, and will in time lead to more pins, and hopefully more sales.

It may not be your main social network, but you need a strategy, one that’s unique to you. In time, you’ll figure it out, but you must play with it to see the kind of reactions you’re getting first, and adapt them where needs be.

According to some statistics, Pinterest now generates over 400% more revenue per click over Twitter and 27% more than Facebook. One brand, Shopify, noted that when customers were referred by Pinterest they spent an average of $80, and when referred by Facebook it was only half of this amount. A combination of these facts projects that it’s evident there are clear cut reasons to immerse your brand.

Overall, whilst Pinterest has been attributed to several success stories in terms of ROI, don’t necessarily expect that yours will become one overnight. It’s not all about sales, it’s about generating a buzz, driving website traffic and creating the start of a consumer journey that doesn’t need to equate to the end point.