The ultimate guide to Pinterest marketing

After you create a website, you need to make people aware that it (and your business) exists. What better way to do that than with social media marketing? With an audience of over 400 million users and its unique function as a visual search engine, Pinterest is definitely worth considering as you work out your brand marketing strategy.

In this guide to Pinterest marketing, we will look at why this unique social media channel is popular with businesses, help you decide if it’s right for yours and teach you how to use it. Then, we’ll offer some marketing strategies and tools for making the most of the platform.

Pinterest is a social media platform where people can share, save and categories images. Unlike most of its single-feed layout peers, Pinterest is well-known for its responsive grid layout which adapts to fit every Pin, or bookmarked post. Pinners, or Pinterest users, organize their pins into different boards (which function like folders) so that they don’t lose track of the content that they’re interested in. This functionality enables Pinterest to better curate the content on each user’s Home feed.

Like other social media platforms, Pinterest is a great place to promote your brand’s blog posts, product releases, video tutorials or product samples. Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest isn’t simply a cure for boredom or a way to keep up with friends. Users aren’t passively doom-scrolling; they use Pinterest as a tool for generating ideas, getting inspired, learning how to do things and shopping. If you create and share the right content on Pinterest, you could provide some serious motivation for users to take the next step with your brand.

Pinterest is a great place to not only reach your target market but also to learn from them. Their Pins can tell you a lot about what content interests them. And, like other social media platforms, Pinterest is a great place to promote your brand’s blog posts, product releases, video tutorials or portfolio samples. Skeptical? Here are some Pinterest statistics that show how powerful the platform can be:

Ready to give Pinterest marketing a try? Here is how to use Pinterest for business:

When filling out your Pinterest profile, it’s important to stay consistent with your digital branding so as to make it as easy as possible for people to find and identify your business online. That means that your username should match that of your other social media profiles, your display name should be your company name and your logo should serve as your profile picture.

While you can certainly use Pinterest for free, you can also run Pinterest Ads if you want to give your numbers a boost. Just plan out your Pinterest ad campaign ahead of time. If you haven’t properly set up your goals or optimized your content, you will likely waste money. You can use Pinterest Scheduler to upload a bunch of Pins all at once and schedule them to post at the most advantageous times. It’s better to post daily rather than add a bunch all at once.

Claiming your website on your Pinterest account grants you better access to your business analytics. You’ll not only be able to see analytics on the Pins you create but also when other people link your site in their Pins. You can also claim your Instagram account, Etsy shop, YouTube channel and Shopify account to get a full picture of your brand’s presence on Pinterest.

Tip: Wix users can verify their domain with Pinterest in their SEO tools.

Because Pinterest is a visual search engine, Pinterest SEO is a valuable tool for getting your Pins to rank.There aren’t as many tools for Pinterest SEO as there are for Google SEO, so you’ll have to get creative with your keyword research. You could use Pinterest’s autocomplete feature to clue you into common searches. For example, if you sell clothing, you might type in “outfit” and see that the autocomplete suggests outfit ideas, outfit inspo fall, outfits for school, outfit inspiration and outfits with leggings. That’ll tell you to include those phrases in your title or description. It also tells you that you should create Pins for all of those searches.

Connect Pinterest to your website to add branded details to your pins. Wix users can open up their Tools and search for “Pinterest.” You’ll find the following tool options:

As with many social media platforms, when Pinning content from your website your featured images will appear as your Pinterest posts. However, the images that work for your site won’t necessarily work that well for Pinterest. With Wix, you can design high-quality social media graphics that fit your brand style and look great on the visual search engine. It has a wide range of template options that can help you get started and plenty of eye-catching customization options.

Keep these tips in mind when designing Pinterest imagery:

The benefit of rich Pins is that they automatically update to reflect changes on the linked website. So, if a product rich Pin includes pricing, product specs or availability in its description, the details will change every time you adjust them on your website. Similarly, the headline, author byline and description of an article rich Pin will change whenever those details change within the link. This feature saves you the time of updating every post on your Pinterest board to reflect recent updates and ensures that your customers can rely on your Pinterest board for up-to-date information.

In addition to regularly creating pins for your page, you’ll want to look outwards as well. Following other accounts, commenting on Pins, saving Pins to your boards, joining group boards and inviting others to your group boards are great ways to get noticed on Pinterest.

Group boards are collaborative, so inviting followers to pin their own content to your boards makes it easy to collect user-generated content. For example, if you have a home brand, you can invite fans to share photos of your products in their home. You could also invite influencers and collaborators to your group boards so they can share their relevant partner content with your audience.

Once you have the ball rolling on your Pinterest marketing strategy, set some SMART goals and track your progress towards them. Decide what you want to accomplish on Pinterest in the next three months, six months and year. Looking at the competition can help you establish realistic goals. For example, if they have 500 followers and 10,000 monthly views, set the goal to reach those same metrics within a year.

Pinterest Analytics is a robust tracking and trends tool that’ll tell you how well your content performs and provide you with insights on how to improve it. Pay close attention to your numbers when starting so you can adjust your goals and your content marketing efforts accordingly. The audience insights and conversion insights are particularly useful because they will tell you who your content attracts and what content motivates them to make a purchase.

Click on your profile widget in the top-right corner again and click on “Tune your home feed.” This section allows you to curate your home feed to show you the topics you’re most interested in. You can always make changes by clicking on Business > Home Feed in the top-left corner of Pinterest.

To get inspired for your own Pinterest marketing strategy, spend some time looking at competitor accounts to see what works for them. Ask yourself:

You can also plot your competitor’s marketing funnel: Identify which content is aimed at calling attention to people who are unaware of the business (top of funnel) and which appeals to prospects who are researching and are ready to make a purchase (bottom of funnel).