There’s no doubt about it, Pinterest is fun for personal use. Whether you’re organizing home decor ideas, styling tips or motivational quotes, it seems like you can find, save and organize anything on the platform! But, Pinterest is incredible for business use as well!
You may be a small business, personal brand, or a blogger. Or, you might be marketing a product or a service!
Whichever it is, a Pinterest business account should definitely be a part of your toolkit.
Pinterest is a social media platform that allows users (known as Pinners) to collect and curate images to share on boards. It’s a way for people to gather inspiring content from across the internet and store it in one central location, which can be shared with others too.
Generally, people use Pinterest to get ideas or advice – it’s a way to show the world what you’re interested in, as well as to discover new content and items that match your interests.
Pinterest is one of the major social media networks, and businesses can use it too. Pinterest business accounts allow brands to reach and connect with customers in the research stage, as a way of providing the inspiration and advice that the platform is well-known for.
While your business may know it’s necessary to have a social media strategy for Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest can often receive less time and attention. However, it’s a platform that offers plenty of marketing opportunities, especially in the long-term.
But what is a Pinterest business page? How do you make one? And why is it essential for your business? These are just some of the questions you may be asking. You may also be wondering how to optimise your page, thinking about the costs involved, and debating if you should do it yourself or hire an agency.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas to inspire your creativity, travel, purchase decisions, and more.
While Pinterest is called a social media platform, it’s a bit different than the others. Your content on Pinterest stays forever – it doesn’t disappear quickly as on a typical social network.
Pinterest allows users (called Pinners) to organize images and videos (Pins) into personalized collections known as boards.
What are Pins on Pinterest?
Pins are bookmarks that people use to save content they love on Pinterest.
People can search for Pins, save the ones they like, and click on a Pin to learn more.
If you have a business account, you can create Pins that link back to your website to share your products and ideas with people on Pinterest. source
Pinners might find these Pins in their Pinterest home feed, by searching in the app, or on a website. Like yours!
Once they find content they like, they save the Pins to boards on their own account, where they can refer to them at any time.
What are Pinterest Boards?
Boards are where you save, collect, and organize your Pins.
Use boards to organize your business’ Pins so that people can easily browse your profile or explore your ideas. source
These Pins link to the website where they originated, so you may find traffic coming to your website from Pinterest many months – even years! – from when you created the content.
Because of Pinterest’s great search functions, the images you share remain relevant for longer, and can be discovered by users at any time.
How to Use Pinterest for Business
When you pin an image on Pinterest, it creates a clickable link to the website where the image is located. So if someone pins an image from your blog or website, every time another Pinterest user clicks it, you get free traffic.
By getting people to save images from your website on Pinterest on a regular basis, you are guaranteeing a steady stream of traffic for months (even years!) to come.
And, it’s more than acceptable for you to pin your own content. Please do!
Pinterest has confirmed that they actually give higher priority to pins saved by the content creator, and that you can save your pins to multiple relevant boards. More visibility for you!
The coolest thing about Pinterest is that you don’t need to get more followers on Pinterest to see results – because your pins will be seen by Pinterest users who don’t even follow you.
Remember, Pinterest is a visual search engine. Your goal is to provide enticing images with descriptions that are keyword-optimized for search. And always with a good call-to-action!
Your Pinterest goals may be one or more of the following:
- Get users to join your email list.
- Bring traffic to your blog posts.
- Sell your own products and services.
- Sell affiliate products.
All of these goals are easier to attain on Pinterest than you might think! Pinterest users aren’t there to catch up with friends, like on Facebook, or hear the latest, like on Twitter.
They use Pinterest to find inspiration, information, and products! Are they finding yours?
The business benefits of being on Pinterest
As well as searching for inspiration and collating ideas, many people use Pinterest to search for products they want to buy. According to Pinterest, 93% of people say they use Pinterest to plan purchases, and 87% of Pinners have purchased something because of Pinterest. As a business, having a presence on the platform means you’ll likely be exposed to people who actively want to make a purchase. For the right businesses, Pinterest can be a powerful way to achieve business goals, such as:
- Raise brand awareness - it’s not just your followers who see your Pins; when someone saves your Pin, their followers see it too, so more and more people will find out about your brand. 67% of Pinners say they’ve discovered a new brand or product from business content on Pinterest.
- Send traffic to your website - because Pins link to webpages, being on Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your website.
- Boost sales - promoting your products and sending traffic to your product pages helps boost your sales, and if you have a physical shop then raised brand awareness may also help bring more people to you.
- Work toward other goals - such as encouraging people to subscribe to your blog or newsletter. Pinterest claims there are six times more conversions from Pinterest referrals, and five times more sign-ups, suggesting it’s a good platform for enticing users to take particular actions.
The great thing about Pinterest is that because it’s so useful for seeking out inspiration and saving ideas, and also for actively searching for purchases, it gives you an opportunity to reach people at every stage in the customer journey. But Pinterest isn’t necessarily the best choice for every business, so is it right for yours?
Pinterest terminology
- Pins: All content shared on Pinterest is a pin – i.e., ideas to inspire you. When you click on a pin, it links back to a website.
- Pincodes: Sort of like QR codes, Pincodes are special codes you can create to unlock your business’s curated boards and profile on Pinterest. Users can enter the code to be taken directly to your suggested boards.
- Pinners: This is what Pinterest calls its users.
- Boards: Sort of like visual bookmarks or digital bulletin boards, boards are how you organize your pins.
- Group boards: A group board is a collaborative board owned by one user. Owners can add other users to contribute to the board. You can ask to join a group board, but the board’s owner has to send you an invite.
- Archived boards: You can archive a board you no longer use but don’t want to delete. Archived boards won’t show up on your profile, and you’ll stop seeing suggestions related to the board. For example, you can opt-out of seeing wedding dresses after the big day has passed.
- Feed: Similar to a Facebook or Twitter feed, this is a group of pins from people you follow or what Pinterest thinks you’d be interested in.
- Hashtags on Pinterest: Hashtags on Pinterest work like they do on other social media platforms like Instagram – they make it easy for other pinners to find your pins and relevant content.
- Lens: This feature in the Pinterest app uses your smartphone’s camera to suggest pins based on the pictures you take. For example, if you snap a picture of an outfit, it’ll show you similar outfits.
- Comments: You can add comments to other users’ pins.
- Save: When you click on a pin, you have the option to save, send or hide. When you save, you pin it to one of your boards.
- Sending pins: You can send pins to other users or non-Pinterest users in private messages.
- Tagging: You can tag other users using the @ symbol.
- Messages: You can send private messages to other Pinterest users.
Key takeaway: To use Pinterest, you should understand terms such as “pins,” “boards,” “lens” and “tagging.”
Why should your business use Pinterest?
Pinterest can benefit your business in a variety of ways. These are some of them:
Large user base
As the fourth most popular social media platform in the U.S. and with over 235 million monthly international users, Pinterest can open your business up to millions of new customers.
Visual platform
Pinterest is a great place to display your business visually. It’s also the only social media platform that currently supports visual search, so it’s a good idea to jump on this trend early.
Commercial activity
Consumers often use Pinterest to determine whether they want to make a purchase. In the 2019 Pinterest Seasonal Insights report, 83% of users said they have made a purchase based on what they’ve seen about a product on Pinterest.
Brand exposure
Pinterest can boost your exposure to new customers, with a majority of users reporting that they discover new brands and products through Pinterest every week.
Are you looking for high-quality traffic without spending gobs of money on advertising?
If your answer is yes, then you should understand how Pinterest works for businesses who want to build targeted backlinks to their sites.
These links are valuable because they help you generate referral traffic at a consistent basis.
Compared to other social media sites, Pinterest is more likely to send you relevant traffic when you use it right.
If you can create and post high-quality visual content on Pinterest, you will have more of the users share your content and following your links.
If you want to take your online business to the next level, then the best option for you would be to make the right decision by choosing us to help you start receiving all the targeted website traffic you need today!
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