How to Setup & Promote Your Business on Pinterest

If you’re like most marketers, Pinterest remains somewhat of a mystery. Now that they’ve opened the floodgates to advertisers, the platform is gaining traction amongst marketers who can no longer ignore the fact that with over 40 million estimated active users in the US a month its number of users trail just behind Twitter and continue to increase. E-Marketer predicts it will reach 50 million in the next year.

Getting Started

Once you’ve created a Pinterest Business Account be sure and verify your account and website. This instantly gives your page more authority and allows you to advertise on the platform. Next, write a clear and informative description of your brand to ensure that it is not only indexed properly, but gives users a good idea of what you are all about. Finally, install the “Pin it” button on your site. When users pin images directly from your site it links back to the original source. This is why you should always upload pins directly from your site and not from your desktop.

Best Practices

Now that you’re ready to start pinning, here are some handy tricks of the trade to consider when using Pinterest for business marketing. All Boards and Pins should be optimized with the specific keywords you would like to rank for. Similar to Search Engine Optimization, you should approach Pinterest with a well constructed strategy that will help you reach your target audience organically. Creating Boards with both broad and specific titles will help you capture a larger portion of your audience.

Pin Optimization

Pins with a 200-300 character description have proven to be the most engaging because they provide context to the user. In addition to being user friendly, Pins with longer descriptions also offer Pinterest’s algorithm more context as it indexes billions of pins and attempts to provide the most personalized experience for each of its users. (Read what Pinterest’s software engineers had to say about their latest algorithm update, which launched this March.)

When optimizing Pins always include relevant keywords and avoid using too many hashtags as it turns off users and can result in a low organic ranking during the indexing process. Go ahead and tag other brands and blogs in your descriptions; the more engagement the better.

Brand Engagement

The more active you are on Pinterest the more results you will see. Pinterest allows you to easily engage with users on an individual level. Re-Pinning, commenting and liking other users’ Pins is a great way to get your business seen by your target audience. This probably goes without saying, but consistently generating content helps increase your rank. That being said, it’s extremely important to only put out high quality Pins. Like Instagram, Pinterest is a platform that rewards creative and fun content.

Stepping Up Your Game

Rich Pins are places, articles, products, recipes, movies and apps that add extra information and context to your Pin. This results in a much higher click-through rate. They require a little more work on the back end but their engaging nature enhances the user experience ten fold. Learn how Rich Pins work here.

A fun way to gain some traction when you’re starting out on Pinterest is to create a collaborative board with other brands or bloggers in the industry. This allows you to leverage their influence and reach a larger audience when using Pinterest to promote your business.

This board is a collaboration from Nordstrom, Better Homes and Gardens and All Recipes.

Promoted Pins

Promoted Pins launched in January of 2015, currently all ads are cost-per-click. Similar to most ad platforms you can set a maximum bid and daily budget. Placement Targeting allows you to add terms related to your Pin in order to reach people in the most relevant places. This is a good place to add queries and interests related to your Pin. At this point audience targeting is somewhat limited but you can filter down your audience by city, language, gender and device.

This May Pinterest announced new motion-based Cinematic Pins that can support short videos like movie trailers. Additionally advertisers will also be able to promote apps through ads that will allow the users to download and install apps directly from the pin. They’ve are also introducing new pricing options based on engagement such as re-pins, clicks and likes. According to Pinterest these are the 4 ways to ensure success with Promoted Pins:

1. Be helpful. Make Pins informative and useful
2. Stay tall. A tall aspect ratio can lead to higher repin rates
3. Take Multi-Product Shots. Give Pinners the full picture
4. Keep it Tasteful. Branding and logos should complement,
   not distract

What’s Next

Pinterest is said to be working on improving targeting granularity and are aiming to expand upon the 30+ options they have now. They plan to role out more in-depth options that get to the heart of users interests and life stages. These options should be available to advertisers later this summer.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start Pinning. Invest time into optimizing your Pins and Boards now as it sets the foundation for a successful account. Remember that success on Pinterest requires a high level of engagement so be prepared to put in the time and hard work. Good luck!