Do You Have an Interest in Pinterest?
By: Stephen Dalton
Tags: Design, Marketing, Short Story, Marketing Strategies, Creativity

SOCIAL MEDIA & PINTEREST FOR BUSINESS

Do You Have an Interest in Pinterest?

Social media, in general, and Pinterest, in particular, are no-cost or low-cost methods to establish your brand and get people to your site. “Pinners” pin an average of 158 images a day.

Pinterest Facts Infographic Created by the Author on Canva

Why not let those pinners pin your products and/or services? Likewise, Medium writers can use Pinterest as a portal to our writing space.

Even when you have no money for an advertising campaign, social media can provide you with a method to reach potential customers or readers, and bring them to your site.

The main distinction between a Pinterest referral and a “like” or “share” on another social media platform is “interest” in a service or product that a “pinner” pins.

When a person clicks the “Like” button on Facebook, it may only be because they like the person who posted it, while Pinners typically pin items they are interested in buying, making, or trying.

Many will quickly pin something so they could get more details or information, and/or purchase it at a later time, their followers may see that pin and spread the word if they are interested too, very much like sharing on Facebook.

Pinners quite often pin an item of interest. Shopify states that a pinned item of interest is re-pinned an average 11 times. This can multiply the number of people who see your service, written work, product, recipe, or craft often.

Unlike a Facebook like, a Pinterest pin is weighted by its popularity. Hence your pins or posts will gain strength over time. Facebook posts do the opposite, it may get many shares or likes for that day or even a couple of days, but will quickly fade.

A Pinterest pin grows your visibility year in and year out, which enhances your reputation. This concept could make it necessary when developing content to use what are known as “evergreen” articles, ads, or long-lasting promotions of your business or writing.

Factoid: Products or services with a price garner more than 1/3 more pins or interest than the same item without a price.

Screenshot of my Pinterest business page, TheWriteResults by the Author

How to Create a Business Profile on Pinterest

Possibly the biggest draw for new Pinterest members is its simplicity when you create an account. First, and perhaps most importantly, when you create an account, check that it is a business account.

Although a personal or business account is free, the business profile permits significantly more adaptability with your boards (areas of interest) and the links than a personal profile.

To get your business profile, you just need an email.

Pinterest is mostly about images and what interests the eye; therefore, it is imperative to keep the following in mind:

A professional head and shoulders picture or the company logo is best (This image should be consistent across social media profiles to build brand recognition, which includes author pages.)

Use a business location, even if that is your home

Link your account to your business website

Link your account to your other social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

Use images of your products with descriptions

When you use Pinterest to drive readers to your Medium story, use an original picture, or use PowerPoint, Canva, Photoshop, or another program to enhance your chosen image and make it unique.

Your photo or logo is probably the first thing a potential new customer or client will see on your profile; ensure it is an eye-catching, adequately sized, high-quality image that appears professional. When you use a logo, make it professional. You can get a 3D logo or whatever format you like on Fiverr.com for as little as $5.50.

As a reminder, your profile is the same as an interview or business introduction; “put your best foot forward” to make a good impression. This is your chance at building customer trust, so show proof that you are real and not a computer “bot” or rogue software.

Reputation management is crucial online. All a potential customer or client has to go on is your online reputation, so take every opportunity to show yourself and your brand.

Keep your Pinterest name accurate and straightforward. A profile name that is easy to remember will mean more return customers, as well as new traffic that are possible clients.

An example of a good profile name, other than your legitimate business name, is if you sell jewelry, include jewelry in your Pinterest name. Something like “JJ Jewelry” is excellent because there is a character limit of 15, so you must be creative. Like mine, The Write Results is 17 characters counting spaces, so TheWriteResults is precisely 15.

Next, prepare your profile description. Preparation of the short description should include the use of keyword research. Use keyword research because it allows long-tail keywords (typically two to four words), which is much more appropriate now given that big corporations and big brands dominate the search engine results pages (SERP).

These can be the keyword or keyword phrases used on your website already. This will assist in showing the relevance of backlinks to your website to search engines when they index your site.

Creating “Pinteresting” Boards

Choosing your boards or interest areas should include areas close to the subject of your business, but it is not necessary to have all your boards match your business.

When you use only boards close to your business, you may miss out on interest areas others are looking at currently. Those are referred to by marketing analysts as “rich pins.” The concept of rich pins includes recipes, movies, products, articles, and places.

Vincent Ng, a self-proclaimed Pinterest Marketer, wrote in, Pinterest Marketing Tips from a guy that’s been Doing it for 5 Years:

“Rich pins for a blogger is a must because rich pins are a factor in search rankings for Pinterest. Pinterest prefers to show blog posts or pins that are rich pins,” says Ng. “On top of that, rich pins also have more credibility and authority because rich pins for articles show off, in bold text, the title of the blog post article and the Meta description when clicked through.”

Ensure that rich pins are enabled on your business website. This is difficult and time-consuming. Therefore you should watch this YouTube video tutorial by Shanndelier.

YouTube video by Shanndelier please like and subscribe

You can use the information in this video to setup rich pins to drive Pinterest users to your Medium story.

Many bloggers pin boards of popular search topics. Things related to their business or Medium article, such as Food and Drink, DIY, Home Décor, Weddings, Design, or Women’s fashion, Writing tips, and others whenever possible.

Medium writers should also use images, infographics, videos, and other graphics to draw pinners to your writing product.

Act-on.com’s Pam Neely states that business boards that grab more attention include boards featuring:

products/services

blog posts

email newsletters

webinars

white papers

How-to videos

inspirational quotes

events

portfolio items

Infographics

She advises 17 “smart ways” for businesses to create boards.

The use of a Pin-it button for your site is essential. People can add pins to items they like easily. These pins will be tracked back to your site.

Many people pin those things they are interested in so that they can get additional information on those or purchase the item later.

Their pins will be seen by those that follow them, which helps spread the word exponentially for you, which is similar to a share on Facebook.

Track it Back!

Many pinners will pin pictures on their phone to their boards. Whereas doing this might be fine for their personal account, it does not apply well for business accounts.

The ease of uploading photos and images from anywhere is great, but when those are not tracked back to your site, it is simply another cute image. You want your pins to take a potential client to your content, where they will be able to accept a request for registration or make a purchase on your site.

Be careful when moving or redirecting pages. When redirecting traffic or moving a webpage, you can lose traffic. To change a link is easy; however, you cannot redirect links or re-pin boards on another person’s social media site.

Tracking Your Pins and Traffic

Like any social media platform or website you use for business, you will want to know how well it works for you. This will determine the amount of effort or dollars you put into each ad campaign.

Pinterest added Google Analytics to its dashboard to make it easier for users to check how many re-pins or views a target receives. This will give you an idea of how specific keywords work for you, and the amount of traffic that gets directed to your website, blog, or article.

Additionally, the use of https://www.pinterest.com/source/yoururl/ to determine who pinned your boards will allow you to interact with followers using emails, newsletters, and comments.

Takeaways

Pinterest can be a valuable asset to any business, like any social media account. Good marketing is all about exposure. Although Pinterest has dropped over the past few years, from number two of the top social media sites, its exposure is topnotch and valuable to your business.

By linking other social media sites and websites to the business profile, Pinterest could become an essential resource for your business. Unlike many other social media sites, Pinterest’s primary focus is engagement.

Plus, pinning your feature image from your Medium story can lead readers from Pinterest to Medium to increase your views and reads.

Note: There are no affiliate marketing links in this article.

About the Author Photo by Jean Springs from Pexels

Stephen Dalton is a retired US Army First Sergeant with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a Certified US English Chicago Manual of Style Editor. Currently living in the Philippines, Stephen is a Top Writer in Virtual Reality.

You can see his portfolio here. Email thewriteresults@yahoo.com

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