Think of any song that you listened to for the first time more than 10 years ago that is still playing at all the parties, on the radio and at weddings.
This is how Pinterest works, regardless of how old the publications are – or pins, as they are called on the platform- because just like songs that don’t go out of style your content will continue to generate interaction and send traffic to your website long after being published.
Too good to be true? It could be, but with Pinterest everything is possible.
And that is the difference from other social networks like Facebook or Twitter where a publication’s lifespan is much shorter than a Mike Tyson fight, everything that you publish on Pinterest will continue to offer visibility overtime and generate new interaction.
This is precisely one of the reasons why Pinterest has be turned into a jewel for companies of the entire world.
But it’s likely that up until today nobody has told you how to use Pinterest for businesses or how to maximize your potential. So if you are asking yourself how does Pinterest work and why use it to promote your brand, then continue reading because when you finish this article all your doubts will be put at ease and your brand will be shouting for you to maximize its presence on Pinterest. Take notes!
Pinterest and companies: huge allies “for a long time”
Surely you have heard more and more talk of Pinterest during the past years. Its normal.
The fact is that this social network which shares photographs and images not only generates 2.5 million page views a month but also hasn’t stopped growing since its launch in March 2010.
During 2014 it grew an astonishing 97%, currently exceeding 100 million active users, producing more money per click generated than Twitter and the average lifespan of its publications is 1,600 times longer than a Facebook post.
Imagine that your best content continues to appear in Pinterest’s feed up to 4 or 5 months after being published. Welcome to Pinterest! Without going too far, a Piqora study has demonstrated that 50% of a publication’s views take place in the 3, 5 months after having been pinned.
This is Pinterest, visual and sharable, and this is the precise reason why it is called this: for its unique format, similar to the traditional cork wall where images and photographs are placed with a pin.
In fact, just to compare, the lifespan of a tweet is usually 24 minutes and of a Facebook message is 90. On Pinterest the average is 151,200 minutes.
The truth is that with numbers like these, it is very easy to see everything that Pinterest can bring to your business. So now that you know everything you can accomplish, let’s see how Pinterest works and how you can use this social network to promote your brand.
How to use Pinterest for companies? A step by step guide to promote your business in 9 steps
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Be sure to understand Pinterest’s purpose
All social networks have their own approach in terms of style and usability, and Pinterest is no exception.
This is exactly why it is important that you understand Pinterest’s purpose for businesses: bring the audience closer to brands and products whose proposals interest them day to day. In fact, the social network offers an excellent platform for displaying goods of all sorts, promoting lifestyles and connecting businesses to potential clients.
We cannot ignore the fact that a feminine audience represents 80% of total views; which makes Pinterest an ideal place for promoting products and services intended for this segment of the population, although it is also true that more and more men are becoming interested in this network.
Therefore, if your audience makes up a part of, for example, the fashion, decor or cosmetic industry I advise adding your brand to Pinterest sooner than later.
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Create an attractive profile that catches people’s attention
Once you understand the purpose of Pinterest, it’s time to open an account on the platform, by selecting the section “do you have a company?” and creating an attractive and creative profile that catches people’s attention.
Choose an image that nicely identifies your brand – best if the resolution is 165×165 pixels– and then add your profile description to present your brand and what inspires you.
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Explore, create and organize boards
Once you have your company’s complete profile, you can start pinning.
How to use Pinterest for this? Very simple.
Before anything, it is imperative that you browse the platform for a bit in order to see how images are shared, which are the most popular, what categories function best or what the trends that ensure best results are. The best thing is that you can do all of this through its search engine.
On the other hand, Pinterest allows pinning the best images and organizing content into boards that other users will be able to see and even follow or share with others, which causes your content to spend more months going around as we saw earlier.
To do this create and organize your own boards, grouping images with the same themes in each one of them, developing good descriptions that arouse users’ emotions and incorporating images that invite them to follow your boards and attract repins – the equivalent of the “share” button on Facebook-.
Additionally, keeping your boards organized is essential so that going through your content is entertaining and stimulating.
Use a cover pin for each board, and try to place the most important boards in the upper part. For example, if you have a fashion company and spring is getting near, this can be the opportune moment to add boards with this season’s spring-summer clothing collection to the upper part.
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Take care of your content’s quality
Pinterest is not only about sharing images, but also arousing wants and emotions through these images. This is the key for understanding how Pinterest works.
Taking care of your content’s quality allows you to have a better positioning in the search and is much more user-friendly for those who visit your account and explore your publications.
In addition to generating your own pins, I advise sharing content from popular sites or qualified sources that can be relevant to your audience. This allows you to get better visibility for your publications while your brand grows on the social network.
Remember that each pin can be directly added from websites or applications through the
“Pin It” button, and are also linked to their sources; which is a very effective way to get referral traffic.
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Use keywords in your pins and boards
Optimizing your Pinterest content with keywords is important because as we have seen, unlike other social networks where posts only have one day of success, on Pinterest publications are viewed on a recurring bases after having been shared.
For example, a cosmetic company can make a board titled Eye Makeup and publish on a daily basis the products that are added to their available stock. This way, the users interested in knowing more about the collection can explore the different possibilities by visiting the company’s profile or when they see a publication that interests them.
Going back to keywords, using them in your pins and boards makes it possible for users to find your content when they perform specific searches in Pinterest’s search and even on the Internet. For this reason, I recommend that you include them in your publications.
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Know Pinterest’s image requirements
Use high resolution images; this has a more attractive and professional visual scale while at the same time it helps you appear first in search results.
Also opt for elongated pins since the pins that are in a vertical position are viewed better on mobile screens.
Every pin should also have a description that also helps to put it into context and being between 200 and 300 words, the possibility of being shared increases 57%. But remember, pins are everlasting so avoid descriptions that are only valid during a certain period of time!
Ah! And images with a minimum resolution of 600 pixels will be seen better on Pinterest.
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Constantly publish pins
To build your presence on any social network, it’s essential that the audience be able to find your publications at various times during the day. So, if you want to add followers to your Pinterest company profile you should make sure to always be present on the social network’s newsfeed.
Therefore, I advise regularly checking the impact of your pins through Pinterest Analytics in order to find out at what time a larger response is generated from your audience.
Then you must be sure to publish on them. As a starting point, I recommend pinning during the morning, afternoon and at night. For greatest efficiency, I advise organizing your editorial strategy and scheduling your publications so they are automatically published on the schedule you choose. This will save you work effort and time.
Extra tip: add Postcron for Chrome to your browser and program or publish content onto Pinterest without leaving your browsing.
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Integrate your account into the Pinterest community
In addition to publishing content on your Pinterest company profile, it’s important to know how to correctly use Pinterest to integrate yourself into the community. How? Interact with other members on the social network. Doing this will secure your presence in users’ timelines and will help you get and maintain new followers.
So, I recommend that you start following users’ accounts on Pinterest that show interest in your proposals, and that you add those users whose characteristics match those of your public’s objective.
Furthermore, you can link Pinterest with your different social media accounts to keep attracting a large number of visitors and to get more views. For example, you can share a publication on your Facebook wall inviting people to visit your boards or tweet an image with a link to Pinterest so they visit you.
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Don’t lose sight of the numbers
With the information that you can get out of the Pinterest Analytics section as well as Google Analytics and other measuring tools that you can develop a report of results from which allows you to see what works, what doesn’t and to interpret the data.
For example you can use Pin Alerts to know which people have pinned from your webpage or you can use Tailwind‘s free version to see who your most influential followers are, your most repined pins and boards and various graphs on your followers.
On the other hand, you can use Postcron to program on Pinterest during the schedules that work best based on the analyzed data and also save time, improve your SEO positioning, increase your web traffic and begin to promote your brand.
Well, did you find this guide practical for knowing how to use Pinterest for your company?
Now that you know how Pinterest for your business functions, you can start putting all these tips to practice!
Do you already have a Pinterest company profile? Will you create yours? Tell us your experience!
And please remember to share this blog post with all your contacts. Until next time! 🙂