Pinterest is one of the fastest growing platforms on social media. While some social media platforms may come and go, Pinterest is here to stay. If you have never considered Pinterest for growing your social media following, it’s time to start. Pinterest is suitable for about any type of business:
- Home improvement
- Do-it-yourself
- Food & Beverage
- Knitting
- Cosmetics
- Wedding Services
- Event Planning
- Home & Garden
- Authors
- Coaches
- Shower & Party Favors
The list goes on and on.
How to Leverage Pinterest to Grow Your Business
Creating a Pinterest business account is an excellent way to draw traffic to your website. Simply starting with a few boards which resonate with your brand and your specialty in business is enough to get you started. Continue to build upon those boards and share your pins.
When you blog, pin your articles on Pinterest using an inspiring graphic. The next time a Pinterest user comes along and wants to see more about you, they’ll click the graphic, and be redirected to your website. Imagine the traffic you can create leading to your:
- products
- services
- online courses
- books
- programs
- cookbooks
If you have a visual business and sell items, Pinterest is the perfect platform to increase your bottom line quickly. If you have a physical product, you can leverage Pinterest as a
powerhouse marketing tool.
Remember, you do not own the real estate on social media platforms, so you’ll want to always redirect people from your social media accounts back to your own website where you have full control of things. Social media platforms can change or completely disappear. Accounts get hacked and even banned. So, don’t rely solely on the places you have no control over. Get your social media visitors coming to your website where you have more control.
Getting More Views & Engagement
Research, Research, Research
When it comes to owning an online business, research is your best friend. When
researching, you’ll want to:
- Look at trends
- Go on Pinterest and search for your keywords in the search bar
- Follow others who might, in turn, follow you.
- Look at other businesses in your industry and see what is working for them
- Look for what is missing from the above businesses and create a pin for that.
- Share others’ pins to your boards.
- Create a schedule and set aside time to have fresh, new pins daily.
These are just a few ideas to get you started.
Growing Your Audience with Pins
- Pin a blog post, create a stunning graphic in Canva or Picmonkey, and redirect your visitor to your website.
- Create relatable visual pins and you will attract your ideal audience who will then opt-in to your free offers. If a visual pin is relatable, it’s more likely your ideal client will want to learn, see, and know more about you and your business
- Grow your email list by including pins for each of your opt-ins
- Be consistent and keep up the momentum. Pin daily to your boards
- Keep your pins lean, clean, and simple
- Feel free to invite someone to repin if they feel inspired
- Follow your analytics – knowing what your most popular pins are will help you determine what your next step is in creating more of what your target audience wants and likes
- Share your most popular pins to multiple boards for optimal results
As you grow your audience, you’ll want to make sure your boards and pins are
organized for best results.
Organize Your Pinterest Boards for Best Results
- Place your most popular pins at the top
- Pay attention to the season. Take note when you shop in your local stores (craft, hobby, furniture, home and garden) which season that store is gearing up for and get in early on the consumer-driven needs for that season.
- Follow trends but don’t be too trendy. Use your imagination, innovation, and
creativity to see if you can spot a trend before it happens - Follow other pinners. Pin their pins to your boards
- Have multiple boards
Understanding Analytics for Pinterest
Checking your analytics on Pinterest is smart business. Your Pinterest analytics help you see your demographics, who is buying from you, where they are from, what time of day are they checking in and more. This data can help you discover which pins are useful so you can create more.
Looking at your “top pin impressions” will give you valuable information as to which pins are the most popular. Once you have that information, you can return to that blog post and make certain it includes your next level item. For example, “if you like this recipe, here are the tools (rolling pin, baking pan, etc.) to make it”. If you don’t personally own a next level item, you can affiliate things created by other companies.
Analytics shows you where your audience is. This demographic helps you to gear your next product or sale in your genre to that audience. With Pinterest Analytics you can view metrics such as:
- Your results by date, type, source
- Your top pins and engagements
- Link clicks
- Saves
- Watch time
These and many other forms of data will help you make informed decisions and help you to streamline your content for future reference. Once you have your analytics data, you can also begin to incorporate products or services relatable to other businesses in your pins and your blog posts.
This opens the door for affiliate commission to products you can affiliate with. For example, if you create one-of-a-kind handmade blankets and add a comment in your blog post about matching pillows, this opens the door to opportunity to affiliate with a company selling coordinating pillows.
The data from the analytics also opens the door to collaboration with other companies.
Once you have a substantial following (also known as social proof), you can earn more commissions from affiliates.
Leveraging the Power of Hash Tags
If you are not familiar with a hash tag, it is a word or phrase preceded by (#). For
Pinterest purposes, when you add a hashtag, other visitors can view the feed of all other relatable pins utilizing that hashtag.
Here are a few ways to leverage the power of hash tags on Pinterest:
- After writing your description and adding your call-to-action, add your hashtag
- Viewers can search for content using the hashtag for specific categories (for
example, #glutenfreerecipes - There has been some debate as to how many hashtags to use; best practice seems to dictate utilizing two extremely specific hashtags as opposed to using more broad ones.
- Do not overuse hashtags as other pinners find it spammy
- A hashtag is another way of claiming your expertise; when you use a hashtag, you become associated with that area of knowledge as a go-to person in the field
- Hashtags create brand awareness
- Using hashtags help you connect with other like-minded people
- Connects you with people seeking those services
- Connects you with business owners looking to collaborate
- Helps promote a social media campaign you are currently running
Making Use of Pinterest Ads
If you are creating momentum with your basic pins, paid ads would be the next level for you. Much like other social media platforms, Pinterest utilizes a bidding system. Here
are some things to keep in mind when using paid ads on Pinterest.
- Make sure you have a Business Account
- Make certain you have your website verified
- Check your analytics for data and information – once you start pinning,
remember to check on your analytics for demographic information. This information is valuable as it helps you to create your next campaign based on the success of previous pins - Choose your Campaign Objective – i.e. “Traffic” or “Brand Awareness” are two of the most popular campaign objectives.
Creating awareness around your brand is crucial when beginning to leverage the power of Pinterest. Sending traffic to your site with Pinterest helps increase your bottom line
- Include keywords for added strength in your ads, research in Pinterest’s tool bar as well as in Google’s search engine for relative keywords pertinent to your
target audience - Remember to include eye-catching visuals and keyword rich descriptions for your ads
- Concentrate on specific targeted audiences; just like with any other ad on other social media platforms, your aim is not to try to collect likes, it’s to help your target audience find you so you can help them with your products and services.
As you can see, it isn’t hard to leverage Pinterest to grow your online business. It just takes some forethought, plenty of research and a willingness to post regularly.
In the template bundle we have created you’ll find a planner and tons of checklists to help you make sure your Pinterest strategy is well planned and researched so you can effectively sell more products and make more money