By Katt Stearns. If you are planning a wedding, building a house, having a baby or looking for home décor ideas chances are you have been on Pinterest to get inspired and check out the latest trends.
For businesses it is a great way to drive traffic to your website for specific products or to inspiring you with content creation ideas.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a virtual scrapbook where you can create different types of boards that you “Pin” images and videos to that you find on the web. Each of the videos and images has a description and a direct link back to the original source. When someone visits your website and they find a product or a recipe they like they can pin it to one of their pinterest boards for reference and then every time the visit that pin in pinterest the link will lead directly back to the page on your website they originally pined it from.
Now that you understand a bit more about what Pinterest is here are some of the things to consider when starting a Pinterst account for your business.
1. Create Your Pinterest account.
There are now two types of Pinterest account, business and personal. To start your business account click here: https://business.pinterest.com/en
If you already have a Pinterest account and want to transfer it to a business account you can do that in your settings.
Just like every social media account you want to select a username and an account name that align with your business and brand. Upload your profile image and link your website and social media accounts to your profile. Keep in mind that Pinterest does not allow you to link your Facebook Business Page to your account only your profile. So you may not want to connect that account.
2. Creating Boards
Next comes the fun part… creating your Pinterest boards. It’s important to spend some time thinking about what types of boards you want and what you are going to name them. You will want to have a mix of boards that focus on your company and boards that are a bit broader where you can pin from other people. For example a flooring company wouldn’t want to create a board called “Our Products” they would want to create separate boards for Wood Flooring, Tile Flooring, bathroom flooring etc. They would also want to create boards that complement their products or align with their target audience’s interest such as Do It Your Self Cleaning Tips, Interior design, beautiful kitchens etc.
3. Adding Hastags to your pins
To help your pins get found include strong hashtags like you would in Twitter or instagram to help your content be found. Focus on using some of your keywords or look around to other boards and pinners that are similar to you to get ideas for other hashtags.
4.
The great thing about Pinterest is not only can you pin from your website to a board on your Pinterest account but you can also upload a custom pin to Pinterest and still link it back to your website.
Personally, I prefer to use this option for most pins because it allows you to customize the image to make sure it looks create online.
To upload your pin go into the board that you want the pin to be in. Click “Add a Pin”. Next select upload a pin from “Your Device” and choose the image off of your computer you want to upload.
Add a description about the pin and click “Pin it”.
Now, to link that pin back to your website click on the pin again and click “edit” and in the source section put In the website address.
A key thing to remember when putting in the website is to make sure that it goes directly to the page on the website associated with that product or piece of content. Pinners find it very frustrating when they click through to a pin and realize it goes to the home page of a business and now they have to try and find the content they are looking for.
5.
How Often should you be pinning?
Just like any other marketing tactic you need to have a strategy and you want to be consistent. By starting up a Pinterest account today you likely won’t see your traffic skyrocket over night but over time you should see some improvements.
To help get you started in the right direction you want to pin a mix of original content and following other similar board and re-pin their pins. When you are starting out you will want to focus more on repining other peoples content to help people find your boards and to increase your followers. There is no point in pinning all your best content right away if no one is going to see it. I suggest going with an 80-20 rule. 80% or other peoples content and 20% of your content. As your followers grow your strategy should change accordingly.
Pinterest is one of the fast growing social media platforms and for a lot of businesses one of the leading drivers for traffic. It can be a great way to help showcase your products and services and get other people spreading the word. It won’t take you long to get the hang of it. Hope these tips help to get you started. Happy Pinning!
About Katt Stearns
We all have a story to tell. Capturing it in a manner that engages, educates and entertains your audience requires Strategic Social. Katt Stearns is a social media marketing consultant, speaker and trainer. She has worked with numerous organizations including BC Hydro’s Power Smart, Thompson Rivers University and Mission Folk Music Festival to develop strategic social media strategies that help them share their stories, and make a difference in the world. Katt is also the Director of Social Strategy for We Make Stuff Happen. You can find Katt at KattStearns.com, Google+ or on Twitter at @KattStearns.