Reach a new audience and get visitors to your site with our top tips for using Pinterest!
Social media is a staple part of most businesses and for years we have been figuring out how using Facebook and Twitter can boost engagement, help us build our brand and reach out to new customers. But as with most other elements of marketing and business things are changing at a fast pace and with whispers that might be getting worse, we have been looking at alternative social sites that could bring a fresh group of people to engage with and drive traffic to your website.
Why Pinterest?
As with most social media sites, when Pinterest first arrived on the scene it had a very simple premise – it was an interactive pinboard and it was great for people who were working on creative projects – from making their own greetings cards to renovating a house or even planning a wedding. Over time, it has become much more than that and Pinterest is now used by anyone for a whole range of things. It’s got such a huge selection of content it has become almost like a search engine in itself.
How does Pinterest work for business?
Much like all the other social sites you need to come up with a Pinterest strategy that is tailored to your business, so think about your key business objectives and work from there to figure out how Pinterest can help you meet them. Some of the ways Pinterest can benefit your business are:
- Drive traffic to your site – when you post on Pinterest you can also link to the original home of the content, which means if you are sharing a blog or a page from your site, you can also link to it. In 2016 we have seen a 300% increase in traffic to our site from Pinterest alone, which beats the growth of any other social site!
- Get your brand out there – Pinterest is all about sharing and saving content. So every time your pin is saved to someone’s board or shared on a news feed, it’ll be seen by a whole new group of people.
- Get people to engage with your content through ads – you can now use advertising on Pinterest to boost your content to tailored audiences, so you can reach more people and make sure you’re targeting people who are likely to engage with your content. Once you’ve run a couple of ads you can start to use the analytics and data to make decisions about what kind of audience responds the best to your campaigns on Pinterest.
Getting started…
-  Think about what kind of posts will work for your business – whatever content you want to link to you need an image to post on Pinterest that’s going to connect with the audience. Check out our blog on how to optimise your content with images to find out more about what type of images to use and how to make sure they tick all the right boxes for your audience.
- Create content especially for Pinterest – top 10 lists, easy-to-read infographics and simple step-by-step instructions about how to use your product are all popular with Pinterest users. Always think about what your audience want to see.
- Caption your posts properly and always link to the original source – keywords are particularly important on Pinterest as users find the content they want to read by searching for it. So, make sure your content is tagged accurately and you always link through to the original source.
- Check out the data – Pinterest offers some great analytics that show you who your audience are and what content they’re engaging with. Use this to review what you are posting and make sure you’re tailoring your approach to your audience.
You should now have everything you need to get started on Pinterest. Please leave any top tips or success stories in the comments below…
Other blogs you might want to check out:
How to create a social media plan
Social media tips for small businesses
The best images to use in your social media campaigns