3 ways to elevate your brand’s exposure on Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the Web’s largest visual resources and search engines for just about anything.

This social media network boosts your biz. With over 431 million monthly users, why not make your company a part of it? It could even serve as a side revenue. Adding pins to a board isn’t just about sharing photos or five-minute gluten-free recipes, this platform’s a whole market in flowery disguise. That is, if you do it right.

As an avid pinner, I’m happy to share what you need to know to use it to your advantage. Here are the top three reasons why you should consider Pinterest for your business in our ever-growing digital space.

Let’s unpack more details on pinning for your brand’s visual exposure.

1 – Building a community in Pinterest creates broader brand exposure

You can reach untapped communities by participating in collaborative Pinterest groups and contributing pins to public or shared boards. These boards allow you to partner with other business accounts or create your own, allowing the admins of the group to repin, post, comment, and share.

In exchange for pins, you can extend your brand reach and form tighter bonds with your clients through groups of Pinterest followers. Users signify these personable relationships as one of the reasons to navigate your Pinterest business account and stay up to date with your content.

Refer to this Pinterest terminology list for effective communication in your shared communities.

Consider your Pinterest marketing strategy as an investment for your business goals–you get back the effort you put in. It’s the perfect opportunity to show off your company’s personality, with the chance to create unique content, amplifying your brand voice through visual guides.

Like with all other social networks, your brand on Pinterest will grow in proportion to the effort you put in towards becoming a part of the community. A good way to start doing this is by following other boards in your niche and forming relationships with the people and contributors behind them.
Mridu Khullar Relph, Buffer

Here’s how to get started.

Step 1 – Choose a Pinterest board theme

By having a Pinterest objective for each board that’s related to your brand message, you can associate it with a specific, search-friendly topic. Here’s how:

Start off with naming your board something that encapsulates the theme, depending on what your board will consist of.

Select the categories the board falls under. Since you can pick more than one category, it’s a smart idea to research popular categories to attract users to your board.

Step 2 – Upload a set of branded & related pins

Pick out visual content that’s related to your brand theme and add it to your board. Browse through your photos, videos, and graphics and upload them to each board, it’s a seamless process if you gathered the selection beforehand.

Write your pin and board descriptions, located by the side section of your image and right under the title. Make sure they align with your visual, brownie points if you mention your selling point.

Add your tags and keywords, the search engine is your best friend. The more specifics you add to your board, the more likely you’ll amp up your interactions.

Tip: Pinterest’s offers curated feeds through their ultra-specific algorithms. Add related pins to your board to continue the cycle, for an assortment of content to compel followers for more.

Step 3 – Start engaging

When you follow and interact with other Pinterest users and their accounts, you’re able to initiate and maintain personal relationships between them and your business. This type of engagement has the potential to make your followers feel a level of loyalty towards your brand that keeps them coming back to your profile for inspiration, ideas, and to buy products.
Kristen Baker, Hubspot

Comment, like, and share your followers’ content to your own boards.

Post content that requires participation, like challenges, giveaways, contests, and quizzes. This allows your followers to act on your pins, share with friends, and get familiar with your services.

Respond to comments from your account’s pins and direct messages. It’s an easy way to engage with your followers, while also informing users more about your brand.

Pinterest home page view on computer and phone mockups — *Source*

Step 4 – Share on social platforms

Add the Pinterest widgets and buttons to your company’s websites, social media accounts, and mobile apps that bring users to your Pinterest content at the click of a button.

Share pins and boards on your social

Community boards are great for visual exposure, while also educating Pinterest users. So, include infographics, tutorials, links and how-to pins that relate to what your business is all about.

Step 5 – Include Pinterest stories and carousels in your activity

Writing is, in fact, one of the most powerful weapons you can have in digital marketing. It’s a sole form of communication that automatically places your reader first, by having the control of deciding how, what and when they interpret what you’re selling them.
Yours truly, Wunderland

Pinterest stories in carousels format — *Source*

Stories and carousels are a great way to generate more user clicks. Just make sure you create them based on your buyer personas, possibly scheduling them for different times and days of the week.
Sets of images, videos, and reels, direct users to different landing pages. Think of it as an asset for regular activity on your business account.
These mediums give off a more personal interaction. Add more images to tell your audience a compelling, visual, and exclusive brand story that makes them feel special.

The opposite side of the same coin

Whatever you decide to do with group boards, just keep in mind that every silver bullet comes with a secret risk. And group boards are no exception. Jumping on the group board train without being aware of the risks can kill all your Pinterest marketing success!
Susanna Gebauer, The Social Ms

Boards provide an immersive experience, which allows you to use it as a resource hub of visual content. But, there are potential drawbacks to them, such as downranking your account, dropping your reach, and minimizing your traffic.

You can prevent that by your selection of group boards based on specific criteria. Notice how active the board is and how well your pins relate to your vision. If they’re a good match, results will follow.

Given everything you’ve learned, here’s your sign to try out a new social platform, extend your reach and let your brand’s personality shine.

You’re positioning yourself to be the first to cross a buyer’s mind when you let your charisma show through with your digital marketing, and Pinterest might just be the marketing channel to get you there.

2. You can create profit by creating promoted pins

Brand awareness is crucial to your business. Pinterest is a great way to extend your brand’s reach across the Web.

Pinterest’s search engine is 97% unbranded, meaning users type in keywords rather than brand names to find the desired content. Pins easily double as selling points. They advertise your product in a variety of ways.

You can do this by running paid ads, attaching branded content, linking referrals to your products, and increasing your social presence on other accounts. The possibilities are endless and they all benefit your business.

eCommerce thrives in the Pinterest marketplace. It’s a platform that sends users to your website directly from referrals, redirects, engagement and interactions with your brand through your business account.
Once you’ve set your strategy goals, you can start looking into profiting the most out of your Pinterest business account. You can install automated scheduled software like Tailwind, a simple and integrated tool that reposts your groups of pins automatically.

All you’ve got to do is sort your set number of pins, choose where they’re directed, and select the dates. It’ll do the rest of the work for you.

Because Pinners are looking to shop, they’re more likely to appreciate ads than on any other platform. On average, Pinterest ads earn a 2x higher return on ad spend with a 2.3x cheaper cost per conversion, compared to other social media platforms. That’s huge.

As a result, your business has an even bigger chance of sales from active engagement, generating leads, increasing click-through rates, and improving your ROI–all redirected from, you guessed it, your pins.

Pinners are 66% more likely to give new brands a chance — and stay loyal.

Take promoted pins, for example. You have the option to highlight your pins that are specifically catered to your following, “promoting” them to the top of a user’s feed. The settings allow the user to click on the pin that directs them to your service, rather than going to the detail page first.

Promoted pins are categorized by the keywords for optimal compatibility and ultimately, better chances for profit. This means they take your business to the forefront, so you quite literally stand out from everything else on your clients’ feeds.

The (other) types of Pinterests ads you can use

We’ve already covered idea pins, story pins and carousels. But there’s a lot more where that came from.

Try-on product pins & product pins

Product pins are pins that display your product as a stand-alone photo, while try-on product pins display through a simulated AR experience. Try-ons are typically shown in a background or over an image of someone–whether it be you, a model, or an empty kitchen space.

They both contain a brief description, price, and a direct link to the associated product page on your company’s website. It helps the user get a hands-on experience with your service through a virtual channel.

Collection & shopping

[Shopping ads are] the most effective. Fashion label Scotch & Soda tried Pinterest Shopping ads for the first time and brought in over 800,000 new users and a 7 times higher return on ad spend than previous campaigns elsewhere.
Michelle Martin, Hootsuite

Collection ads are set up by one large image, surrounded by smaller images around it as a layout template. Not to mention, you can let Pinterest handle it with an automatic feature. They’re meant to attract your reader by giving the “accessory” effect to your selling point, making it visually appealing to the eye.

Your collages are exceptional for combining a certain feel, personality (or vibe, if you will). Especially if you already know the vision for your specific product, it’s great to accentuate it with others visuals to fully embody the message you’re trying to convey to your target audience.

On the other hand, shopping ads are single images or videos that directly link to your product. You can collaborate with Pinterest partners like Shopify, and allow Pinterest to showcase your company’s products in full-view.

No matter the ad, you can see the results through your Pinterest analytics.

The numbers speak for themselves. 52% of millennials use Pinterest, 89% of pinners find their desired products, and 83% purchase them. You can even discover your demographics through interactive insights, with more to follow in the last section of this article.

3 – Starting with buyer personas can end with brand growth.

Pinterest represents a unique network in terms of its user base and its diversity. These Pinterest stats are notable for advertisers and brands looking to target the right demographics on the platform.
Brent Banhart, SproutSocial

Define your buyer personas

You can sharpen your Pinterest skills by learning from your audience activity on your boards and pins. Even if you miss, your name will still get out there on the Web.

However, you can increase brand awareness even further by developing your buyer personas. They play a major role in the types of popular searches that relate to your content, so making them a priority to curate your future content helps with exposure. From there, you’ll be able to figure out just what they’re looking for when they browse your boards and pins.

Not only will creating your buyer persona allow you to be more comfortable and therefore more natural in your approach, you’ll also be in a much better position to help your buyers see that you understand them, care about them, and can help them. You’ll be speaking their language and they will feel understood, even relieved to see that you “get” them. You and your business deserve the time this will take.
Alisa Meredith, Tailwind

Dive into your analytics

Pinterest gives you the opportunity to study your followers through analytics, for content that directly caters to their interests. Thus, you can build stronger relationships with your followers and make your brand stand out from the rest.

The analytics features are categorized for a closer look at their interactions with your boards and pins. There’s a long list of metrics you can use to study your Pinterest account from the inside out.

With your Pinterest metrics, analytics and demographics, you can divide your followers through different subcategories of buyer personas. They represent each user’s interest based on their niche. As a result, your target audience will feel like they connect with your content.

Know the trends and keywords

Get acquainted with Pinterest’s trends and keywords. Keyword targeting shows your ads and pins based on what your followers search for and what their home page looks like. You can use broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative match to configure the details, and match the relevant keywords to your descriptions.

Since the platform is all about customization, your Pin settings give you a variety of options and selections for each post. You can group your pins into different themed boards and custom options: create lists, conversion sources, add filters, keywords, and interests for your target audience.

Study your numbers and graphs

Stats show that Pinterest ads are 2.3x more cost effective, and twice as likely for returned income on ad spend. Pinterest drives website traffic and it’s SEO-rich, so you may even notice a boost in your online sales.

Aside from all the possible ad and promo revenue, Google ad searches favour your Pinterest pins to the top of their page. It’s all in your Pin descriptors and SEO optimization. Once you’ve cracked the code, you’re set.

Pinterest needs to be key to your social media marketing strategy. With cost-effective advertising opportunities and an engaged audience of high-intent users, Pinterest allows eCommerce and retail brands to tap into new pools of potential customers. And with platform usage only on the rise, now is the perfect time to build Pinterest into your brand’s broader marketing strategy.
Kyra Goodman, SkedSocial.

Just a few graphs can lead you in the right direction with such a simplistic network system. Have a look at some examples, to get familiar with what you’ll be working with.

Keep the ball rolling…

Pinterest is all about quality over quantity, so be sure that the content you share will be optimized. It’s also smart to post at regular intervals throughout the day—Pinterest users are active at all hours, and you’ll want to ensure that some of your content goes out during the evening hours of your geographical target market.
Debbie Roy, How to Grow on Pinterest

Pro tip: Once you’ve worked on your Pinterest strategy, built your online communities, and established connections with your audience, a great way to launch your marketing plan into action is through holiday scheduling.
Plan your holiday content in August, and your summer content in December. By the time people start searching, your business will be at the top of the algorithm. Your Pinterest traffic will drop significantly without the proper strategy for consistent interactions and exposure. That’s why it’s crucial to start scheduling your content in advance, especially for calendar holidays.

It’s that simple: set up your content in advance with an automated system, so your branded content has a chance to float around. Your pins will show up before the fresh content rolls in, as it’s had more time to develop views and clicks–therefore, your content will be the first to display through the search engine.