Nail your Pinterest Social Media Marketing Strategy

May 18, 2014

When you want to find the perfect images and blog posts, Pinterest is the place to go. As this social media platform’s name implies, you “pin” whatever fancies your interest. But it’s not just for your typical interest user, brands use Pinterest to reach over 70 million users in the form of pins and boards.

The goal? To funnel traffic towards their homepage or their online shop.

You can now create boards dedicated to each aspect of your business, which gives users the option to follow one or all of your boards.

Despite the popularity of Pinterest, there are still some users and social media marketers that aren’t so sure how to effectively integrate promotions to their Pinterest content strategy.

If you’re looking for a guide for how you can promote your brand and its products, then you’ve come to the right place. Read our list of do’s and don’ts, and start applying these today

Do’s for using Pinterest to promote your business

Find out what content you should be pinning

Of course, before you can start promoting, you need to amass a large enough following for your promotions to gain traction. The best way to go about this is by generating unique and interesting content.

Try looking through Pinterest boards of businesses in the same industry as yours. Check out what majority of their followers find interesting.

If you were in the furniture industry, what are interior design Pinterest brands posting about? Are their product shots getting a lot of engagement? Maybe their users are more interested in rooms featuring their products? Are larger or more ornate pieces of furniture getting more likes and repins than smaller, more minimalist furniture? It’s information like this that could serve as your benchmark for relevant content.

Know what’s generally interesting across most followers

Pinterest is mainly a visual platform that people can casually browse through without thinking too much. But even by instinct, there are some images that people generally find more interesting than others.

For instance, images that are colourful or have predominantly warm colours are more likely to be repinned. The same goes to Images that are brighter and lighter, in opposite to very dark images. Lastly, brand images without faces are 23% more likely to be repinned compared to the ones featuring someone’s face.

Be an active user

According to the statistics, many Pinterest members check their dashboards on a daily basis. If you only pin about once a week, then your boards would become easy to forget.

Once you’ve established what content you want to pin, be consistent. Keep pinning content to both promote brand awareness. Also, show other users what your boards have to offer. In addition to posting lots of content, also repin from and comment on other boards. This is most likely to generate reciprocation and may win you a few more followers.

Hold Pinterest contests from time to time

These are an awesome way to reach out to your market. Not only would the prize motivate your followers to enter, but Pinterest contests that encourage your followers to share content may be seen by a larger group of people.

It’s referrals, shares and interactions like these that help increase your brand’s following for more sales.

Here are some traits of a great Pinterest contest:

— Make it easy to enter your contest. A simple comment on a post can be considered as a contest entry. However, if your contest has a bigger prize, you may want to ask your followers to create an entire board for the contest. Still, creating a board is still quite easy! Just make sure your prize is a big enough incentive to get users to do more work to enter.

— The promo image should be visually appealing, while also informative, to grab the attention of your followers. Pinterest boards, after all, are known for their visual appeal. So you’d need to up your game to really stand out amidst all the pins in other boards.

— Make the prize interesting to your followers. If your followers are gardening enthusiasts, it wouldn’t make sense if your prize was a gift card to a craft supply store, would it?

— Make sure that mobile users can also enter your contest. Many internet users are on their phones quite often, so it’s best to factor them into the demographic as well.

—Promote your contest on other social media sites. Make sure that many are aware of the contest and its prize. Who knows, maybe a Facebook or Twitter user would create a Pinterest account specifically to be able to join your contest.

Dont’s: Avoid these Pinterest mistakes

Don’t flood

Flooding is never okay on Pinterest or on any other social media site. The reason people choose to follow different boards is to have a variety of images to look. If you’re monopolising their board, then you’re saturating the content users see with only your content. Be active, but not overbearing.

Don’t be too enthusiastic about the comments

Comments are a great way to encourage engagement among your followers. But, if you comment too often, users might think of your comments as spam. In addition, you don’t have to reply to every single person who has repinned your content or commented on it. You can simply thank them at the end or just answer any questions within the pin in one fell swoop.

Don’t call your contest “Pin It to Win It.”

Not only is this such an overused contest name, but you can’t ask your followers to only pin your products or content to win enter. You can encourage them to pin your content, but this shouldn’t be the major criteria to make them qualify.

Never suggest or imply that Pinterest endorses your promotion

On Pinterest, all brands are equal. There’s no preference for a certain brand that Pinterest thinks you should follow. Your brand’s promotions and contests are your affair. The only reason Pinterest can be involved is that it’s the social media platform you have chosen to hold it.

Which of our key insights will you apply?  Do you have any other Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to Pinterest? Tell us in the comments!