Social media is one of the easiest mediums to use when it comes to inexpensive and effective marketing of a business.
However, there’s one website that is sorely underrated compared to the big ones– Pinterest.
Most marketing pros use Pinterest to market their business, but unfortunately many who do are using the wrong marketing strategy.
You can use Pinterest to your benefit and really bring in traffic if you use it properly. Luckily, we put together a guide to the best Pinterest marketing strategy around to help you reap the benefits of this awesome social media network.
Are you ready to up your Pinterest game? Before we get into the strategy, let’s get into why Pinterest is a great marketing tool.
Why Market With Pinterest?
To give you a clear idea of where Pinterest falls on the hierarchy of social media marketing, here are some stats of how many active users access social media as of 2016 in millions:
- Facebook – 1,590
- Tumblr – 555
- Twitter – 320
- Snapchat – 200
- Pinterest – 100
Pinterest looks like it ranks pretty low, right? It may not be the most popular social media network ever, but it can be the best social media network to use for very specific marketing.
Think of it this way– Pinterest is a hub used by mostly women and is usually used for things like DIY instruction, buying guides, and other information and learning-based criteria.
Because of this, Pinterest converts viewers into actual customers more than most social media outlets. And even though the number of active users is fairly low, it drives a significant amount of traffic back to specific websites more than other social media networks.
On top of that, “pins” on the website are shared like crazy, leading to more inbound links and more engagement.
The key is to use Pinterest in addition to investing in featured snippets, other social media sites, and other search engine optimization services.
Outside of marketing, Pinterest is a great place to scope out the competition and what trends are getting popular in your specific brand.
Convinced yet? Let’s get into how to properly execute a Pinterest marketing strategy.
The Best Pinterest Marketing Strategy To Bring In Traffic
This Pinterest marketing strategy is tried and true.
Create an account and immediately make a blog board.
Setting up your Pinterest account is quick and easy, and fairly self-explanatory once you start the process.
Once your account is up and ready, make a blog board right away and name it after your blog. Every time you create a blog or similar content on your website, post it to this Pinterest blog board.
Here’s a step by step guide to making this blog board:
- Create the board and name it after your website’s blog.
- When creating a blog pin to tag to this board, include either a quote or brief summary from your blog in the description.
- Use the best image you can on Pinterest. It’s a visual website, so your images need to snatch attention.
- Link directly to the article you’re posting about.
Easy, right?
If you blog about a wide range of things or blogging is your main thing to market from your website, consider making several different blog boards based around different subjects.
For example, say you’re a food and cooking blogger. Sometimes you’ll post recipes, other times you’ll post about foodie experiences, and sometimes you’ll blog about historical or international food.
Instead of having one “Food and Cooking Blog” board, create a “Recipe” board, a “Foodie” board, and a “History of Food” board.
Breaking up your blog boards is a smart way to make your Pinterest account seem more “full” while also allowing interested readers to sift through interesting topics.
Get subversive with lifestyle boards.
Your Pinterest boards need to focus on your market, brand, and business. Plain and simple.
However, just having your blog posts up in various blogging categories just isn’t enough.
Creating lifestyle boards based on different subjects and plugging additional blogs, editorials about your product or service, and your website’s landing pages are going to really bring in traffic.
For example, if you’re more than just a food blogger and you own an actual restaurant, start making boards about restaurants or area-specific lifestyle things.
If your restaurant is located in Los Angeles, make a Los Angeles lifestyle board and plug your restaurant’s website or Yelp page into the boards.
This way of marketing is natural and fluid, and will definitely help.
Improve your visuals.
Like we said before, images are EVERYTHING on Pinterest. The best recipe for sweet potato fries will go sorely unnoticed and ignored if the pin photo isn’t vibrant, eye-catching, and enticing.
Pinterest is essentially a magazine. Everybody flips through their feed looking for something that catches their eye before they take the next step into clicking pins.
There are so many simple and handy ways to improve your images.
By making your pin visuals vertically long, you’ll increase the time eyeballs are on your pin. This can increase the likelihood of traffic.
A good way to elongate your pin images is to make a “collage” of images that take a while to scroll away from. Just don’t go overboard and annoy your followers.
It also helps to think “magazine”. Clear, colorful, and high-resolution images will really get people interested.
If you’re in the business of infographics, these do wonderfully on Pinterest as well. Get creative.
Invest in decent image editing software, too. Pixlr is a great free option.
Additional tips
Stick to these tips to further improve your Pinterest marketing strategy:
- Always stay within the confines of your brand and theme, but also think broadly.
- Always pin and original and interesting content.
- Follow your followers and follow people who might be in your target audience.
- Scope out what’s trending on your followers’ boards.
- Always respond to comments and questions that may be asked on your pins. Stay active.
- Repin relevant content, especially if it is from your followers’ accounts.
Use The Right Pinterest Marketing Strategy For Your Business
How was our guide to using the right Pinterest marketing strategy? Tell us what you think, along with your own methods for Pinterest marketing, in the comments below!
