What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a platform, which enables you to share images showcasing your products and services in an easy and effective way. On Pinterest you are able to create boards, which are focused around a specific product or offer.
As well as uploading your own images you can also connect with your audience by pinning there pins and following them. From here you are then able to create a relationship with them and let them know who your company are and what you can offer them.
Pinterest has over 72.8 million people currently active, with more joining each day. Similarly to Instagram you can upload a description along with your image to provide further information on what it is people are looking at. You are also able to include links within your pins which is good as if you upload an image of a product you can include a link back to that specific page. On Instagram you cannot currently include a link within your post. You are also able to access Pinterest on your desktop or mobile device, which makes it a lot easier.
Why is it a beneficial marketing tool?
- A benefit of Pinterest is that ads don’t look like ads. So you could post an ad for your product and your audience would not perceive it as an ad. This is due to the board system on Pinterest and not feeling that they had to commit to buying a product by pinning it. However, 49% of people purchased 5 or more products that they pinned.
- 83% of Pinterest users prefer to follow a brand than a celebrity when they are using Pinterest.
- Soon Pinterest are going to allow brands and companies to put a ‘Buy it’ button on products that they wish to advertise. This means that people can then buy from Pinterest and find companies that may not normally find on Google search. Overall providing more exposure for your company.
- A high percentage of active users are under 40, this means if you are looking to target a younger demographic, Pinterest is a great platform to start on.
Pinterest for your business
Pinterest does have a business account that you can set up, which allows you to see slightly more than the personal account. Don’t worry if you have a personal account currently set up for your business, you can change over without losing any boards.
Setting up a business account allows you to enter your company name rather than entering a first and last name. The business account is similar to the personal account except you have the added benefit of being able to access the analytics on Pinterest. This mean you can see the statistics of who has engaged or visited your Pinterest page and boards. From here you can then see where you can improve your pins/posting and reach a wider audience.
Pinterest also allows you to add ‘pin it’ to your website. This encourages customers and visitors to pin products that they like to their own Pinterest within specific boards. If somebody visits your website to view a product but does not have time to complete the purchase there and then, they can pin the product and come back to it later. This is really useful for providing your audience with the option to return later.
Creating a successful post/profile
Creating a successful profile for your business is easy. Follow these steps on your profile and within each image that you upload or pin to your profile.
- Ensure your profile is complete with all of the necessary information.
- Company name
- Company logo
- Contact email
- Website URL
- A brief description about your company and what you offer.
- Create a board for each service or product type that you offer.
- Name your boards simply, so that it is easy to understand what they are going to include.
- Every time you upload an image to a board make sure that you are including as much relevant information that you can. This includes the following.
- A description about what the image is about
- Any relevant hashtags
- A link back to your website.
- Make sure that the image is pinned to the correct board
- Create boards that are also relevant to the industry that your company is within. An example of this is – If your company specialises in Fitness, think to yourself what would people associate with that? This can be things such as healthy eating, exercises, motivational graphics etc.
- Update your Pinterest account frequently either by uploading images of your products/services or by searching for relevant hashtags and pinning images from your audience onto boards on your website.
What kind of images should you use for your business?
- Products
- Special Offers
- Services
- Images associated with your industry
Remember to keep it human! Post images that are unrelated to your business but say things about having a good weekend. Your audience will find this interesting and engaging.
What time of the day works best for you?
Keeping your profile up to date is really important for maintaining a successful online presence. However, also finding out when the best time is to post when your audience online is even better. Therefore, you will need to do a couple of tests. Upload a picture onto your account at varying times of the day over the course of two weeks and see which get the most engagement.
Upload some images in the morning, the afternoon and also the evening.
Then after uploading some images at varying times for two weeks take a look at the performance of each post and see which worked best.
We then recommend that you try and upload a post around this time every other day with other images being posted in-between at different times.
This enables your post to reach a wider audience as more people are online that are looking for what your company does.
The Do’s and Don’ts!
The Do’s
- Complete your profile with all of the necessary information
- Update your profile at least three times a week
- Find the best time for your business to post and make sure you do at least one post a week at that time
- Engage with your audience as often as possible by commenting back, liking/pinning relevant photos
- Always include a description on your posts
- Include a link on your post where you can
- Use relevant hashtags on your posts
The Don’ts
- Do not be inconsistent with the posting on your social accounts. This can make your business look bad and make you look like you are inconsistent with your work or service you offer.
- Do not upload images that are not relevant to your company or industry
- Do not hashtag every word within your description. Make sure that you hashtag relevant words and phrases that people would search for on their own to find your post.
If you would like any information on how we can help manage your social media accounts and help you create a successful plan contact us on calling on 0161 368 9100 or email us at here@asone.co.uk
