Should your business be on Pinterest?
Should your business be on Pinterest? Often thought of as the social network where you go to plan your dream wedding, baby shower and design your dream home after you win Lotto, Pinterest is one of the most underrated social networking sites. It has 442 million monthly users globally. (300k in Australia) That’s a huge piece of the marketing pie to be missing out on. When it comes to digital marketing, Pinterest provides you with a powerful SEO tool and can be instrumental in driving revenue and providing you with a significant return on investment (ROI).
In a recent survey of Pinterest users, regular pinners admitted that the social network has a direct impact on the products they purchase and the brands they choose. More than 72% of Pinterest users bought products they weren’t even looking for, while 90% of Pinterest users said the social network helps them decide what to buy.
Through using Pinterest, ice cream brand Häagen-Dazs saw a 3% rise in sales, searches for Backyard movie nights skyrocketed by 743% and despite the COVID pandemic, there was an increase in people searching for travel destinations. Even 50% of tech shoppers want gadgets that express their personality and what better place to find them than Pinterest?
So now that you can see the Pinterest potential, let’s take a closer look on how the Pinterest search algorithm helps users find your business and how to make the most of the SEO tools.
How does Pinterest work?
Think of Pinterest like a gigantic digital corkboard where you can save your favourite pictures on categorised boards on topics and products you are passionate about. Pinterest users can save, share or upload images they find online. This is called a ‘pin’. When the image is uploaded to the Pinterest board, it’s generally linked to the website where it was found.
Example: Let’s say you’ve been rocking the same hairstyle since 1991 and it’s time to get a hairdo that’s on trend. You can search the best hairstyles for long hair or the best hairstyles for short hair or medium length and then scroll through the endless options that appear. You can even search via complexion and skin tones. The pins that make it to your top list of favourites can be saved to your own Pinterest board and will be able to be seen by your followers.
How does Pinterest know what you’re looking for?
When you search for content on Pinterest, there are 4 major considerations that decide what you see online.
- The quality of the domain
Domain quality refers to what Pinterest deems to be your website’s quality. For example; Pinterest is not a place to come and post your nudie photos or pornography. It must meet the terms and conditions of Pinterest - The quality of the pin
What’s trending, popularity, and the amount of engagement the pin receives. - The quality of the pinner
This is determined by how active you are and whether your content is engaging to see if you are eligible to be a content creator (Similar to an Instagram influencer) - Relevance of topic
It works a bit like Google, keywords play a large part of what shows up in your Pinterest search.
Through the Pinterest search engine you are driving web traffic to your website.
Strategically creating relevant content to build your brand presence
By strategically planning what you post to each Pinterest board you can grow your brand awareness. In the boards you name, the descriptions you use to tell users what you are pinning and detailing what’s in each photo by using your keywords, Pinterest is able to assign a category to each pin and board. Don’t just pluck random keywords that you think maybe trending, be sure to take the time to do some research for words and phrases that relate to your content, audience and industry. There’s no point having keywords that no one is searching for.
When you begin typing, Pinterest will automatically suggest keywords to assist you in refining your search. Jot these down because you’ll want to remember them.
Using SEO on Pinterest
Pinterest streamlines online shopping and makes it so much easier to find exactly what you are looking for. For this reason alone, it is well worth exploring if you have an e-commerce website, particularly if your website is underperforming.
You will need to set up a business account for Pinterest. This is different from the accounts users use to plan their dream weddings and travel goals. The difference is you get a host of tools to help you plan and strategise including advertising and analytics for reporting.
One of the most important aspects if you plan to use Pinterest is to ensure that your website is designed to make it easy to pin images. By adding a Pinterest tag to your ecommerce site, instead of copying and pasting links, users can just click on a pin to add the image to their chosen board.
Once you have set up a business account, be sure to include links to all your socials on your website, so visitors to your site and see you are on Pinterest and easily follow you and pin your products.
By adding the share button to your website, users can engage with your website and it also allows your business to set up Pinterest advertising campaigns.
Does Pinterest offer the option to advertise?
Pinterest has a variety of ways to advertise including pins that allow the user to shop now and instantly purchase without leaving the platform. (A bit like Instagram and Facebook Shopping). It also offers the ability to show off a variety of photos in a carousel format and now supports video as well.
When you decide on which type of advertising campaign best suits your business, for example if you are demonstrating how well a product works like a hair straightener, you may want to use video content. If you have hair straighteners in a variety of vibrant colours, the carousel option may be just the format you are looking for.
Summary
Pinterest is not for everyone. Your products and website may not lend itself to creating great pins. You may also experience more success if you are able to provide international shipping. Just because Pinterest is available does not necessarily mean it’s the right fit for your business. It is better to select the social networks where your target audience hangs out, rather than try to be everywhere at once, and end up doing none of them well because you are time-poor.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will delve deeper into using Pinterest for marketing and the types of tools available, as well as some hacks you may not realise exist.
Are you interested in trying Pinterest? Talk to one of our team members today to find out if Pinterest is a good fit for your business
