In the content marketing realm, Facebook and Twitter have been placed on a golden pedestal atop of other social media platforms. But, in an industry that is constantly evolving it is important not to narrow your vision so much that you overlook other valuable platforms, such as Pinterest.
“Pinterest may seem like just another fluffy, feel-good website full of cupcake photos and endless boards of shoes, but beneath its soft exterior lies the makings of a powerful content curation machine,” Content Marketing Institute’s, Nicole Kholer, wrote in an article.
Since its release in 2010, Pinterest has accumulated 72.8 million users, ranking it as one of the most popular social media platforms. Pinterest also brings 300% more referral traffic to users websites than Facebook with less time, effort and money.
Here’s a quick guide to using Pinterest for content marketing:
1) Sign Up As a Business
The simplest step of all is registration, as almost all social media requires some form of registration, so you should be seasoned by now. However, make sure you register as a business account and not an individual user; you will need this specification to access Pinterest’s marketing tools.
2) Build Your Boards
This step is straightforward; create multiple boards built around the interests of your target audience. For instance, if you are a company that sells sunglasses your target audience might be interested in sunny destinations and live music, so you would create a board about vacation spots and another about music festivals, then curate relevant content within each.
Make sure your boards have clear names and descriptions that specify their relation to your audience’s interest to ensure they see engagement. Selecting an appropriate category will also help.
Hip fashion retailer, American Apparel, has 35 boards that cover various topics their target audience is interested in:
3) What To Post?
Pinterest is a visual social media platform, which means the pins you curate should always ‘visualize’ your audiences interests. Finding the right visuals to pin isn’t always as easy as searching a topic and clicking the pin, and it certainly does not guarantee engagement.
Here are some things to keep in mind when selecting content to curate:
- make sure images are high resolution and look professional
- simple is best
- images without faces perform 23% better than those with faces
- softer images perform better than darker images
- use original images
- make sure to size your images appropriately, as pins have a fixed width and an unlimited length, which can lead to image distortion
Swarovski practices these guidelines on a number of its Pinterest boards and has seen much success, totalling over 1.5 million followers. Its board Wedded Bliss is full of beautiful, high resolution photos and offers great inspiration to planning brides-to-be.
4) Increase ‘Repins’ and Shares
Now that you’ve spent time carefully creating and curating your brands content, you want your audience to share it, just as they would on Facebook or Twitter. These repins and shares help increase authority, expand your reach and promote your product.
Here are some tips to increase your repins and shares:
- include hovering pin buttons on your website(s)
- post at Pinterests peak hours: 2-4 p.m. and 8-11 p.m.
- use keywords for SEO
- invite other industry leaders to collaborate on a board
- use Rich Pins to offer more details than standard pins
- pin regularly
- link to other boards and websites
- use promoted pins
5) Measure Your Pinterest Performance
Pinterest Analytics is one of the most important tools at your disposal; it allows you the opportunity to measure the success of your content by identifying which content performs best with your audience.
This is where you will find the top pin impressions from the last 30 days, which serves the purpose of informing you what kind of content is garnering the highest response. This knowledge will help you make better content decisions and increase effectiveness.
The analytics can be broken down into three different categories: profile analytics, audience and website analytics.
Profile Analytics
This is where you will find the top pin impressions from the last 30 days, which serves the purpose of informing you what kind of content is garnering the highest response. This knowledge will help you make better content decisions and increase it’s effectiveness.
You will also find data on the top board impressions from the last 30 days and. With this information you can make the wise decision to focus more time and effort on the board that’s receiving the most engagement.
The final element of profile analytics is the all time ranking, which tells you which of your pins rank higher in searches and which have the most engagement.
Audience Information
The audience section of your Pinterest Analytics will provide you with detailed information about the audience interacting with your pins on your domain and profile. Here you will find their country, language, gender and interests, thus providing you with details to help you form content that connects with your audience.
Website Analytics
This area of Pinterest Analytics shows which device is most commonly used by your audience, giving you the knowledge needed to better optimize your content for that specific viewing experience.
You will also be shown which boards contain the most pins with links to your sites, whether they be boards created by you or someone else. This information will help you see how people use your content, which gives you insight into what inspires them. This information helps you better curate and create content that caters to them.
Other articles you might find useful:
How to Create Content Your Customers Will Share on Social Media
Top Four Easy Ways to Create Interactive Content
How to Use Instagram for Content Marketing
Tips on Using Vine for Content Marketing
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