These days, it seems as if everybody and their mother is on Pinterest. That observation is accurate, literally, as nearly 80% of Pinterest's 72.5 million current users are women aged 18-45, where nearly 50% are mothers. Although the largest demographic on Pinterest is currently women, recently, there has also been a spike in the number of male users joining the platform. Last year, it was reported that 1/3 of all signups came from men. Also reported to be the fastest growing social media site, Pinterest is continuing to grow by the day - meaning that soon enough, everybody and their mother, brother, father, sister, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and next door neighbor will be on Pinterest. With that being the case, your company should be too.
Why is it so crucial for your company to be actively present on yet another social media platform? Because this one is full of opportunity, and entices internet users to do what you want them to do most: buy. Facebook and Twitter are great for promoting your brand and building a community, but Pinterest is the one place where you can really drive sales in a fun, non-intrusive way.
Pinterest's unique layout and functionality allows users to browse through visual content and bookmark items and ideas that spark their interest, and can even act as a virtual shopping platform for all things across the web. Originally, users could find something they liked on Pinterest, click the image and in a matter of seconds, are catapulted to the end of the purchasing funnel. But not, thanks to Pinterest's latest feature, the Buyable Pin, users can browse items and buy them without ever leaving the page.
Introduced earlier this summer, Buyable Pins provide users with the option to purchase any item that features a blue price value and "buy it" button, securely on Pinterest's platform. This is a great feature for both users and vendors alike, as users can now browse their Pinterest feeds to do their online shopping and vendors can make their products available for purchase with ease (so long as their online businesses use Shopify or Demandware).
By providing users who already make purchases online with an extremely convenient and hassle-free shopping experience, it only makes sense that sales made on Pinterest will rapidly increase.
Not only does Pinterest make transactions more immediate, it also has the power to expose your content or your product to more people that you can imagine. 80% of pins circulating Pinterest are repins, meaning that content is being spread from every corner of the internet repeatedly. The longevity of pins is far greater than anything posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and quality content spreads like wildfire.
In addition to the overview of Buyable Pins above, we've previously shared insights about how to utilize Pinterest's specific marketing features like Promoted Pins, Rich Pins and Place Pins. But we also wanted to share with you how to build a presence and improve engagement in a more organic way.Feeling Pinspired? Here are 5 of our best practices to consider while building your Pinterest presence:
Implement Board & Pin Organization
Create boards that appeal to all aspects of your brand's niche - remember, they don't all need to be product focused. Keep your pins nice and tidy by creating various boards with unique themes and styles that relate to the lifestyle your brand associates itself with.
Red Door used this tip when revamping ASICS America's Pinterest account and deleted old, unused boards, consolidated smaller ones, and renamed each board with a title that spoke to the audience. By not only displaying products and ASICS focused content, users can look to ASICS for valuable information on how to live a healthy and active lifestyle.
Pin & Repin Visually Appealing Content
Strive to pin and repin content that's aesthetically pleasing and eye-catching, as users are bombarded with all sorts of images and text as they scroll through their feed. Large, vertical, high quality images with bright colors and minimal text tend to perform much better in terms of engagement.
Pinterest Pin from Aliyah Prontaut has received over 40,000 repins since it first appeared on Pinterest 4 years ago and features a very clean, vibrant aesthetic.
Write with Keywords in Mind
It's important to make sure you are describing the content that is found in your Pin in your description, not only for the sake of explaining what the image is about, but also to make sure the content you are creating is searchable by users. If you were a home goods brand pinning an image of a patterned curtain, it is important to note as many details about the curtain so it pops up in several search results. For example, "Love this curtain idea! This beautiful sheer blue and yellow paisley curtain adds a fashionable touch to any bedroom or living room decor" would help your pin show up in multiple searches.
If you're not sure where to start with your keywords, try typing the main content of your pin into the search bar to see what people are organically searching for. You can see when it comes to curtains people also look for living room and DIY (do it yourself) ideas.
Consciously Keep Your Audience in Mind
Pinterest is the land of improvement. People go on Pinterest in hopes of learning something new, get inspired to try something new, or look for new ways to better themselves. Pinning and repinning content that is valuable to this audience is a great way to gain traction and improve your own presence, so post content related to improving overall quality of life.
Remember the Move to Mobile
The amount of people using Pinterest only on mobile is rising, with reports last year indicating that 75% of all daily traffic was coming from mobile apps on phones and tablets. If you haven't already, you should take the necessary measures to make sure that if you're linking to your company's website, it's mobile-friendly and easy to navigate.
Create Consistency
In order to ramp up engagement rates, you should be pinning and repinning on a consistent schedule. Services like Buffer, Tailwind, and Curalate allow you to schedule pins at various hours on various days throughout the week and often send your pins at optimum times when the majority of users are on the platform.
Continually Optimize
Equip yourself with the right tools - a number of tools are out there to help you stay relevant to your audience and to check if your content is well-received. Some of the tools we've used here at Red Door include:
- Pinterest analytics - a feature built into Pinterest that lets you see hwo your content is performing and details about the audience you are reaching such as their location and interests
- Buzzsumo - a social listening tool that can keep you updated whenever your brand or certain buzzword is being talked about on the internet and can help you find content from around the internet to pin
- Curalate - a curating tool that allows you to schedule pins throughout the week to maximize the reach of your content and offers measurement tools to evaluate how you are doing
- PinGroupie - a search tool helps you find group boards that have content that is relevant to your brand
Have any more tips to add that you think can help with improving Pinterest presence? Let us know in the comments below!