If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, then you’re probably not aware of the astounding impact it’s had on pushing to become a top player with the other social behemoths. Over the course of its short four-year span, Pinterest has amassed more than 70 million active users and is said to direct more traffic to retailers and websites than Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Google+ combined. As you can see, this monstrous entity can no longer be held on the sidelines. If you’re a small business owner scratching your head on how to direct more traffic to your online store or website, this is not an option to ignore.
With a solid Pinterest strategy in place, your small or mid-size business can double the amount of traffic to your website in a short period of time. If you’re an online retailer, you know that increased traffic can lead to increased sales. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for at the end of the day?
We took a look at some of the biggest brands on Pinterest to see how they are working their Pinterest strategies and how we can learn from them.
Ways Your Small Business Can Make the Most Out of Pinterest
Pin beautiful photos – This one may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised to see how many brands pin poor-quality, dimly lit photos and expect to get a lot out of them. If you spend just a few minutes on Pinterest, you’ll see that since it’s an entirely visual network; thus the photos should be quality. That being said, there should be good, quality content behind the photos to draw people in and back to your website. Just the photos themselves won’t necessarily cause people to click through.
Give your pins descriptions – As technology is catching up with how visual social networks are, it’s getting better at reading photos. However, this is still an imperfect science. For your photos to be found in Pinterest search (and then repinned and shared all over the Internet) and have SEO impact, you have to give them a quality and relevant description—sounds simple right? Well this means that if you’re pinning a photo of a sofa for sale, simply “sofa for sale” will not cut it. Try to use as many descriptive words as you can in your sentences. Instead, try something like “Deep blue, two seat sofa, perfect for any small living room.” Having a working knowledge of how keywords are used on the Internet will be a big help here.
Make the most of your board titles and descriptions – Another great way to get found in search is to make sure your board descriptions are complete; don’t shy away from mentioning things that you plan on pinning but aren’t on the board just yet. For example, if you started a board on Beginner Knitting Projects, you would want your board description to include things like scarf patterns for beginners, easy knit mitten patterns, and so on.
Be social – As with any social network, it’s important to share the love and not talk about only your brand 100 percent of the time. When you share engaging and interesting content from many sources, you become a leader in the field. People will want to follow your boards because they know they will find something interesting and won’t just be bombarded with marketing messages. Make sure to take the time out of your day to follow boards relevant to your business and that you can share from.
Engage – As your following grows, you’ll see comments and questions on your pins. You’ll definitely want to monitor and engage with these just like on any other social network.
Starting a Pinterest account may seem easy, but it’s another marketing tool that your small business should approach with a very defined strategy. These are just the bare bones of starting a Pinterest plan. Stay tuned on how to really develop the idea with analytics, promotions, blogger outreach, and more!
Are you planning on marching into the Pinterest social battlefield?