The two most misunderstood social media networks are X (formerly Twitter) and Pinterest. If you’ve watched any of my videos, or taken any of my social media marketing classes, I liken the social networks to cars. X is like a sports car – fast, newsy, it’s life in a 280 characters or less. It’s great for exposure and SEO if you take advantage of what’s trending.
Pinterest is the minivan. Over 76%1 of the users are women; half of them have kids. If you want to reach soccer moms, they’re on Pinterest. But something that I call the “Pinterest Difference” is crucial for businesses to understand when trying to reach the average consumer – you catch them when they’re planning to spend money.
“One of the things we’re trying to figure out strategically is how to tap into consumers earlier in the inspiration or planning phase,” says David Doctorow, senior vice president of global marketing at Expedia, one of Pinterest’s charter advertisers. “We don’t have great ways to identify consumers in that part of the journey.”
~ Forbes Magazine
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How People use Pinterest
People turn to Pinterest when planning for a baby, wedding, vacation, redecorating, and remodeling. They check the latest styles and trends in fashion, color, home decor, hairstyles, technology and you name it! And they go there for ideas and tips for gift-giving, crafts, decorations, weight-loss, diets, recipes, parties and inspirations, motivations, and solutions to their problems. Think of Pinterest as a powerful search engine — not a social media network.
“If Facebook is selling the past and Twitter (X) the present, Pinterest is offering the future.”
Think about that. On Facebook, people post pictures of what they were doing or what they did. Twitter is real-time – it’s what’s happening now. What’s trending at 9 am probably won’t be the same even 10 minutes later.
People plan things on Pinterest like their Bucket List
Pinterest is for planners. Search for terms like bridal, bucket list, and places to visit, and you’ll get more than enough things to choose from.
That quote from the guy from Expedia in that Forbes article says it all.
There is no where else where you can reach consumers “earlier in the inspiration or planning phase.”
That is the Pinterest Difference.
Pinterest Helps with SEO!
Every time someone pins a picture or video from your website, it takes the link with it. That creates a legitimate backlink. When someone clicks twice on a pin, it goes to the originating website. So, after you publish a blog article, or produce and upload a video, you need to pin it to Pinterest.
Before you dive in, you need two plans – a strategic one and a tactical one. Without them, you will be swimming in a huge sea of pictures and videos wasting time, money, and effort with little results.
Most browsers have an add-on or extension to add a “Pin It” button to your browser to make it quick and easy to share to Pinterest.
Pinterest Works for B2B Also!
A Wow Story
One of my former clients is Simply Smashing Rage Room in Tempe, AZ. I was helping the owner get set up before their opening. Furthermore, I knew that he would get some free exposure on the local TV stations so I wanted to make sure that Simply Smashing came up when someone searched for “Anger Room Tempe” or “Rage Room Phoenix”.
My strategy was to blog — a lot — at least 3-5 times a week to make sure that Google noticed the website. I did a lot of research on stress — causes, symptoms and illnesses that arise from too much stress as well as the most stressful occupations.
One article I wrote for him was “How to Increase Serotonin Levels in Your Brain”. It featured an infographic (picture with information in it) on ways to de-stress. I pinned it on Pinterest. When I reviewed the website analytics at the end of the month, the site got over 6,000 visits from Pinterest alone! My first thought was, “There are a lot of stressed-out people on Pinterest!”
That goes to show you that you never know what will take off and what won’t.
Related: Using Pinterest for SEO
Setting up Your Account for Maximum Effectiveness
One of my favorite setup projects was the Savvy Collector. She has an online art gallery. For her Pinterest, I set up boards for each major category in her gallery: sculptures, pottery, jewelry, etc. Within those, we pinned all the pieces from her website.
Caution! If you’re selling unique pieces like she is, make sure to remove pins of articles that are sold.
- Set up a business account — you can convert a personal account to a business one, however, keep personal and business separate!
- You have 160 characters for your “bio”. Keep it keyword-centric. Avoid flowery language.
- Add relevant keywords to all pin and board descriptions — you have 500 characters to describe a pin and a board. Take advantage of the space!
- Add the link to your website if you’re uploading from your computer
- On boards, pick the right category. This will help you get found through Pinterest’s powerful internal search engine.
- Once you have 5 boards filled with a few pins, set up a showcase.
Advertising on Pinterest
Upon looking at Savvy Collector’s website analytics, I saw that she was getting most of her traffic from Pinterest. She told me that she had a problem because she advertised one piece, then it sold, the ad was obsolete. The solution: advertise a category — like Jewelry — especially in the gift-giving season. Link to the category on the website. Subsequently, when one piece is sold, the ad can still run.
Getting Help with this and other Social Networks
I can help you with…
- Planning for a gift-giving season
- Analyzing your marketing efforts
- Brainstorming with you to maximize your strategies ORGANICALLY (non-paid).
- Make sure your branding is consistent and use quality graphics
- Training on how to use time-saving tools like Sendible (affiliate link).
- Show you how to blog on WordPress.
- Monthly coaching sessions to help you plan and then review analytics