At first glance, Pinterest may seem like just a platform for stay-at-home-moms, crafters, and foodies, but the truth is that it’s a rather diverse platform where people can peruse and “pin” their favorite pieces of content on their own “boards.” These boards serve as indexes for future reference, which can make them a powerful marketing method for businesses in specific niches.
While it’s true that Pinterest isn’t as large or as popular as Facebook, the reality is that more than half of today’s millennial population is using Pinterest. These numbers include more than 68 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 54. To ignore those numbers is to miss an excellent opportunity to reach out and connect.
Overview
Is Pinterest Really Right for My Niche?
Here’s the complicated answer to this question: yes and no, but almost always yes, all at the same time. If your head is spinning, hang in there. We’ll explain.
Many people see Pinterest as an excellent tool for cooking industries, crafters, and fitness gurus, but not for B2B businesses. The reality is that some companies will have to work a lot harder on Pinterest than others.
If your market research doesn’t show that your primary audience uses Pinterest, then, by all means, focus your social media efforts on other platforms first. You can always come back and visit Pinterest later.
Just know that the fact that your primary audience isn’t there doesn’t mean you have no audience at all. Businesses in niches that aren’t categorized as “hot topics” on Pinterest can do quite well on the platform because they don’t have much active competition.
How to Better Utilize Pinterest
You have an audience of approximately 200 million people at your fingertips; the average user spends around 14 minutes at a time on the platform. That is a significant amount of time for you to grab your piece of the pie.
To get started, first make sure you’ve created a business account. If you began with a personal account, convert it into a business profile first. Don’t have an account at all? Head to Pinterest for Business, join, and create a properly optimized profile.
Making sure you are using a real business profile matters; it gives you access to analytics that empowers you to ensure you’re making an impact over time. You’ll be able to see how many repins you receive and how many times people have visited your profile.
Optimize Your Website
Start by optimizing your website. You need to make sure your site is optimized to promote your involvement on Pinterest. Make sure you’ve added the plug-ins necessary for your website visitors to pin the pages they love to their boards without having to look for you on the platform.
By allowing pins, you make it fluid and comfortable for your visitors to save your valuable information on their platform of choice. They are more likely to be re-exposed to it and are more likely to revisit you in the future.
Get In There and Socialize
Be social, not one-sided. You have to give to receive. Look for industry-related content that isn’t necessarily from a direct competitor and start pinning the content shared by other people. People love the interaction on Pinterest and visitors will be more likely to share and follow your boards if they see them as informative and not just promotional.
Make It Interesting and Unique
Create new, unique content. Yes, many users scroll through Pinterest and pin based on the photos they like. You need to hold your business to the highest standard possible by making sure the content your pins lead to is helpful and useful.
You should be reaching for this goal when you are creating content anyway, but it is especially important if you are going to start sharing on this particular platform. No one likes clicking on a pin only to land on a page that turns out to have no real value and an ugly layout.
Use Branded Boards
Create branded boards. Yes, you should be sharing other people’s content, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have some nicely branded boards within your profile.
Let’s say you are a restaurant owner. You should have separate branded boards for your different menus (lunch, dinner, appetizers, and specialty drinks) to start off. This approach provides beneficial information to your audience that might convince them to visit.
As a fashion brand, you should have separate branded boards for various clothing lines or perhaps times of the year. Think about boards for back-to-school ideas, casual work attire, business casual, business professional, holiday, or wedding outfits.
Organizing your content into collections makes it easier for visitors who land on your profile page to browse and ultimately follow their favorites. Even as a lawyer, you can create separate boards for family law, real estate law, personal injury, and property damage.
Aesthetics Matter
Aesthetics are critical on Pinterest; this is where businesses find themselves stymied with where to go next. Make sure every piece of content you create has a Pinterest-worthy image attached to it.
As for what your images should look like, they need to be clear, colorful, and perhaps even branded. Text should be short and sweet, easy to read, and worded with clarity to identify the nature of the pin. People are drawn to great images, but they also need to be able to quickly identify what they are looking at when they later go back through their albums.
Be Engaging
Encourage engagement. Pinterest likes to encourage people who pin certain things to upload photos of themselves trying them out. For example, if you post a mocha mint coffee recipe, Pinterest may ask anyone who pins the recipe to share a photo of the finished result. Watch for this type of engagement, make sure you acknowledge and thank people who share and be mindful of their comments (especially if they ended up not liking the recipe or had trouble finding an ingredient).
Post Consistently
Be consistent in your posting schedule. Just as with every other social platform, consistency is critical. You can’t post 20 times in one day and then abandon your boards for a month; your fans need to see regular posts on a consistent basis, or they won’t identify with and remember you. That’s the point.
Pinterest is an excellent place for entrepreneurs and business owners to connect, network, and add another layer to their professional portfolios. Just keep in mind that Pinterest doesn’t necessarily cater to the individual so much as it caters to groups of people while encouraging networking in the form of sharing.
If you need a hand integrating Pinterest marketing into your overall campaign, or if you really aren’t sure which platforms are best for your business, let’s talk about it. Reach out to a Sachs specialist at this link!
