What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a huge social bookmarking network that primarily focuses on images. It is a virtual collection of everything people are interested in on the internet and decide to share or save for later use.
It has an over 70 million user base with more than 30 billion pins being shared. It is a great source of interacting, communicating, and building relationships with your clients and that is the reason why every business should start using Pinterest because there is a lot of potentials there.
So, how can you leverage the power of Pinterest to grow your business? And start to build your business.
Getting started with Pinterest
Pinterest is easy to use. First, you will need to create an account. You have two options when starting. Either you can sign up for a personal account or you can opt for a Business Account. As you are looking forward to market your business through Pinterest, you should always sign up for a Business Account.
The biggest advantage of having a business Pinterest account is – Analytics. Pinterest provides you with complete analytics and reports. It would let you view the reports on how well your pins are performing, who is visiting your profile, or who is sharing your pins. You can also see the demographics and interests of your audience. This feature alone is a great tool to measure the success of your marketing strategy on Pinterest.
Another great feature of having a business account is Rich Pins. This is a business-specific feature only and intends to drive more traffic to your website or page.
These are the main differences in having a business profile compared to a personal profile.
When setting up your business account you need to go to the homepage of Pinterest, or visit https://www.pinterest.com/business/create/.
Enter your Email, Password, Business Name, and choose the type of Business from the drop-down menu (Professional, Media, Brand, Retailer, etc) and click on Create Account.
With a business account, your username is a business name rather than your first and last name. To get access to Pinterest Analytics you must verify your website. After you verify a website, it establishes an official checkmark next to the website in a user’s profile. It helps people identify the source of content more easily. You can verify only one website to one Pinterest Business Account.
What if you already have a personal account?
You can have two different Pinterest accounts for Personal and Business usage as well only keep these separate. You can also convert your personal account to a business account if managing two accounts is not what you want.
To convert an existing personal account to a business account, click on the Businesses at the bottom of the login page. Click on “Already have an account” and convert it here. After you change your account, Pinterest will let you (1) verify your website, (2) add a “Pin it” button to your website and (3) add a follow button/widget to your website so users can follow you directly from your website.
Complete your profile
Completing your profile is very important for your followers. Giving them more information about your business will help you reach more customers.
On the top right side of your new Pinterest account, you will see a “Profile” icon. Hover over the icon to display the menu and then click on “Settings”. Scroll down to Profile to upload a profile picture. Give a complete description of your Business Products or Services. Add your business location and then click on “Save Settings”.
To confirm your website, click the “confirm website”. It will display an HTML string to you. Just copy and paste it in the head section of your website’s index file and click finish.
Start creating boards
Once the Signup and Profile Setup is complete, you can continue to share your content on Pinterest. The first step would be to create boards.
From your Pinterest profile, click the Boards tab, then click the red circle with white plus sign in it. Choose a descriptive name for your newly created board. Choose an appropriate category and write down a clear and concise description of what you want to share on this board.
Now you have created a new Pinterest Board. The next step is to fill your boards with content. Pinterest is a liberal social network and it will let you share anything within its terms and conditions over the network. There are a few essential steps to get success with your boards.
Once the Signup and Profile Setup is complete, you can continue to share your content on Pinterest. The first step would be to create boards.
From your Pinterest profile, click the Boards tab, then click the red circle with white plus sign in it. Choose a descriptive name for your newly created board. Choose an appropriate category and write down a clear and concise description of what you want to share on this board.
Now you have created a new Pinterest Board. The next step is to fill your boards with content. Pinterest is a liberal social network and it will let you share anything within its terms and conditions over the network. There are a few essential steps to get success with your boards.
1)Create an Engaging Board
Pinterest users are real people, 70 percent of these users are women. To gain more followers that have an interest in your products or services, create boards around lifestyle instead of just products. For example, if you are selling traveling bags or accessories, create a board around a traveling theme that inspires users who love to travel.
2)The real success lies in – Relevancy
Create or share content only which is relevant to the core of your business values. You don’t want your users to feel confused about what your Pinterest Page/ Board is about. Be relevant and stick to one particular theme. This would help you to earn trust, authenticity, and more loyal users who are genuinely interested in your products or services.
3)Don’t just self-promote – Be useful to other users
Everyone wants to promote themselves and their products but this is not how Pinterest works. You have to share what you think could be useful, interesting, or inspiring for other users over the internet. Sharing only your products or services may come up as a desperate business attempt. You don’t want that. Right?
4)Populate each board – with at least 25 Pins
Before marketing your boards, fill in with some relevant, informative content with a potential of likability so more and more users re-pin these further.
5)Optimize boards for relevant keywords
Pinterest works on keywords. Users are searching for items of their interest on Pinterest all the time. Add more relevant keywords to your pinned images along with captions to be found.
6)Add Rich Pins
Rich pins provide more context about the content being shared on Pinterest. There are four types of rich pins:
1)Apps
These pins let users download their favorite app from a pin without having them leave Pinterest.
2)Products
This type of rich pin is useful if you are sharing content about your products. This would provide the real-time price of the product, availability, and link to the product. This helps E-Commerce store owners to attract users or prospective customers to their products.
3)Recipes
This Pin comes up with extra information about recipe ingredients, cooking time, and serving size.
4)Articles
Article pins help users to share stories and articles that matter to them. Each pin shows the article title, author, and some description.
5)Embrace Re-Pin
Pinterest is a social network. That means you share, interact, and communicate with others on a genuine basis. Most of the time, if you follow someone with a relevant interest, there is a chance of them getting followed back.
Benefits of using Pinterest for your Etsy store
I’m sure some of you must have noticed the potential of Pinterest Rich Pins – Especially Products Rich Pins are useful if you own some E-Commerce store like Etsy or Shopify. Let us discuss how Pinterest can help you to grow your business on Etsy
1)Product Rich Pins are ideal for showcasing your products. You can provide price with your product images that surely assist users to make any purchase decision before even clicking on the image.
2)It drives real traffic to your Etsy Store
The best thing about Pinterest is its real user base. People on Pinterest are actually interested in products or services they browse, which is really good for business. More users visit your Etsy store, more chances they are going to buy your products.
3)It creates online visibility for your products
The Internet is saturated with all types of products right now- digital and physical. Pinterest rank pins on the basis of the engagement rate. Increased visibility of your products helps to create an online identity for your business
4)It helps to build a brand of your business
These days, customers usually do a lot of research before making any decision. They don’t only want to know about your products but also want to know about the whole personality, feel, and branding behind a product. Creating pins related to your business or niche helps them to discover what you are offering to them. For example, if you are selling beauty products, creating boards about beauty, health, and wellness promotes your brand’s overall personality and core values.
5)It builds relationships
Pinterest is all about social networks in a different avatar. More you communicate, share, repin, follow, and interact with other pinners within your relevant business domain or niche, the more you are going to build relationships with your prospective customers. This seems like a great opportunity if you are just starting out or looking for lasting relationships with your audience.
I think I have provided you with enough reasons and information on using Pinterest for your business. But still, if you have any questions, please let me know.
