5 Pinterest Tactics to Maximize Effectiveness

Making the Business Case for Pinterest [Research & Charts]

Pinterest continues to grow and attract viewers making it a worthwhile distribution platform for visual content. While Pinterest, according to Compete, has slightly less than half the traffic of Twitter, the dominant business social media communication network, marketers ignore the image driven site at their own peril.  Pinterest trend similar to Twitter

3 points to make the business case for using Pinterest

While business use of social media continues to evolve, it’s critical to monitor and test new, emerging social media platforms. Here are three reasons to incorporate Pinterest in your business’ social media strategy.

  1. Pinterest attracts social media newbies. As social media matures, participants’ existing habits hinder new platforms use. Therefore, focus your efforts on social media newbies. Roughly one in seven Pinterest users hasn’t tried other social media sites. That ratio is greater among consumers with income under $30K. 
  2. Pinterest participants shift time from other social media platforms. About one quarter of consumers spend less time on other social media sites in favor of Pinterest. Time spent on Facebook declined about 3% according to Compete.
  3. Pinterest expands beyond its DIY/Crafting roots. While Pinterest’s DIY category is still strong, businesses who are savvy enough to present their content in visually attractive ways are reaping benefits. For example, Kraft’s recipe site attracted an additional 4% share of May 2012, outbound Pinterest traffic according to Compete. While this is one example, it shows marketers how to leverage Pinterest’s power as a tool to build traffic and close sales. [Still not convinced to use Pinterest? Check these 19 reasons to use Pinterest.]

5 Marketing tactics to make Pinterest marketing more effective

Pinterest is a visual social media site where marketers can strut their visual splendor. To maximize your Pinterest results, here are five marketing tactics based on research by Pinsights. [Here are seven additional Pinterest insights and tactics.]

  1. Keep board titles short (but make them memorable). Attract visitors to your boards with fun, pithy titles that incorporate your business name and key search words. In other words, don’t be cute at the expense of being findable. Specifically use two to five word titles. Pinterest Board title -Pinterest
  2. Explain pins concisely (but include context). Incorporate your board category where possible in your pin description. Use your words effectively to aid search. Most pin descriptions are four to fourteen words, averaging 7.5 words. About 50% of pins have less than five word description and 10% have over fifteen words. Proportion of Pinterest description words
  3. Broaden the conversation (but keep it focused!) Social media participants are experienced at using hastags to expand the conversation. While hashtags are used on Pinterest, research shows that only one in four firms are using them there. (Note: Use of hashtags on Twitter.) 
  4. Engage with participants (but only occasionally.) On Pinterest, engagement is defined in terms of using an @ sign. Research shows that Pinterest conversation is limited since there are less than 10% of firms using the @ sign. This makes sense because Pinterest is mainly a publishing platform. (Recent research by Hubspot’s Dan Zarrella shows that similarly Twitter isn’t about the conversation.) 
  5. Follow participants (but don’t feel obligated).  Businesses don’t generally follow their followers back. The notable example is Michaels whose customers are highly involved in creating their own designs. Pinterest allows businesses to be trendsetters and curators for their customers. 

Pinterest is a useful addition to your social media marketing strategy especially to ensure you attract viewers who are new or shifting their time from other platforms. To maximize your results, enhance your pins with contextually relevant, searchable text.

What other recommendations would you add to this list of Pinterest tactics and why?

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen


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Photo credit: http://iconbug.com/detail/icon/4160/retro-pinterest/

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