How to use Pinterest within your social media strategy?

Do you want to optimize your strategy on Pinterest? When going around the main marketing blogs of the Anglo-Saxon blogosphere, it is very likely to find a huge number of articles in which its great benefits are told, compared to those of other social networks .

As I have been able to read on those blogs, to name a few points, it is said that Pinterest increases traffic to a website, generates more engagement, makes it easier to obtain quality leads, boosts the sales of an online store and even improves the SEO positioning of a website. a web.

But, despite what those professionals from other parts of the world can tell us, in this country, and in a large number of Spanish-speaking countries, companies still do not know how to use Pinterest correctly in their social media strategies. .

I have been able to verify that there are some businesses in this country that are on Pinterest, but without professional or strategic criteria. That is to say, they have a poorly optimized presence and that basically does not keep them from the results that perhaps they expected to obtain.

As a result of all this that I have told you so far, I have come to the conclusion that the main problem of our companies is that they do not fully understand how to use Pinterest in their daily lives online in a much more productive way. I am referring to carrying out basic optimization work on your accounts, in order to adapt it to your current strategies and improve the results obtained thanks to them.

How to use Pinterest in your marketing strategy?

This is the topic that I will address in my conference this Friday, January 16 in the city of Alicante (iDAY Alicante – VII Edition) and that has also given me the opportunity to write this post, which is based on others that you can find in this very blog.

That is, I will tell you some basic details of how to optimize Pinterest within your social media marketing strategy.

Tips to optimize and use Pinterest within your social media strategy

In the first place we will see the things that you have to take into account and optimize within the same Social Network:

1. Optimize your Pinterest account

I assume that you have created a profile on this social network, which is very likely not properly optimized. That's why I recommend:

If you already have a personal profile on Pinterest, it would be best if you turned it into a company page ( here I tell you how to do it ). Because this way you can enjoy all the advanced features that a page offers you (such as: analytics and statistics, rich pins, promoted pins, multiple users, etc.).

Verify your website address, so it can be displayed alongside your profile picture, name, and description.

2. Design a thematic strategy for your boards

The best way to understand what planning we should have on our boards is by analyzing three of the most common mistakes that are usually made on this topic, especially when starting with Pinterest:

First of all, not being clear about the themes of our main boards . The ideal is to have some boards that talk about your Brand, as well as others that are also related to the topics that interest your target audience the most (if your activity has to do with tourism, I recommend reading this post ).

Not choosing the right names for our boards . That name needs to be eye-catching and, at the same time, descriptive (of its theme), because it is in charge of attracting our followers (don't forget that a user can follow each of our boards individually. It's In other words, each one of them must win their own followers, because otherwise you will have a numerically very unbalanced profile).

You don't use a proper description on your boards . One piece of advice, since the majority of users on this network are English-speaking, it might be interesting to use a two-language strategy.

3. Use high-quality, well-optimized images

Remember that this is a visual social network! Therefore, the optimization of your images is of vital importance to take advantage of Pinterest within your social media strategy in a more productive way. I would like to recommend you:

Create more attractive and better quality pins . Vertical images are much more attractive and pinned than horizontal ones. If we talk about the color of the photographs, it is better that they have several colors and that they are not too dark. Images that are +/- 50% saturated tend to have more impact than highly saturated ones. The background of your pins also matters, it should be more or less less than 30% (depending on the photo).

Make sure your pins get more repins . It is said that the majority of pins within Pinterest are repins of other images on the same platform (more than 60% are repeated images). Therefore, if your strategy incorporates more attractive and original photographs and infographics, you will be able to achieve greater virality in your pins (see: How to design more viral Pins? ). In other words, don't focus on sharing only what others have uploaded, but you also search for and generate original content... (which surely everyone will want to repin).

4. Optimize the description of your pin.

It is mistakenly thought that on Pinterest the text does not matter, that this social network is purely a matter of photos or quality images. But that's not entirely true. Of course, images are the queens of the place, but we should never forget the power that words also have. That's why you should:

Write a short description. Although Pinterest allows you to handle 500 characters, it is better to use a small clear description (+/- 250 characters), which is easy enough to read with the naked eye.

Include in your pins an optimized title and description with the most relevant keywords of them. Because the best positioning of that pin in the Pinterest image search engine will depend on these keywords and, in addition, the increase or not of its virality.

Use hashtags. It is always very useful to add a few Hashtags to the pin description.

Include a call to action. Another way to make our pins more viral is to include a call to action in them or in their descriptions. Use words that motivate your followers to click on that image, to go to the web in search of more information.

5. Link your pins to your website or product page

Pinterest allows you to link your pins to the URL of your choice . So, when you manually upload an image of your company or product, never forget to include a link in the pin that leads to your website or its page (that's a good way to increase your sales or get more potential customers). Also Check pinterest video indir

6. Pinterest is a social network and not just a bulletin board

Just like on other networks, people don't just want to see photos of your company and its products and services. A strategy of boards and varied content, that uses attractive and quality images, added to those photographs of your products, is the one that will bring the best results to your marketing strategy on Pinterest.

7. Professionalize your strategy using rich and promoted pins (Pinterest advertising)

The enriched pins: are those to which you can add additional details so that they become more useful and attractive to your followers or potential customers (there are 5 types: recipes, movies, articles, products and places). In addition, with them a company can also show the price, the stock or the geolocation of the place of sale of a product (see: « Place Pins «). These rich pins are the first step Pinterest took into the world of e-Commerce.

Promoted Pins: These are pretty much the Pinterest equivalent of Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, etc. Because with this special type of pins, any business or brand will achieve greater visibility for their products and services. That is, by taking search results and categories into account, you will be able to show your pins to more users who are not currently following your boards.

A professional strategy is one that measures its actions and analyzes the results it is obtaining , in order to know what works and what doesn't. (See: The new analytics tool for companies )
Secondly, we will see the things that you have to take into account and optimize within your own Website:

8. Make your website Pin-it friendly

Use the share button (Pin-it) and a widget or plugin for Pinterest. It is useless to have endless high-quality photographs, eye-catching infographics, educational presentations, etc. if we then don't give our current and potential customers the opportunity to easily pin that content.

9. Optimize your website images for the Pin-it button

Title and description: As explained above, Pinterest allows you to include a link, title and description in the pins. So, in the same way that we optimize our images to improve their SEO , we should also include a good title to them, so that when someone clicks on the Pin-it button of those photos, videos, infographics… they become a better quality pin (more viral and attractive).