11 Pinterest Marketing Strategy and Benefits for Brand Awareness

Pinterest is a widely used social media platform that has great potential when it comes to marketing. However, it is yet to be explored and used more for business purposes. This article talks about some strategies, benefits as well as drawbacks of using Pinterest for business marketing.

Read the article below to get more clarity on Pinterest marketing and look out for some interesting statistics throughout the article!

What is Pinterest?

Founded in December 2009 by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, Pinterest is an image-sharing social media platform that allows its users to discover and save information, referred to as “ideas” while using the social service. You can do this by using images, even GIFs and small videos to create your own Pinboards.

The idea of Pinterest is that every time you come across information that interests you, you “pin” it much like the activity of pinning information to a physical soft board. “Pin” simply refers to saving information.

Stats check – According to Pinterest Business, the platform has over 459 million monthly users!

Pinterest is primarily a bookmarking site and every time you share any image or other form of visual content on the site, it is referred to as the “pin”. One thing that anyone planning to use Pinterest for their business’s marketing purpose needs to remember is that the platform is completely driven by visual content and that is what makes it different from the majority of social media platforms.

Images and photos make the platform what it is and you cannot share any piece of information on Pinterest unless a photo is included in it!

Stats check – Pinterest Newsroom reports have claimed that as many as 85% of active users of the platform access it from their mobile devices.

7 Effective Marketing Strategies For Pinterest

If you have decided to take your marketing efforts on Pinterest, but have trouble figuring out how to go about it, here are a few effective marketing strategies that you can use to promote your business on the platform:-

1. Make visually appealing content

Pinterest is a visual platform. Therefore, visually appealing content will be key to attracting the attention of your target audience. Think about the types of graphics and images that are most popular in your industry or niche when creating content for Pinterest. High-quality visuals should be eye-catching and represent your brand’s values and message.

2. Optimise your profile

Your Pinterest profile will be the first impression potential customers and followers have of your brand. Make sure it is complete and search-friendly. To increase brand recognition, you should use relevant keywords in your bio as well as board descriptions.

3. Pin often

Pinterest is all about consistency. To keep your audience interested and returning for more, pin new content frequently, ideally daily.

4. Include keywords on your boards and pins

It is important to use relevant keywords in your pins or boards to make your content more searchable on Pinterest. Include keywords in pin descriptions, board titles, or board descriptions.

5. Promote your pins

Promoting your pins can help increase traffic and visibility to your site. To promote your pins to a larger audience, you can either use Pinterest’s advertising options or the “promoted Pins” feature to bring your content to new users.

6. Collaboration with influencers

It is possible to partner with influencers on Pinterest to increase your reach and promote your brand to a wider audience. Look for influencers who align with your brand’s values and messaging when looking for people to collaborate with.

7. Analyse your performance

It’s crucial to evaluate your performance to improve your Pinterest marketing strategy. Pinterest Analytics gives you valuable insight into your audience, engagement rate, and other metrics that will allow you to make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategy.

Benefits Of Using Pinterest For Businesses

Pinterest can prove to really upscale your marketing results if it is well-utilized and appropriate and relevant content makes its way to the platform. Some of the most notable benefits of using Pinterest for businesses are discussed below:-

1. Reveals Brand Personality

Pinterest is a great platform to truly project your brand’s personality. As you reveal more information about your brand, you can establish brand authority over your competitors. One way to truly showcase the personality of your brand is by creating a board that is dedicated only to your brand. You can share the work culture of your business or simply reveal what a day is like on the job through images and videos in this board.

Another way is to create a quotes board. One of the most popular content categories on Pinterest is Quotes so creating such a board and posting your own quotes or quotes of popular personalities from your niche can help you increase engagement and establish brand authority.

Stats check – Pinterest Business has claimed that 98% of Pinterest users have tried a product or service they have seen on the platform!

2. Allows You To Advertise Future Events

Another great benefit of Pinterest for businesses is that it allows you to advertise your future events to help increase traffic and sales. You can create a board by the name of “Events” and keep updating it every time you are hosting a business event to promote it and create buzz around it.

While advertising your events, make sure you add any sales you are offering to give more information for your audience to ponder upon. Integrate your firm’s public relations with this board and let your followers know what is happening in your business.

Stats check – Reports by Social Sprout have revealed that Pinterest ads are 2.3 times cheaper in terms of per conversion as compared to ads on other social media.

3.  Integrates With Other Social Media Channels

Another benefit of using Pinterest is that you can integrate it with your business’s other social media channels to promote your profile and increase your followers. Promoting the pins that you constantly post on more successfully established networks can help you increase engagement on your Pinterest account while the number of followers increases as well.

Directly sharing links from Pinterest can help your audience on other social media channels land directly on your profile. For example, if a customer is following you on Instagram but not on Pinterest; they can now get easy and quick access to your account and follow you there as well.

Stats check – According to The Global State of Digital 2021, Pinterest is the 14th largest social network in the world.

4. Updates You About Emerging Trends

Pinterest has an advantage similar to social media platforms like Twitter, and that is – it updates you about emerging trends. How does Pinterest manage to do that? The answer is nothing complex but simply through pictures. While it may not give you all the latest news within seconds, it is great to keep a watch on trends, owing to its primarily visual content-driven nature. Images and videos tend to get old sooner than textual content because more people see them and are done with it.

Therefore, there is a pressing need to keep updating this content, especially in accordance with the current trends. Business accounts in your niche would do a similar thing to keep their audience engaged and that is exactly how you would get an update about emerging trends.

Stats check – In a poll conducted by Pinterest for advertisers it was revealed that 92% of Pinterest advertisers rank it as the number one platform for reputation.

Drawbacks Of Using Pinterest For Businesses

While there are several reasons for choosing Pinterest for your business’s marketing, there is no denying the fact that Pinterest is not as widely used as other social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. And this is because it has some disadvantages as well that marketers need to consider before beginning Pinterest marketing. 4 such disadvantages of using Pinterest are:-

1. Too Many Specifications For Images

You cannot post any image that you want or deem fit for the platform. All the pins have to meet certain quality rules before getting uploaded. Furthermore, there are specifications on the dimensions and size of the pictures as well. While making such changes in the pictures you want to upload is not difficult as you can use certain tools and apps, your pictures are not going to be the same anymore.

There can be a great shift in the perspective of the image after an excessive amount of editing. Furthermore, to cater to such specifications, you need to invest a lot of time in creating appropriate graphics and images.

Stats check – Pew Research has revealed that people living in high-income homes are twice as likely as people living in low-income homes to purchase a product from Pinterest.

2.  More Repins Result In Loss Of Content

The hyperlink process in Pinterest is one of its most noteworthy features but mind you, there is a glitch! And it is this glitch that makes it ineffective to some extent. At times, if your content is copied and pinned to a different board, there are chances that the original link to the content is lost.

While your content is getting shared with a larger audience, the drawback is that you will not be able to draw increased traffic to your website due to a broken or lost link. And thus, repins can often result in a loss of content.

Stats check – According to reports published by Statista, 28% of marketers around the world use Pinterest for marketing purposes.

3. Excessive Content Sharing Requirements

According to research and analysis of the business accounts on Pinterest, to perform well on Pinterest and start getting noticed by the desired audience, a business needs to post anywhere between 5-20 pins on a daily basis. What’s even more hectic is that sometimes these recommendations may be according to the number of boards created by you.

So let’s say you have 5 boards. The number of pins is then around 25-100 per day! That level of pins would need you to dedicate a team just for Pinterest and would require massive investment on your part as well. This is not the case with most of the other social media networking platforms.

Stats check – According to an article published by Convince And Convert, the top reasons for incomplete purchases through Pinterest are Link Spam and Shopping Spam.

4. Inability To Target Audience And Marketing Efforts

While you may be following all necessary guidelines and would be posting according to an effective marketing plan to get the best results, your marketing efforts may still not yield the desired results. Sure you may get great engagement and even a larger audience than other platforms, but it may not be the audience you have necessarily created your content for.

For example, you are a firm that is currently only supplying in your home country but the audience you are getting is largely from other nations. While you are able to put your content across to an international audience, it is still not targeted and there is no use because your services are restricted to one place. Often your pins may be used at places you might not want them to be used.

Stats check – A report published on LinkedIn revealed that 4.8% of Pinterest users tend to browse through the platform during their work hours.

We hope this article was helpful for you in understanding some strategies, benefits and drawbacks of Pinterest marketing. Before you begin using the platform for promoting your business and its products, we recommend you do thorough research and go through the terms Pinterest lays down for businesses. This can help you avoid any unwanted situation in the future and give you a fruitful marketing experience.

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