Use Pinterest for Your Business

Pinterest is the fourth most popular social media platform, after Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. With 44.5 million users – the majority of which are in the 25-34 year-old age range – it could be just the untapped market a company is looking for to drive traffic and increase sales. In simplest terms, Pinterest is a way to visually bookmark the world wide web in a fun, creative and potentially profitable way. Below are tips for getting started and, if your company is already a Pinterest user, how to promote growth and attract followers.

1) Set up a business account

Be sure to select a business account, rather than a personal one, to take advantage of the analytical tools (business accounts are free and you can sign up here). Once you enter all the relevant business information – email address, business name, website (optional) – you’re asked to select at least five topics that will show up in your feed. Here, a company should choose areas that are relevant to the product it’s selling or message it’s promoting. From there, it’s a matter of creating boards and pinning content. Pins, quite simply, are images from the internet; they can be of a company’s own products or pictures or other online content. Each pin links back to the site the image came from, along an optional description from the pinner. Boards are a way to organize these pins and the options for creating boards are limitless. If a fashion designer’s favorite color is red and she loves southern BBQ, she can create an entire board just for that color and another one devoted to BBQ recipes and related images. Now her followers not only get a glimpse of her inspiration, but they’ve also gotten a peek of her as a person, too.

2) Strategize the company profile

Pinterest doesn’t provide a lot of options in the profile section other than the usual information (business name, username, picture, about, location and website). But there’s a loophole for creativity: the boards. Create fun names for them that relate in some way to the company or its values, products or mission statement, or describe how each board is relevant to the brand. Pick a cover photo for each board that circles back to the brand and is appealing to the eye.

3) Link to other social media and the company’s website

If anything on your website is pinnable, pin it! This includes articles, as long as there is an image attached to it. Anyone who comes across your site and wants to share it with the Pinterest world just needs to click on that little red button and, just like that, the product is out there for everyone to see. If you have a multi-pronged social media approach, tell users on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and whatever else you’re using to follow you on Pinterest. Pinterest itself lets you connect with Twitter and Facebook; however, with Facebook it’s limited to a personal profile, not your company’s page.

4) Use Rich Pins

Rich Pins include additional information beyond the basic three components (image, link to site and pinner’s description) and there’s a choice of six: place, article, recipe, product, app and movie. In the works are Buyable Pins (for U.S. iPhones and iPads), which will allow users to buy directly from Pinterest without leaving the app. In the meantime, product pins are the most useful for a business, as a user is shown where a product can be purchased, the most current price and a direct link to the item online. Don’t be quick to dismiss the other five, though; having a social media profile for a company just to drive sales can put off followers. Creating a personality for it can go much farther in terms of brand and customer loyalty because users will relate to the company on a more personal level. A personal trainer, for example, can share his favorite playlists with music pins from YouTube. Users have not only have found brand-new music to add some life to their workouts, but might also become potential clients or followers who are grateful because the trainer made their workouts more fun.

5) Pin strategically

Create the initial boards to get your feet wet, then add and change as you get a feel for how Pinterest works for the brand. Once comfortable, pin strategically, often and across all boards. Don’t pin something because it fits the brand on a superficial level and don’t pin just for the brand. Think of it as creating the atmosphere for a storefront for the brand. What kind of music would be playing? If there is artwork on the walls, what’s the theme? What’s a related trend or story?

6) Experiment with size and color when creating pins

When creating content for your site, keep in mind the visual characteristics of pins as they’ll appear on Pinterest. Taller pins are more noticeable than squarish ones, and well-lit photos fare better than dark ones. Images with a variety of colors were repinned more often than an image with a single color (like an object on a white background). Curalate.com has additional great tips here.