The Dos & Don’ts of Pinterest Social Media Marketing

Founded in 2009, Pinterest has been a source of inspiration for many people planning events, redecorating their homes, or looking to build up their wardrobes. While Pinterest is a social media platform, it doesn’t quite work the same as the others. If you want to build a Pinterest social media marketing strategy, you’ll have to think outside the box.

Instead of scrolling through photos, videos, and status updates, Pinterest users “pin” content on virtual bulletin boards and build a community around shared interests. Though it may seem unlikely, this approach has proven to be an effective marketing tactic for many brands.

Still, marketing on Pinterest requires an understanding of how the algorithm works and what Pinterest visitors want to see from brands. This information can help you create the right marketing strategy to grow your following and see real results.

How Can a Good Pinterest Social Media Marketing Strategy Benefit Your Brand?

Those who haven’t seen the power of Pinterest marketing may not know how effective it can be. There are currently more than 480 million users on the platform every month. Of those hundreds of millions of people, 83% have made a purchase based on content they saw from brands on Pinterest. 

Because many people are already using Pinterest with the intent to buy something, brands can often increase both awareness and conversions. This ultimately helps them reach their target audience and hit their revenue goals.

Six Things to Avoid When Building Your Pinterest Strategy

Building a successful Pinterest strategy for brands requires hard work and consistency. However, there are things that can jeopardize that strategy or stop you from getting the results you want. Here are six mistakes that can render your marketing ineffective.

1. Focusing on Yourself

It’s important that you avoid turning your boards into one big advertisement. Instead of pinning only products you sell, curate a lifestyle around your product by pinning complementary products that don’t offer direct competition. 

This Pinterest content strategy will show your followers where your product fits into their lives and how it can be used in tandem with items they already own. If you’d rather not pin items from other brands, you can keep your boards fresh by pinning a mix of promotional and informational content from your own website.

2. Pinning Your Home Page

Unless your website homepage contains the exact information a Pinterest user wants, avoid linking to it. Instead, any good Pinterest strategy will make sure your pins go directly to the relevant product page. Linking to your home page may cause you to have a high bounce rate, as people won’t be able to find what they’re looking for right away and may not be willing to dig through your website for it.

3. Neglecting Search Engine Optimization

Search engines can be a powerful tool to bring traffic to your pins, so don’t neglect SEO in your profile and captions. Your captions stay with your pins, so make sure to do some in-depth keyword research so your pins pop up in both Pinterest and Google search results. 

Additionally, use the word “video” in your title for video pins so that those searching for video content in your niche can find yours.

4. Forgetting About Cross-Promotion

One Pinterest strategy marketers often forget about is cross-promoting your pins between social media profiles. Many people will follow you on several social media outlets. Cross-promoting your content may help you get traffic and engagement on your pins quickly so you can get the attention of the algorithm and be rewarded with greater visibility.

5. Generalizing Your Audience

Pinterest itself caters to a specific demographic — 76.6% of users are women. While Gen Z and men are growing demographics on the site, the entire platform is still heavily skewed toward women. 

No matter what you are looking to market, it’s important to remember your audience. Although there’s nothing wrong with trying to capture the interest of the men who browse the site, seeing significant success will require that you appeal to the people who come to Pinterest in droves. 

6. Overdoing It With Your Pinning

While it’s important to post regularly, it’s equally important to avoid overwhelming your followers. It’s not necessary to post all day every day. Not only will you cause people to unfollow you but your boards will become crowded. Instead, work on carefully curating just a few pins per week and choose quality over quantity every time. 

Six Key Areas of Your Pinterest Content Strategy

Building a highly effective Pinterest social media marketing strategy requires knowing which tools and tactics can help you engage and impress your target audience. 

It may take a little time to land on the right set of actions, but with careful effort and by incorporating these important elements, you’ll be well on your way to Pinterest marketing success.

1. Focus on Image Quality 

Because Pinterest is a visual platform, your images are all you really have to catch the attention of your potential customers. As most users are viewing boards from their mobile phones, Pinterest recommends that you use a high resolution and vertical aspect ratio. 

The platform also thinks that adding stylized text to your photos and choosing attention-grabbing video thumbnails are good ideas.

2. Make Use of Rich Pins

Rich pins are those that sync with your site to provide potential customers with the most updated information, such as blog titles, pricing information, and stock levels.

There are several types of rich pins, including those for recipes, articles, and products. With the help of rich pins, you’ll never have to worry about your pins becoming outdated, and you’ll make purchasing a product or service a much smoother process.

3. Be Mindful of Timing and Frequency

In creating the right Pinterest strategy for brands, it is important to focus on when and how often you pin. Track your pin stats through Pinterest Analytics to know when your followers are most active. 

Getting lots of engagement on a pin as soon as it is pinned does a lot for you when it comes to the algorithm. Additionally, Pinterest recommends you pin at least once a week, as consistency with your content strategy increases engagement and helps you become a more authentic member of the Pinterest community.

4. Optimize Your Website

Make sure to optimize your website and blog posts so they interact well with Pinterest. Using a Pinterest Save Add-On can help you make the most of your blog traffic and win you some followers by allowing your visitors to pin content directly from your website. 

If you want to measure campaign success and build audiences for better targeting, consider using the Pinterest tag to gain better insight into your audience’s behavior.

5. Work on Your Boards

Work on your boards regularly to ensure that each has a specific theme that is directly related to your overall niche. Avoid the temptation to just pin everything to one board. Though you may feel your pins are easier to organize that way, you won’t be able to curate an experience for your followers or position yourself as an expert in any particular field.

6. Consider Crowdsourcing Your Pins

The traditional form of influencer marketing, where you pay other people to post about your brand, doesn’t always work well on Pinterest. This is especially true given the platform’s unique nature. However, remember that Pinterest has a group board feature that allows many people to contribute pins to the same board.

With multiple influencers pinning unique branded content to a shared board on your behalf, you won’t have to work as hard to generate content, and you can keep your followers engaged with a varied and consistent content stream.

Building the Right Pinterest Social Media Marketing Strategy Is Key to Success

Finding the right strategy for marketing on Pinterest will take some time, but the results prove to be worth it for many businesses. Brands large and small have successfully used Pinterest boards to generate brand awareness and increase conversions. 

The key to creating a Pinterest social media marketing strategy that works is knowing where to spend your resources. While selling too much and pinning your homepage are a no-go, rich pins, Save Add-Ons, group boards, and high-quality images are crucial. When you spend your energy on the right things, you’ll be able to grow your audience and create amazing campaigns that get results time after time.