Let’s start with a question. How is Pinterest different from other social networks? It’s purely image-based and it sends traffic outside of the network to your website. And according to many experts, Pinterest is gradually replacing Google Image Search.

A significant growth (66.52%) in referral traffic was noticed from 2012 to 2013. So, if you are aiming at redirecting maximum traffic to your website from social media, you have to sign up for Pinterest Business page. But before that, let’s take a look at the Pinterest demographics.

Gender distribution:
Female user: 80 to 83%
Male user: 17 to 20%

Age distribution:
18 to 34: 32%
35 to 54: 45%
55 and above: 23%

Other interesting data:
50% of all Pinterest users are parents.
28.0% Pinterest users belong to the High Income Group.
55% of all Pinners engage with brands and retailers while 48% of Facebook users do it to make a purchase decision.

So, to sum up the story, if your audience periphery covers moms and women, aged between 30 to 50, who are well off, Pinterest would prove to be an Eldorado for you.

Without much ado, let’s get started with those 5 factors that can take your Pinterest marketing to the next level.

How to appear on search results: Pin boards appear on Google searches too. So, if you take care of the SEO part of your profile and pins, they have higher chances to stand out in search results. Let’s take a look at some of the important SEO aspects of Pinterest:

  • Complete your profile: Secure your business name in the account name as well as URL. Write a short and crisp description about the business and strategically include the most important keyword for your product or service in the description.
  • Verify your website: Verified Pinterest accounts receive greater attention than those without. So make sure, you get it for yourself.

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  • Describe your pins well: Pin descriptions are as good as captions. So, utilize them carefully. Describe your pin with solid keywords. The same is application to your pin boards.
  • Do hashtags serve any purpose? Actually, no! Hashtags play absolutely no role in Pinterest searches. However, it makes the hashtagged phrase a little bolder to look at and that’s pretty much it.However, if you at all want to include them in your pins, don’t use more than two in one pin.
  • Double-check the links: The prime reason behind your love for Pinterest is the referral traffic. So, make sure the link your are providing with the pin does not show any 404 errors.

What to pin: Let’s take a look at the broad categories of what people do on the platform.

Buy products (Consumer brands)
Find information (Recipes, travel, exercises)
Search DIY crafts and designs (Home decor)
Seek inspiration (Motivational quotes)
Look for like-minded people (Knowledge sharing)

  • Determine your category: Find the topics according to popularity. Go for the popular categories, which have a high search volume but lesser number of images.For example, “travel” is a popular category but there are very less content for “best times to travel around the world”. Think strategically.

How to create effective pins: When people search with some specific keywords, Pinterest provides them with hundreds of results. Not all pins get equal amount of attention. So, what you could do to make your pins stand out? Try these:

  • Rich pins to draw attention: Rich pins can add a special dimension to your pins. According to Pinterest, they are “Pins that include extra information right on the Pin itself.”Currently, 5 types of Rich Pins are available: movie, recipe, article, product and place (location). And now a bigger motivation: Rich pins tend to rank higher than normal pins.
  • Taller images work better: Taller images work better than wider ones on Pinterest. While the best possible width for any Pin would be 736 pixels, the height can go to any extent.
  • Try promoted pins: This is something Pinterest has been experimenting for a while and finally they launched it on 19 October, 2014. However, promoted pins are available only to USA-based businesses for the time being.
  • Post quotes: Quotes gel quite well with Pinterest users. If you don’t have considerable amount of images to share on the space, this trick will work wonder for you. Create quotes on your own with little tips, tricks or content excerpts. And present them well.
  • Post good quality images: This is one rule that should not be overlooked, no matter what. A good content can go unnoticed, if presented poorly. So, choose high-quality images.Here is a cheat sheet for you:

How to get more followers: Let’s face it, you need followers to distribute your message across. So, you need Pinterest followers for more repins and more traffic. Here are some effective ways to do it:

  • Install Pin It button: Install “Pin It” button on your website, so that people can directly pin the images from your website. The more people do it, the more web authority you get.
  • Add Pinterest Widget to your website: Pinterest Widget is another way to let people know that you are there on Pinterest. Your website visitors can directly land on your Pinterest profile through this widget. You also can make pin board specific widget, if you want to focus on any particular board on your website or blog.

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  • Pin and comment: In order to draw attention to your Pinterest profile, you need to give some attention to others. Pin other pinners’ images, provided they belong to your niche. Here is one trick for you to draw a fellow pinner’s attention. Don’t pin from website, rather go to the concerned pin board and re-pin from there. The pinner gets notification when you re-pin.
  • Pin on more than one board: You may have noticed that there is an option to follow individual pin boards on Pinterest. So, in order to make sure your pin gets the utmost reach, pin them on more than one relevant pin boards.
  • Follow some compulsive followers: To get some instant following, follow people who would definitely follow you back. How to find them? Look for people who have almost equal number of followers and following. But stick to your niche. Simple!

When to pin: It largely depends on your target audience on Pinterest. If they are working women, Friday afternoons (after 3 pm) and Saturday mornings are good time to pin. And if your audiences are moms, late evenings and afternoons perform well. Overall, it’s seen that Saturdays and Wednesdays are good for pinners. But if your audience belongs to a different time zone than yours, you must consider the time difference and pin accordingly.

So, ultimately, it zeroes down to your audience and their lifestyle and interests. You can take help from Pinterest Analytics to understand your audience better.

Here is one trick that you can practice to make sure you don’t lose so much of time in searching or uploading the pins during the peak time for your brand.

  • The efficiency of Secret Boards: Create a secret board for your future pins. Do it when your Pinterest community is idle or you have some time in hand. Now watch for the time slots when your Pinterest timeline seems busier. Re-pin from the secret broad in those time slots.

Conclusion:

If you start using Pinterest effectively, you will get more traffic for your business. All you need to do is, make things a little more Pinteresting for your audience and it will be the same for you!

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