Inspire Yourself with Pinterest in 2019
Have you discovered your potential on Pinterest?
Why should you still consider giving Pinterest a try this year? It might seem like it’s not one of the top social media platforms, but consider these stats:
As of September 2018, there were 250 million active Pinterest users each month, and 125 million in the U.S.
2 million of those users are saving Pins to shopping boards every day. Every day!
Millennials use Pinterest just as much as they’re using Instagram, especially as they’re planning for momentous (and expensive) life events like planning weddings, making big travel plans, and having babies.
40% of Pinterest users have a household income of $100k or more.
Organizations and businesses who want to be discovered by new eyes and who might have something to sell probably see the potential. But users on Pinterest aren’t just there to buy things; it’s a place where they get inspired for their fitness regimens and diets, what their future homes might look like, how they might want to express themselves through color and design, craft ideas and new skills to learn… It’s seriously aspirational, and you, as a marketer, can go with that and help your audience be better, smarter, and more creative through your content.
And there’s a bonus here for brands, too: Users are way more open to seeing content from brands because they’re on Pinterest specifically to discover, not to connect. Your branded content is less intrusive on this platform than, say, trying to get someone to click on your Facebook ad about your new t-shirt line while they’re browsing their best friend’s wedding photos.
So let’s make 2019 the year you give Pinterest a real shot. Start first by brushing up on what Pinterest is (if you don’t know), and the basics of how to Pin.
Done with that? Awesome — now use these tips to maximize this platform so you can reap the rewards of traffic to your site, new supporters and customers, and new ideas and inspiration for you too.
Sign up for a Business account here and claim your website. This is how you’ll get analytics, which we ALWAYS want, and this will make it easier to track if people are Pinning your content.
Use Pinterest to find out what’s trending, and what your audience is into right now. Pinterest puts out a yearly trend report, with visuals and content that have been voraciously posted and shared for at least six months or more. If you’re interested in trending colors for your next brand re-do, or popular clothing styles so you can design something spiffy for your customers, or even what kind of photography styles people like right now, that’s a great place to start.
Get creative with that trending content. Let’s say you work for a global women’s empowerment non-profit, and you’re looking to come up with some content you can share on Pinterest. What if you researched the top travel destinations on Pinterest in 2019, and then created blog posts and graphics about locales where your organization also works? You could create a volunteering travel guide, or an itinerary with input from women you work with so travelers can have a more unique experience. Or, if you work for an environmental group, you can create eco-friendly travel guides with tips and tricks.
There are lots of ways you can tie your expertise in with popular content, and get some of that sweet search traffic; the key is to make sure it’s relevant enough that your content doesn’t come across as spammy or opportunistic. So track these trends regularly, and when you see something trending that relates to you, start creating.
Make sure you’re sharing content that is easy for Pinterest users to see and that's useful enough for them to save. This isn’t the place to just slap up whatever from your website and not care how it’s cropped or designed; Pinterest browsing is done on a mobile device 80% of the time, which makes the quality of what you’re sharing even more important.
A key part of using Pinterest is finding and sharing images from others, so be extremely picky about what you choose to share. Is it beautiful? Does it link to a real website? Will it match the rest of your Pins and go with your overall brand style? If you have to, write out a short list of rules for what’s okay to share and what’s not okay, and pin it (hah) to your desk.
When creating your own images for Pinterest, choose high-quality, bright images or colors that catch attention, make your text easy and clear to read, and orient your graphics vertically rather than horizontally. Use this guide for image sizes, too. Save your image with a file name that includes your key words. And in your captions, be very clear about the content of the website link that is attached to your Pin. Nothing annoys a user more than clicking and not getting what they expected, and Pinterest will delete your Pin if it links to false content.
Look at your Pinterest profile and make sure your images and boards are branded with your style and colors. Women entrepreneurs and bloggers have really perfected this, since they are some of the best at consistently and beautifully branding their social media accounts in order to create an experience that is professional and consistent. Think about how you want your audience to feel when they’re looking at your content. Are you trying to inspire them to take action with energy and ambition? Are you helping feel accomplished and organized? Do you just want them to have more fun? Pick images to save that match that feeling, and design custom covers for your Pinterest boards following the steps here.
Create a custom board that tells a story, provides a step-by-step tutorial, or walks someone through an experience. Design a series of pins that go together in a certain order, and present it all together in one Pinterest board with a very clear description and title. Boards like this show up in Google search results, especially when you use your keywords. Think about your next report release; if you've got images and graphics in your report, turn each one of those into Pins and save them onto a report board.
Get involved with Group boards. Pinterest Pro users have been using Group boards for a long time to cross-promote their content and build community, and it’s a very smart tactic for getting your content onto already highly-followed boards and in front of potentially thousands more users than you would otherwise. Use this guide to find Boards to join, but a word of caution: No spamming, bro. Join relevant Boards where you can genuinely contribute useful, interesting, beautiful content.
Another way to jump on the Group board train is to start with people you know. Create a group Board with your colleagues or friends, and make it a real collaborative project. This is also a handy way to put mood boards together as a group for things like new logos or campaigns, headshot styles, website design, fonts you really like, recipes for the next office pot-luck… It can be really fun!
There are lots more creative ways to use Pinterest, but the key to all of this is to Pin consistently. Spend a little time daily browsing for content and posting your content, and you’ll start to see Pinterest users clicking on, sharing, and saving your content in no time. And, if you want to check how often content from your website is getting Pinned, there’s a simple old trick that works like a charm! Type this into your address bar, replacing “Yourwebsite.com” with your actual website URL:
http://pinterest.com/source/YourWebsite.com
You’ll immediately see what images users are sharing from your website onto Pinterest, and what’s being re-shared, liked, and clicked on. Congratulations — you’re a Pin-master!