How to Easily Build a Pinterest following without wasting time
So, you’ve decided to use Pinterest to generate more website traffic. Congrats! 🎉 We love Pinterest and we’ve been encouraging marketers to take advantage of this platform for years.
As a visual search engine, Pinterest promotes your content in ways other social media platforms can’t.
The “search engine” component enables users to find exactly what they’re looking for. But how do you get people to search for and click through your content? What steps can you take to quickly build a Pinterest following, and how can you use Pinterest marketing to your business’s advantage?
We’re glad you asked!
Here are our three tips to inspire people to hit that follow button on your business’s Pinterest profile.
Create valuable, relevant content to pin
Your pins have to connect to something—ideally, a blog post or page on your website—that is relevant and wanted by your target audience.
So, if you haven’t already, you’ll need to create an editorial calendar. This will help you plan content for your website and how you’ll promote it across different channels, over a set time period.
But that content needs to be click-worthy in the eyes of your viewers.
To produce quality content, consider how your business serves your target audience.
Can you enlighten your audience about something important to their lives?
Is there new research you can share that would interest them?
What specific problem is your audience experiencing, and what do they need to solve it?
Start there and then try to figure out how people search for that type of content online. What questions and keywords are they using?
Here’s a quick-and-easy method: type a question into Google and see what auto-complete options populate. If you use one of those options as a prompt for your content, you’re likely to get some traction since it’s what people are currently searching for.
Once you know what your audience is looking for, you can start to provide it yourself.
And once you create and publish that content, it’s time to make your pins!
Optimize your pins with keywords
Like we said, Pinterest is a visual search engine, which means it uses keywords to determine what content (either photos, graphics, or video) to show each user.
To get eyes on your content, your pins must utilize relevant keywords in your titles, descriptions, and even your graphics.
You should also analyze your competitors’ graphics to gauge what works.
Once you know your top keywords, you can focus on converting your blog posts and web content into pins.
Turn a post’s prompt or title into a simple graphic, or highlight major points via a kickass infographic or list! No matter what, make sure all of your pins include at least one keyword in your graphics and copy.
Here are a few nonprofits who are doing it right 👇
For example, suppose you’re sharing a new blog post about current pollution statistics. You could design a few different graphics, each including the keywords “pollution statistics,” “greenhouse effect,” or another word or phrase someone may use to find environmental content.
Just don’t overdo it to the point where you’re stuffing your pins with keywords. Although it’s important to please the Pinterest algorithm, you want to ultimately provide high-value content to your viewers that they’ll want to click.
Ask for the follow
The third tip to build a Pinterest following is the easiest — but often most forgotten: Ask them to follow you.
You could politely encourage a follow at the bottom of your blog post or by inserting an easy-to-pin image into your content. You won’t get it unless you ask, so find small and direct ways to ask people to follow you on Pinterest, and then make it easy for them to do so.
Need to practice your Pinterest skills? Add this article to your Pinterest board and follow us! (See what we did there?)
When you know how to market your business on Pinterest, it can be a powerful tool because your content will live on this platform for the long-term, and ultimately drive a lot of traffic to your website. So start pinning!