Making a success of your Pinterest marketing

Pinterest is fundamentally a visual book-marking site, where you can save a scrapbook of images and content. If you’re looking to increase your website traffic, Pinterest is certainly a platform to explore.

It allows you to post your own things and the stuff that you find around the internet with the click of a button. You can discover new interests by posting (or ‘pinning’, as it’s known on Pinterest) images or videos to your own board or to those of other pinners.

For clarity, a board is a collection of pins, usually with a common theme.

Pinterest, as a whole, is the third most popular social media network; it now has over 100 million monthly users.

So, you’re now on Pinterest, as either an individual or a brand, and you want to know how to make your content reach far and wide – but without advertising spend. Here are our top five pointers to do just that:

1. Well thought-out descriptions
On Pinterest, you have a maximum of 500 characters, but it pays to get straight to the point, since overly long pins will bore your audience.

Your pin descriptions should consist of 200–250 characters, to facilitate re-pins: this is because you will have left enough room for your re-pinner to add their own description to yours.

When writing a description, make the point by only using the keywords, a couple of hashtags and an image. Make your content easy to search and this will create more exposure to your brand. Simplicity is key.

2. Pin consistently and often
Like most marketing, an important factor in success is the amount of content that you post daily; the key question is how often.

For a newer business, a good start is to pin about five times a day. Space these five pins out across the day, and make sure you pin in the afternoon and evening, as these are the best times for pin engagement.

If this sounds like an overly manual task, don’t forget that you can schedule your pins in advance!

3. Pictures are key
The picture is the most important part of the pin. If your picture is unappealing, then people won’t really take the time to read the description, nor click on the picture – and they certainly won’t be interested in continuing to your webpage.

4. Re-pin the most successful stuff
If something succeeded once, it can succeed again. You have pins that are doing better than others – and this is true for every brand or user.

There are also pins that are popular on Pinterest and receiving strong viewcounts. If you pin one of these onto your board, it’s likely to drive viewers to your page, encourage exploration and then lead to a site visit.

If you stick with this method over the long-term, imagine how much extra exposure your brand could and get.

5. Tag influencers in relevant pins

An influencer endorsement on Pinterest is a fantastic way to show others how credible your profile is. The result will be masses of visits.

You can try tagging an influencer in a pin – but do ensure that the tag is relevant and not likely to be perceived as spam.

How do you identify an influencer? They’re likely to have a large and engaged following, and post original pins or post pins with original commentary.

All said and done, there is a place for Pinterest advertising, if you’re really looking to turbo-charge your brand awareness and increase page and site visits. Freshly opened up to UK advertisers and now with UK billing (much handier than the old USD charges), you could be one of the first to steal a march over your peers and competitors.

Learn more about our forms of marketing work, such as PR and Social here at Brazen PR.

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