Getting Started with Pinterest for Business

The landscape of social media marketing is constantly changing and getting started with a new platform can be intimidating. Pinterest currently reports 200 million monthly users and that number is continuing to grow. So, should your business take the Pinterest plunge? Here are some tips to help you make that decision.

First, it is important to get to know your audience. Here is a small breakdown of what Pinterest users look like:

• 55% report they use Pinterest to shop

• 84% report they use Pinterest to learn new things

• 57% report they return to saved Pinterest content when they are in-store

• One in 2 millennials use Pinterest and seven of every 10 of these millennials are women. That being said, the median age of Pinterest users is 40-years-old

• 68% of women who use Pinterest are between 25-years-old and 54-years-old

• 40% of new users monthly are men (What this is telling us is that although Pinterest is still female dominated, there are places for you to grow your following if you are specifically targeting men)

• Seven in 10 US moms are on Pinterest (and one in three dads)

The most popular categories for pins include:

• Food Drink

• DIY Crafts

• Home Décor

• Women’s Fashion

• Quotes

• Health fitness

• Humor

• Travel

• Technology

• Hair Fitness

Behavior also shows that members are using Pinterest primarily to plan their life well in advance of the season, holiday or special event. The goal then, as a small business, is to make sure you are keeping your content calendar up to date and sharing relevant posts for trends and seasons 45 days before the event.

Does your product or service match one of the previously mentioned popular categories? Does you ideal customer look like the profile above? If yes, then Pinterest could be a great place to spend your time building brand awareness and growing your online community.

If you’re ready to give Pinterest a go, contact myself or your local Wyoming Small Business Development Center Network advisor. Our online marketing specialists and Market Research Center can audit your social media presence and help you design a content plan that best suits your business. Here is some of the advice we offer to help you get started:

Make sure your boards have a relevant purpose to your business.
For example, if you sold jewelry, I would also think about other fashion trends, care of jewelry, inspiration and other fashion type boards.

Try to share to your boards during peak times.
Pinterest reports that this is in the evenings and weekends, though the more we learn about your followers via your analytics, the better we will be able to tweak the most optimal times of day for you to post.

Pin consistently.
Aim for 10-12 pins daily. This is better than pinning everything at one time, once per week. I’m not saying that it has to be 10-12 pins every day, but the idea here is to pay attention to consistency over time.

Have multiple pins that point to the same link on your website.
Going back to my jewelry example, you might make three different pins for the same pair of earnings in different settings all sending people to the same pair on your website for purchase.

Pay attention to keywords.
Regardless of if you are creating new pins or repinning, it is good practice to create/update/change the descriptions of the pins so they are using your preferred keywords. Remember, descriptions in Pinterest are searchable, so it is important to make sure you are using the language in your descriptions that match how your potential customers are searching. For example, when I search ‘silver rings’, Pinterest allows me to check additional qualifiers like: ‘handmade’, ‘unique’, ‘with stone’, etc.

Vertical pins tend to stand out more than horizontal pins.
The ideal ratio is 2:3. For example, 600 pixels wide x 900 pixels high.

Be picky with pictures.
Lifestyle and product-in-action images perform better than standalone product pictures.

Consider paid promotions.
Get in touch with me to discuss promoted pins as a strategy on Pinterest.

Use your branding.
Don’t forget to add your logo to your images when appropriate!

Finally, a few tips to help you gain more followers:

• Spend time creating original pins. A few suggestions of what these could be include: original images, infographics, quotes, etc.

• Spend time repinning other relevant content. This is not only a great way to get noticed by other influencers but allows you to edit pin descriptions to use your relevant keywords.

• Follow others. As you are getting started building an audience, I would recommend researching and following five to 10 new people each week. You are specifically after those who have exposure and influence in your market.

• Join Pinterest groups. This is an easy way to get your pins in front of exponentially more people than if you are pinning just on your personal business board.

• Don’t be afraid to add text if appropriate. If you have the opportunity to add text that shares the benefit of your product/pin, this is an easy way to gain more attention.

• Again, make sure to meet with your local Wyoming SBDC Network advisor to optimize your bio. We want your profile image to be your logo, so that it matches your other social networks, and that you are using your keywords in your bio.

Our advising services are free of cost and completely confidential. To get started, visit our website at WyomingSBDC.org, send me an email at Sarah.Hamlin@uwyo.edu, or give me a call at (307) 851-2029.

There is more to this article that can be found right now at WyomingSBDC.org in our “blog” section.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sarah Hamlin is the regional director for Fremont and Teton Counties. Sarah has a marketing and operations background with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Denver and an MBA from Colorado State University. Her love for helping small business started when she was in high school working for the local, family-owned sporting goods store in northeast Ohio. Sarah specializes in social media and digital marketing, working with clients statewide to get their businesses online.

When she’s not meeting with clients or on the road, Sarah is plotting mountain and river adventures with her husband and three-legged pup, experimenting in the kitchen, and volunteering in the Lander community.

ABOUT THE WYOMING SBDC NETWORK: The Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is a partnership between the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Business Council and the U.S. Small Business Administration offering an enormous amount of business expertise to help Wyoming residents think about, launch, grow, reinvent or exit their business.