With growing numbers of Australians using Pinterest to source ideas for recipes, fashion, home decor and DIY projects, businesses are now using the visual discovery app to grow their audience and engage with consumers in new ways. More than 200 million people around the world use Pinterest each month. In Australia, more than 2.2 million ideas are saved on the platform each day, and its users have increased 30 per cent in the past year.
With over 100 billion ideas to explore, Pinterest helps people discover and take action on ideas that are meaningful for them. And because 75 per cent of all of the content saved comes from businesses, brands play a huge role in the discovery process. Its uers are actively considering ideas as they search for inspiration, so brands are able to connect with people who are genuinely interested in their content and products. Pinterest’s advertising solutions enable businesses to capture this unique intent and deliver results for advertisers, whether it’s driving reach, awareness or action.
Pinterest has seen considerable growth in advertising business over the past year, including substantial growth in its small business category. Since 2017, there has been a 50 per cent year-over-year increase in small-business advertisers.
Pinterest can help small businesses:
- Tell their brand story.
- Engage with consumers across the entire customer journey from inspiration to action.
- Drive key business results including awareness, customer acquisition and retention.
Here’s how to promote your small business on Pinterest.
1. Add the Save button to your website: Having this on both mobile and desktop makes it easy for customers to save your products and content to their Pinterest boards.
2. Set up your profile: You’ll need a profile photo (a logo or a visual of your products or services) and a business description with your web address, contact details and location. If you already have a personal account, it’s easy to convert it into a business account which comes with extra features, such as Pinterest Analytics and Pinterest Ads.
3. Set up your boards: These allow you to save and organise your Pins. Craft your boards to categorise your Pins by product, topic or audience segment.
4. Add Pins to your boards: Great Pins need to be visually appealing, clear and relevant, with helpful descriptions. Top tips include:
- Run vertical Pins.
- Detailed descriptions: In-depth, positive descriptions give people the information they need to decide whether a Pin is for them. They also include keywords for better search results.
- Instructions and how-tos: Clear instructions help break down complicated projects for users. Choose from step-by-step images, a description that explains how to do the project, or click-through details.
- Lists: Curated lists are popular because they cut out search time.
- Text overlays: These give users a clear takeaway at a glance – especially when a Pin’s purpose isn’t obvious from the image. Minimise the amount of text and make it part of the design. Make sure text is large enough to read easily on mobile or in a gridview. Make sure Pins don’t look like banner ads; avoid borders and blocks of logos/text.
- Be consistent: Reinforce brand recognition using consistent colours and styling. Use Rich Pins whenever possible so your brand stays on the Pin as it gets saved by other people on Pinterest.
5. Check your analytics: Use Pinterest Analytics to get insights into what’s working so you can refine your strategy for best performance.
6. Promote your Pins: With Promoted Pins, you pay for your best Pins to be shown to your most relevant target audience on Pinterest. It’s a cost-efficient way to build brand awareness and drive sales.
Lisa Fong, SMB Marketing Lead, Pinterest
