5 Sweet Secrets To Build Your Brand With Pinterest
A BAD ASS BOSS LADIES GUEST POST BY: Faith Spencer
Why on earth would Pinterest be an important component to building your brand? I am so glad you asked! Pinterest is an amazing platform with so much more to it than just pinning pretty pictures on boards.
Pinterest is not the social medium that you think it is. It is actually more of a search engine like Google, just more visual.
Pinterest is a platform for shopping, searching for help on projects, getting recipes, finding advice, planning events, finding educational tools and so much more.
If you have a brand that you would like to build you need to fall in love with Pinterest. With more than 320 million active users a month and it does not matter what industry you are in, Pinterest has your ideal audience. Now you just have to design a plan to get them to your brand.
So, here are my top tips for mastering Pinterest as a business owner so that people can find your brand, you can reach your targeted audience, boost your SEO, and ultimately build your brand.
Step 1: Figure Out Why You're Doing This
Pinterest is a FREE tool that you can use so why not put it to work for you? The best way to use any tool is to figure out what the job for that tool is. Take time to make a list of your goals for this social medium. Gain a good grip on why you are using Pinterest and what you want to get out of it.
Ask yourself questions like: Do I want to get more traffic to my shopping site? Do I need to build up the knowledge of what my brand is? Do I want more readers for my blog? How about gaining more inquiries from potential collaborators or clients? Do I just want to grow my email list?
It does not matter what the goal is really. All things lead back to TRAFFIC.
Step 2 - Get To Know Pinterest And Shop Your Competition
It is important to take time to see what your competitors or like-minded brands are doing on Pinterest but you do not need to spend too much time on what they are doing as much as how they are doing it.
Take time to check out the boards they have built and the graphics they are using. If you want to get that audience you need to see what they are used to seeing.
It is also important to pay attention to what KEYWORDS they use. Keywords are often found in profile names, bios, board titles and descriptions, and pin titles and descriptions.
Take note of the keywords you come across as you will need them for your own Pinterest Business Account.
Step 3 - Build Your Account
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not having a (free!) Pinterest Business Account.
If you create a regular account with Pinterest you will miss out on all the wonderful analytics that tell you about who you are attracting to your account, what pins are productive, and demographic information about your visitors. This tool is pure gold my friends!
Now build your perfect bio; be creative and utilize keywords. The bio helps Pinterest get you your audience. A good bio will let them know who you are and what your account will bring to their feed.
Decide on the style of boards you will create. Your boards need to be tailored specifically to your niche and contain content that your audience will want to see.
When creating your boards do not skimp on descriptions for every single board and don't forget to use your keywords. If the board is not going to fit your niche remove the board or make it secret.
What to focus on while creating your boards:
- Create 20+ boards that are relevant to your business/blog
- Create relevant group boards where you can collaborate with others to further your reach
- Your first board should be your “ABOUT” board. Name it better than that but, make sure it is filled with content just focused on your business.
- Lastly make your content helpful, informative, and entertaining. Use 80% of your competitors' content & 20% of your own. Yes, you should be pinning your content AND those of your competitors. Yes really. I want you to promote your competitor's content. (Tip: Join their group boards as well to get your reach to spread further.)
I know the setup takes time but you will thank yourself later for getting this all set up correctly. If you get the setup correct you will be able to gain the traffic you want.
Step 4 - Build The Perfect Pin
Pins are more than just images or words that get posted to a board. You want to think things out when you are pinning on Pinterest. Think about content that will get the click.
You want to make sure that your pin has a strong title, description, backlink to a location that you will benefit from, and an eye-catching image. The better you do here the better you will perform with Pinterest. This gets your content to appear in searches.
I am not sure if you realize that your true goal is to get your audience off of Pinterest and to your desired location. I mean think about it, it is great to have 200K followers but if they don’t click on your content to land at the location you designated, ie: your blog, your shopping site, your email signup page, well, then all this hard work is not worth anything.
Step 5 - Make the Pins Work For You!
When creating pins for Pinterest I like to make them work for me the best way they can. As you can see there is a great deal to pinning the right way. So how do we make them work for us?
There are three amazing ways to make your PINS work for you. Are you ready? Here they are!
# 1 Pinterest is one of the smartest platforms out there
Why? Well because Pinterest can read images that have words on them. That is why you see so many pins with words actually in the image (overlaid on the picture). I would say that makes Pinterest pretty smart! If you use this to your advantage you will have one more way to use keywords.
# 2 Backlinking with your pins on Pinterest has so many huge benefits
Let’s cover the ones that you need to remember.
First is that when you add a link to the pin as you build it you are telling Google that this is important, quietly improving your SEO.
Secondly, backlinking your PIN allows you to control what your consumer sees. Remember we said earlier to know WHY you are doing this. Well, this is how you use that to your benefit. Link them where you want them to go. Make sure that your link is to the specific page that you want to drive traffic to. Not just the homepage of your website.
# 3 Design once - use multiple times
When I create a pin I try to think about how to use that one pin three ways. I want to make sure that the keywords that I use will allow this pin to be placed on three different boards. Think about it this way: put the hard work in once and then reuse it two more times. Be sure that you set them to post at different times, not all at once.
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Now that you know how to use Pinterest to build your brand here are a few more things to keep in mind:
Pinterest is a visual platform which means your graphics are the most important aspect of your presence on Pinterest. They should be click-worthy, targeted, and have beautiful images. Use colors, typography, and build a style of your own. This way when people see your pins as they scroll they can pick your content out.
Remember size matters! Make your pins 800 px by 1200 px or longer. Long pins do really well and get re-pinned like crazy.
Use the post later tools. Sit down once and create like flippin' crazy! For me, it makes my life a lot simpler. It allows me to appear visible online when in fact I could be painting with my kids. Your account must always look active.
And there you have it!
I hope that you find this helpful in getting your account working for you. I'd love to know how you get on with implementing it to grow your brand using Pinterest!
Need more help with Pinterest or digital marketing? We've got you, girl! Let's talk about how we can get you on track to success. Get in touch with HMAG Digital Marketing Solutions to get started.
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