How to Use Pinterest For Business
When many of us think about Pinterest, we think of aesthetic lifestyle images and mood boards - but Pinterest should not be overlooked when it comes to social media marketing.
Pinterest stands apart from other social media platforms in that it acts as a search engine and method through which potential customers can discover new products, brands, and creators. Users come to Pinterest with a different mindset than they do with other social channels. The Pinterest audience is filled with individuals who are actively looking for something, who are hunting for an idea, a product, a destination, or brand. Pinterest is the perfect environment for businesses to thrive!
As Pinterest states, the three primary benefits for businesses on Pinterest are growing your audience, increasing traffic, and driving conversions.
What Can You Create
Now that we know why the Pinterest audience presents a unique opportunity for creators and businesses, let’s take a look at the content you can actually create on the platform.
The Pin
The Pin is Pinterest’s primary content type that exists on the platform. Pin’s can be a video or photos, and can be formatted as a carousel or collage. Check out Issuu's Pins for some inspiration about the type of content you can post on the platform. There are a few components that are a part of each and every Pin:
Title:
The title of your Pin is the text that Pinners see first on the platform. This text should be as engaging as possible while still being descriptive and accurate - sacrificing accuracy for an appealing title can be tempting but is not wise in the long run if the titles of your pins are misleading.
Description:
The description of the Pin appears when the Pinner clicks on your Pin to view more information. This description should be more detailed while still not being overly lengthy, and should help provide the Pinner with some more context while still encouraging link clicks.
Destination Link:
The destination link enables you to direct a Pinner to a landing page that is beneficial to your business and related to the content of the pin. This can be anything from an item listing on your website, to your blog, or even a newsletter sign up form - get creative with these links but make sure the link is still relevant to the content of the Pin itself.
Idea Pins
A recent addition to the Pinterest platform is the Idea Pin. Idea Pin’s are similar to other “story” features on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook with their vertical slideshow format, and they allow you to showcase small snippets of a larger project, idea, or product. You are able to fully customize Idea Pins with text, music, custom backgrounds, and tagging!
Pinterest Ads
You can also create an Ad in Pinterest, that allows you to boost an existing Pin that you have created. This is a great way to boost the content that is already performing well organically on Pinterest, and can help generate increased traffic and engagement for your business. This is a great tool to use when launching a new product, or during a seasonal sale - anytime you want to get as many views and link clicks as possible!
TikTok/Reels Cross Post
Many modern businesses understand the importance of social media when it comes to promoting your business, and hopping on trends that appear on TikTok and Instagram Reels is a great way to increase the virality of your brand and content. Cross-posting on Pinterest is an underutilized tool for gaining impressions.
Once you have created your latest TikTok or Reel, simply save the video and post it to Instagram. You can post this video as either a Pin or an Idea Pin - keep in mind that there are different benefits to each Pin type. Regular Pins allow you to include a destination link so that you can actively refer traffic back to your TikTok and Instagram, while Idea Pins do not include this feature. However, Idea Pins have been shown to have much higher engagement numbers which will allow your content to be seen and engaged with by more people.
Creator Resources
Pinterest has taken many steps to provide businesses and creators with resources that allow you to track the success of your content and grow your brand. Among these resources is the Pinterest Business Hub which includes detailed statistics that highlight the overall trends for your account for both organic and paid content. The business hub also ranks your most successful pins so that you can take a closer look at what content is performing best.
Additionally, the Pinterest Business Hub includes a Resource section that allows you to improve your use of the Issuu platform. This section includes helpful links to landing pages that dive more deeply into specific Pinterest features such as:
Looking for new content to post? The Trends page is another valuable resource that can help inspire you to create new refreshing content. This page allows you to stay up to date with the latest trends on Pinterest and can help inform your content strategy so that it is as relevant and effective as possible to your audience.
You can also join the Pinterest Business Community if you want to connect with like-minded creators and businesses, ask and answer questions, and learn from other successful Pinterest businesses.
Issuu and Pinterest
We’ve discussed optimizing your use of Pinterest for business, but let’s take a look at how Issuu creators can more effectively distribute their content on Pinterest.
The Issuu Visual Story feature is the best way to upload your Issuu content to Pinterest, and can help you generate an audience for your latest publication through the engaging video format of our Visual Stories. Simply create a Visual Story on Issuu, download the video, and then upload the video to Pinterest. As we discussed previously, you can upload this video as a Pin or an Idea Pin.
Uploading your Issuu content to Pinterest is one of the most effective ways to get more eyes on your latest content. After publishing your latest content on Issuu, you can create multiple visual stories for the different sections of your content, or that appeal to different aspects of your audience. This allows you to generate multiple pieces of content that can extend the lifetime of your original publication and generate a significant stream of traffic to your publication for weeks or even months!
Publish today on Issuu to share your latest content, and then share a visual story to Pinterest in order to generate reads and boost engagement!
If you are looking to learn more about how you can use social platforms for your business check out the other blog’s in this series in our social media category.