Pinterest is one of the best platforms for you to market your business on.
Most people consider Pinterest as inspirational social media (it is not just a media platform, but more on that later) that they use to renovate the house with and put together their dream wedding on curated boards. As you can see, if you run a wedding business or a design business you would greatly benefit from Pinterest. BUT Pinterest is way more than just weddings and design, Pinterest caters to hundreds of niches, getting to your audience will depend on your strategy.
Suggestion: Why your business needs Pinterest Marketing
I am a big fan of Pinterest, as you might know, I help people build successful Pinterest profiles. You are welcome to learn more here, Creative Boost Services (shameless self-plug 😉 )
However, I find Pinterest to be a platform that a lot of businesses either do not use or use it incorrectly. The possible reason for that is because they use Pinterest as if it is solely a social media platform. Meaning they upload their content or pin others’ content and then push it on their boards.
The reason this does not work like other social media platforms is because Pinterest should be treated like a search engine and not social media.
Why is Pinterest a Search Engine more than a Social Media Platform?
The reason it is more of a search engine than social media is that the main asset Pinterest offers you is SEO. You cannot optimize Instagram or Facebook for SEO purposes the way you can optimize Pinterest for SEO.
Let me be a bit more clear.
When you go on Pinterest and you search something your search on Pinterest is similar to a Google search. You type the keywords that interest you and you find the exact related content, right?
Pinterest should be viewed as a better version of Google images.
If your SEO and strategy are good then your content will go on top. The SEO on Pinterest starts with your profile and goes all the way to each pin you post.
If you would like to get a breakdown introduction to Pinterest Marketing and Pinterest Analytics, download my free Pinterest 101 Guide, it will help fill in the missing pieces from this post and answer extra Pinterest questions (not everything fits one blog post)
When you SEO for your Pinterest Marketing plan make sure you have the following:
- Your profile name is your business name + keywords that you want to associate with you
- Profile description of who you are & what you do
- Clear board names that are easily searchable
- Board descriptions that have your keywords
- Pin titles and descriptions with keywords
- hashtags of the keywords
The more clear you get on your keywords the better your profile will perform
Once you have an SEO strategy, you can move on to your content creation
This is the KEY change in your Pinterest Marketing for 2020.
Why is Fresh Content Important on Pinterest?
Over the years Pinterest did not say much on how it would want its users to produce content. The main question was if we create a lot of content for the same URL, will we be penalized?
Up until now, there has not been a specific guideline, so most marketers would create a few pins for posts. However, now Pinterest has officially come out and said that they want and like fresh content.
How does that play into your strategy? Well, you can now, without worrying about being spammed, create multiple pins for the same URL and not be spamming Pinterest.
What does it mean to create a few new pins per URL?
- Creating multiple images for your blogpost/ service/ offer/ ect.
- Making unique visuals that help you test and see what your audience prefers
- Create fresh content for older content without being spammy
Another important thing to note is that if you do create a lot of fresh content Pinterest will prioritize your content because you are adding more to their database.
The next thing when you are building your strategy is exposure.
How To Build Exposure On Pinterest
To grow on Pinterest you will greatly depend on others spreading your content. Aside from great SEO and beautiful content you need to be part of the Pinterest Community, also can be referred to as group boards. Group boards are important because they house many users and followers that will be exposed to your content.
Pinterest growth is a long term strategy. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, when you post content on Pinterest you are only starting its life cycle in the first 24 hours. The value of your Pinterest post often comes back a few months later.
The best way to look at this notion is as if your Pin was a seed. You plant your seed in many different group boards, your own boards and in tribes (will be explained later in the post). Once you seed the pin, others will start nourishing it and this is how it will start growing its roots.
This is why Group boards are essential. If you read more content on Pinterest Marketing you will see that many people will argue that group boards are not what they used to be and that they are not as essential. I disagree, I have seen time and time again how powerful group boards are and it is all a matter of joining the right ones.
How do you Join the Right Kind of Group Boards?
To start let me show you what a group board on Pinterest looks like and how to find it.
There are 2 types of group boards:
- Niche-specific
- General content
Niche-Specific Group Boards
These group boards are very specific to your target audience and the content you produce.
Here are a few examples:
General Content Group Boards
These group boards are usually boards with many followers and users from all kinds of niches.
Here are a few examples:
You might be wondering which kind of group boards you should join. I’d say join both.
The reason you should be joining both is:
- The niche-specific groups will be directed to your audience
- General group boards will expose your content to new people who may need you but did not know it yet
- You’re sharing your content to more people
Now, how do you know you are joining the right kind or group?
For the Niche-Groups you would want to have a good mix of the following:
- Very niche-specific groups, such as Instagram marketing
- More general Niche groups, such as Social Media Marketing
- A mix of big following and small following on different groups
- A mix of many contributors and very little contributors
When joining niche groups, join only groups you can provide content for. If you do not have content for those groups do not join them. You want each group to remain with valuable content and when you share something that is irrelevant you are taking away from the group owner’s credibility to add the right kind of contributors.
For the more general group boards it is much simpler, you join whoever lets you and allows you to post any kind of content.
How to find a group board:
There are many ways to do this process. The way I like to do it is by going to my competitors’ profile and see what group boards they are part of. Once you see that you start going into the groups that are relevant for you. The next step is to go to the contributors and look at who else is in the group.
From there you will find many people linked to hundreds of other boards and you just start joining as many as possible. Not everyone will accept you, so do not be shy and apply.
How to Join a Group Board:
Once you find the group boards you want to join, there are different ways you can join.
The easy way would be if they have a button set up that says “join”.
If they do not then you need to reach out to the group owner.
Before you reach the owner read the board description. This is where the owner will write what you need to do to join the group. Often it will involve you either DMing them or emailing them to join.
Also, an important thing to note is that sometimes group boards will be closed and they are no longer accepting contributors. That is ok, keep searching for others there are many group boards available.
Now that you are ready to reach out to the group owners, consider creating a template where you can change up key information and use it for as many boards as possible.
Think along the lines of this:
Hi,
My name is X and I run X. I really like your content and would like to join your group board: ” x”. I have a lot of great content to contribute.
Here is my Pinterest name X, and the email associated with the profile, x.
I can’t wait to join and contribute!
Thanks,
X
Simple right?
Now that you are clear on Pinterest SEO, fresh pins and Group Boards it is time we talk about scheduling and maximizing your Pinterest growth.
How Can You Maximize Your Pinterest Growth With Scheduling?
When you have all the key points we discussed above you will now need to consider scheduling your content in order for it to work for you at the most optimal times.
Unlike other socials that you can post once a day, Pinterest loves when you are being active many times throughout the day. Now, who really has the time to hop on and off Pinterest multiple times a day and share content?
Although manual pinning is great and can greatly help your growth, scheduling your Pinterest posts will not only allow you to pin at your followers’ most optimal times you will also be able to schedule content ahead of time for weeks in advance.
The scheduling tool I use, love and recommend everyone is Tailwind. Tailwind is a Pinterest approved tool where you can schedule all your pins for days and weeks ahead to your own boards and to your group boards.
There are many different ways in how you can schedule your content on Tailwind, but I will not be getting into those strategies in this post. If you would like a full Tailwind Tutorial, let me know in the comments.
Tailwind is your best friend for Pinterest growth. They offer you endless support, give you the latest insights from Pinterest and help monitor your account so Pinterest will not disable your account for any reason.
Additionally, Tailwind has a smart loop. The Smart loop allows you to schedule your top performing pins into all your boards and have Tailwind circulate it for you in the most efficient way. The smart loop is one of my favorite features in the software. I have seen significant growth for my clients due to it.
The final thing I will talk about in regards to Tailwind is Tribes. Tailwind has a feature called Tribes. This feature allows you to share your content with niche groups that you can only access through the software. The advantage of using tribes is giving people a first look into your content and allowing them to schedule it in their scheduler and pushing your content for you before you might even push it. This is a great tool because it is like the board groups but more specific and has clear growth (Tailwind gives you analytics on everything).
One thing this post did not touch on is other people’s content vs. your own. The only thing I would say is that you should be posting others’ content but greatly focus on your own.
Tailwind is a big aspect and a beneficial aspect to a good and strong Pinterest Marketing Strategy.
I hope that you found this post helpful.
If you would like to get in touch, please email hello@creative-boost.net
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