Pinterest is an incredible platform for getting traffic and sales for your business if you just know how to use it like the top brands do.
Here are a few strategies that will help you get more traffic, engagement, brand awareness, and sales from Pinterest:
1. Use Canva templates
Whether you're using blog post pins, quotes, infographics, or something else on Pinterest, you need it to look good.
Plus, you need it to be optimized specifically for the Pinterest feed.
This is where Canva comes in.
With Canva, you can use their templates to make beautiful Pinterest posts without being a natural artist.
Plus, you can do it for free!
2. Turn blog posts/videos into infographics
If you're posting original content on Pinterest, there's a good chance you have a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, or something like that.
One great way to get more Pinterest traction is to turn your key points in a post and turn it into an infographic.
Pinterest is the PERFECT platform for infographics, and in my experience, they get more views and shares than just about anything else you can post on Pinterest.
3. Follow your competitors' followers
A great way to get more followers on Pinterest, especially if you're new to the platform, is to follow the followers of you competitors.
Find blogs, channels, etc. with similar content subjects to you, look at their followers list, and follow a few people per day.
Soon, you should start getting people following you back (maybe 10-20%) and they will then start seeing your content.
Of course, you can always unfollow those that never follow back as well to make your follower to following ratio look good.
4. Post more quotes
Quotes do just as well on Pinterest as they do on pretty much every other social media platform.
People just love quotes.
So, find some quotes related to the niche your profile focuses on and post them using optimized templates from Canva to get some good share counts.
5. Post Pinterest image at bottom of blog posts
If you have a blog and want to build your Pinterest authority, post your optimized pins in your blog posts so people can easily share them.
This is something that lots of bloggers do that have a big Pinterest presence.
That's why you've probably noticed I've been doing the same thing.
One thing to keep in mind though is that these images, once optimized for the optimal Pinterest pin dimensions, can be large files.
This means, it can slow down your blog's page load time when you have these images embedded in them.
So, when you're finished creating a Pinterest image on Canva, make sure to click the “compress file” option before downloading.
This will make the file size smaller and load faster on your blog page without sacrificing the image quality too much.
6. Link to your profile everywhere
If you've been following my content for any length of time, you may have noticed that I link to my Pinterest profile at the bottom of my blog and in my YouTube video descriptions.
This just helps those who have a Pinterest profile and want to follow me easily find my profile.
You should also be doing this for all your other major social media profiles.
I'm sure your favorite content creators do the same thing.
7. Get Easy Social Share Buttons
Now, most of the strategies in this post are free, but there is one paid strategy I recommend, especially if you have a WordPress blog…
It's to get the Easy Social Share Buttons plugin.
Why?
Look at the share buttons I have on the left of my blog posts.
If you click to share my post, right after you've shared it, another box pops up asking you if you want to follow me on one of my social profiles.
Then it shows my follower count and gives you an easy button to click if you want to follow.
That feature alone is worth the $22 one-time fee the plugin costs.
And, you also get all sorts of customization options, metrics, and features for getting more social shares for your blog.
The plugin also has a Pinterest feature that allows you to set a feature Pinterest image.
This is another feature I love, because it allows you to set a Pinterest-optimized image as the default to be shared instead of whatever your blog post's featured image is.
It's another feature that can lead to a lot more shares!
8. Post in top categories
Another big part of succeeding on Pinterest or any other social media platform is by posting content related to the most popular categories on that particular platform.
Here are the types of content categories that do best on Pinterest, according to HubSpot:
- Travel
- Health
- DIY Home Projects
- Women's Style
- Beauty
- Food and Drink
- Motivational Quotes
9. Post 5-30 times per day – consider Hootsuite, Buffer, etc. to schedule
What's also nice about Pinterest, as opposed to other social media platforms, is you can post dozens of times per day without annoying your followers.
On top of that, some pins can go on to rank for search results and get you traffic for years!
With Pinterest, it doesn't just show one post at a time like on Instagram or Facebook.
It shows you lots of pins from different people you follow.
So, you can post anywhere from 5-30 times per day to maximize your brand exposure, according to Buffer.
I also recommend a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite if you're going to post multiple times per day.
Otherwise, you'll have to keep opening your profile every single time you want to post throughout the day, which is no very efficient.
10. Post images w/o faces 23% more repins
Also, if you just want to make the pins you do perform better, stop putting closeups of people's faces in your Pinterest images.
According to HubSpot, Pinterest posts without faces get 23% more repins.
11. Post at the right time
According to Buffer, Mashable, and Pinerly, the best days and times to post on Pinterest are Saturdays, Afternoons and Evenings.
And, according to CoSchedule, you should post after 8:00PM.
You might save your best posts for those days and times to maximize exposure.
12. Have vertical images for blog posts
Vertical images are more suited on Pinterest because of the long, skinny column format of its pages.
You get more Pinterest real estate with more vertical images.
This means that your posts take up as much space on the page as possible, making them more likely to be noticed, liked, shared, and clicked.
For examples, notice how Making Sense of Cents and SarahTitus.com have vertical images optimized for Pinterest on their blogs.
Also check this Pinterest image size cheat sheet or just use Canva templates as I mentioned above.
13. Share on specific boards with keywords
If you want to have a board where it has all your blog posts, that's great, but you also need to have keyword specific boards.
Using blog categories could be one great way to divide up Pinterest boards and optimize them for searchable keywords to help their discoverability.
Again, notice how Pinterest power profiles do this like Making Sense of Cents and Sarah Titus.
14. Delete pins that don’t perform well
Believe it or not, pins that don't perform well could drag down your future pins.
When you have lots of pins with no engagement, it basically tells Pinterest's algorithm that your future pins aren't worth showing to people.
This is according to a Pinterest power user and blogger, Sarah Titus.
15. Have a good profile picture.
Some top marketers get their profile picture professionally done, which is great, but not always necessary.
You can just have a clear picture of yourself looking fairly nice and professional (usually smiling helps too).
You've probably heard a million times that first impressions are very important and this is no different.
Make your Pinterest profile picture attract people, not repel them.
Observe the other successful people in the same industry as you and look for patterns in how they present themselves in pictures.
They know what they're doing.
16. Link to your site
It wouldn't do you much good to get a lot of traffic on Pinterest and not have a link now would it?
Have your verified website displayed on your profile.
I would recommend you make the link a content website like a blog, so that people don't think you're just trying to get their email or sell them something.
Make sure you verify it so that your Pinterest followers can actually go and click on the site while on Pinterest.
You can verify your Pinterest website by following this tutorial.
17. Who are you anyway?
When you're using Pinterest (especially for business purposes), make sure you have a short and sweet profile bio that describes yourself.
What do you want people to see you as or know about you.
You may even want to add some humor to it to make a good first impression on people.
Think about it, who doesn't love to laugh?
If you do make your bio humorous, also include your actual occupation or what you bring to the table to help people in your business.
You don't want people to misunderstand what you're actually all about and why they should want to learn more about you or your business.
18. When in doubt, model after what works
Want to get off to a fast start in your Pinterest marketing or revive an account that gets little activity?
Go find what the top Pinterest authorities are doing and find a way to implement a similar approach for yourself.
They may not be related to your industry, but you can still use the overall concepts and tweak them a little to get yourself similar results.
Here are some top Pinterest authorities:
- Martha Stewart
- Real Simple
- Sephora
- Whole Foods
- Self Magazine
- Today Show
- Etsy
19. Pin daily
No matter what you want to accomplish, especially when it comes to developing a large social media following on a site like Pinterest, you need to consistently be active.
Make it a goal to pin some new pictures on a daily basis.
While posting personal stuff, humor, etc. is fine and good for branding, you need to stress consistently posting pictures or even videos that are related to your business.
After all, you're using Pinterest to help with branding, traffic, and sales, so pin things that will attract the target market you're looking to attract.
20. Use keywords in your pin description
Just like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Youtube, etc., Pinterest has an algorithm in place to help push certain pins to the top of results.
This is where the real traffic is and if you can get there, your following will skyrocket.
So how do you actually get it in the top results for your target keywords?
You can start by putting the exact keyword phrase in the description of the picture.
It helps Pinterest know what the post is about and will be one of the steps to getting to rank very high in results.
Conclusion
Pinterest is really on the rise and is one of the biggest social media platforms in the world.
It's actually going along with the future of media by leveraging pictures and now even videos which are starting to take over the internet on every social media site, not just Pinterest and Instagram.
One thing is for sure, even if you've had zero success with Pinterest marketing in the past, if you apply these strategies, I'm sure you'll start seeing results very quickly.
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