By Maggie Smith, Account Executive
I’ve been mindlessly scrolling through Pinterest since middle school for all my fashion, beauty, travel, decor, and photo inspiration. However, it wasn’t until very recently that I discovered how many brands rely on Pinterest for advertising.
If you didn’t already know, Pinterest is an image-sharing platform that allows you to collect posts into different categories, known as “boards.” In other words, it’s a visual search engine for a plethora of things. Most users, myself included, go on Pinterest for inspiration, whether it be what shoes they should buy next or what makeup look would be perfect for date night. Even better for businesses, 93% of pinners use Pinterest to plan future purchases, according to a study done by Neilpatel. According to Pinterest themselves, 83% of weekly users have made a purchase based on content they see from brands, and 77% of them regularly discover new brands and products on the app.
So how do businesses use this platform to their advantage? There’s two ways to advertise yourself on Pinterest: to pay for your posts, or to build a following on your own. For those that are paid for, users will see a little “Promoted by ______” tag on the bottom of the post. However, that usually doesn’t drive away users from the picture they’re looking at. Odds are, if the picture and product shown is appealing to them, they’ll add it to their boards.
However, if a business is trying to save money, it’s possible to gain a lot of success just by putting in some time. Create a brand profile, determine what kind of visuals you want to post (products, graphics, etc), post often, join lots of community boards so people see what you post, and use search engine optimization to your advantage. Odds are that people will start pinning your stuff, which will lead to their followers pinning your stuff, and so on.
The key to Pinterest success is to be as visually appealing as possible, and to link everything you post straight to your website. This will lead users directly to your products, where they’re very likely to browse through the entire page if they like what they see. The easier you make it for pinners to shop your pin, the more business you’ll get out of your posts.
Next time you mindlessly go through Pinterest, I challenge you to look out for those “Promoted by” tags, and also to see if you swipe up on any of the links you come across. My bet is that you’ll do both.