A full beginner’s guide to Pinterest for marketers

Tue, Nov 26, 2019 13:46 CET

Curious about Pinterest? Now might be just the right time to do something about it. Pinterest continues to grow and gained 51 million monthly users in 2018. And although it doesn’t have as many active users as the leading visual content network Instagram, it’s still an important platform for marketers and brands to utilize in order to gain traffic and build awareness.

To successfully use the features of Pinterest in the best way possible, it’s essential to first understand how the platform works and what makes it different from other social media channels.

In this guide, we aim to give an overview of the main features and guide you through setting up an account and start publishing.

Why you should get started with Pinterest

Is Pinterest similar to Instagram? Mostly no. If you already have an Instagram account, you might think that setting up a Pinterest account is redundant. But there are in fact a lot of benefits with Pinterest that you can’t get with Instagram or other social networks.

The biggest advantages with Pinterest in comparison with other social networks are:

SEO: Pinterest boards, Pins or profiles can be indexed by Google.
Traffic: It can drive massive traffic towards your website. Pinterest encourages link sharing, as opposed to Instagram, which doesn’t have an option for connecting regular feed posts to landing pages or websites.
Sales: Many consumers use Pinterest for finding products or services to purchase. In that sense, Pinterest is a more product focused platform than Instagram. Proportionately, Pinterest drives 33% more traffic to shopping sites than Facebook, and 71% more than Snapchat.

Then there are of course other benefits such as building a community,creating brand awareness and much more.

Pinterest works well both on desktop and mobile and you can have a rich experience on both. The Pinterest app is available for both iOS and Android. To download it, just visit the App Store or Google Play.

The differences between Instagram and Pinterest

Let’s take a look at what the main differences between Pinterest and Instagram are. Although both are platforms for sharing and discovering visual content, Instagram is more about creating and sharing your own content, whereas Pinterest is more about discovering and curating content — not just within the app itself but on the internet in general.

Yep, that’s right. 😎 You can save images from all kind of websites to your boards with the click of a button. We’ll explain how to do it later in this article.

So all in all, Pinterest is more than just sharing images, many people use Pinterest to find and save for example new recipes or DIY instructions.

An image of a food plate might generate a lot of likes on Instagram, but on Pinterest, it might only get re-pins if there’s some extra value to it. Like for example a description of how to cook the dish. The two platforms also appeal to slightly different audiences.

Instagram

Audience: 1 billion monthly active users. 52% female and 48% male users. Over two thirds of total Instagram audiences are aged 34 years and younger. Over 80% of Instagram users are based outside the US.
Platform purpose: Sharing your own photos and videos.
Desktop vs. mobile: Mainly a mobile app. It’s possible to view and comment via desktop, but not to upload new content. It’s not possible to see ads or Instagram Stories via desktop.
Hashtag usage: Up to 30 hashtags per post. Hashtags are a crucial part of Instagram and a way for users to connect and find new content as well as improve reach and impressions.
Link sharing: Link sharing not prioritized. Only possible in profile bio, ads, and as a ‘swipe up’ story link. No possibility to share links in posts.
Photo editing: Light photo editing possible, possible to adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness for example. Several filters to choose from.
Media supported: Images and video supported. Users can upload video clips from their smartphone or record clips directly from the app. With Live videos, Instagram Stories and Boomerang clips, there are a lot of possibilities to use video as a format on Instagram.
Best for: Creating brand awareness, community building, sharing authentic and ‘behind the scenes’ content, driving sales.

Audience: 250 million monthly active users. 80% female and 20% male users, according to RJMetrics. 38% of Pinterest users are aged 34 years and younger. About 45% of Pinterest users are based outside the U.S.
Platform purpose: Curate, save and discover content.
Desktop vs. mobile: Works well on both desktop and mobile.
Hashtag usage: It’s recommended not to have more than 20 hashtags per Pin. Hashtags can be used but aren’t clickable in account descriptions, board titles or profile names, only in the description section of a Pin. When it comes to hashtags on Pinterest, it’s safe to say that they are supported but not essential in the same way as on Instagram. According to a Pinterest Business blog post, “having too many of them in your descriptions may negatively impact your ranking”.
Link sharing: Link sharing prioritized. Possible to add links to every Pin.
Photo editing: No built-in photo editor. Photo-editing must be done externally prior to uploading the content.
Media supported: Images and gifs supported. Video only supported in the ads manager. I.e. it’s not possible to add your own video unless it’s a promoted post. You can however pin a video link from an external platform like for example Youtube.
Best for: Distributing content, generating website traffic, backlinking, improving SEO, lead generation, driving sales.

Which platform is best for ecommerce and driving sales?

Both Instagram and Pinterest are suitable for ecommerce brands, as there are shopping features on both platforms. There are some difference when it comes to the functionality, but there’s no right answer to the question of which platform is best for driving sales.

The most important factor is probably your brand’s target audience and purchase behaviour:

Pinterest has a slightly older audience than Instagram, whereas there’s a higher proportion of males on Instagram. In general, we tend to get a higher income the older we are. Therefor, companies selling products or services that requires a bit more planning and a higher investment, like for example furniture, will probably benefit more from Pinterest. Instagram is often better for impulse buys.

So if you’re a shoe brand and your target audience is young males, Instagram is probably the right way to go. But if you’re a brand selling more expensive items like art, furniture, kitchen appliances, Pinterest is probably better when it comes to driving sales.

However, there are many other benefits of Pinterest than driving sales, and if you’re looking to drive more traffic to your online shop or website, Pinterest is the superior app when it comes to visual marketing.

Image features on Pinterest vs Instagram

There are also aesthetic differences when it comes which type of imagery works best on respective platform.

According to research, brand images without faces get 23% more re-pins on Pinterest. Images with less than 30% background are also re-pinned the most.

When it comes to Instagram on the other hand it’s the complete opposite. Studies have found that pictures with human faces are 38% more likely to receive likes than photos without faces.

Instagram images with more background also get 29% more likes than photos with a low amount of background.

There is also a difference when it comes to colors. Images on Instagram with blue as the dominant color tend to generate 24% more likes than images that have red as the most dominant color. On Pinterest, photos with warm colors like red and orange get about twice as many re-pins than images that are blue.

Should you get a personal or a business account?

Just like with Instagram, business accounts get access to more features than personal accounts. Such as Pinterest Analytics, a free built-in analytics tool that will give you insights about how your content is performing. If you’re planning to create ads, you will also need a business account.

You can decide to have only a personal account or only a business account. It’s up to you. For marketers, using Pinterest in their profession, a business account is the best choice.

Want both a personal profile and a business profile?

No worries. You can link your personal profile to a business profile and easily switch between them. Each personal profile can be connect to up to 4 business accounts, this can be useful for marketers that manage several brands.

Having both a personal and a business profile is good for when you need to separate your personal content from your brand’s content. If you’re just starting out on Pinterest, it can be a good idea to start a personal account to play around with in order to get used to the platform.

How to create a personal account

When you create a personal account, you can either do it via the website or through the app. To create a business account you need to use the website, but we’ll get to that in the next section.

Option A. From the website

1. Go to the Pinterest website.
2. Choose whether to sign up with your Facebook account, your Google account or your email address.
3. Click Continue and follow the steps on the screen.

Option B. From the app

1. Open the Pinterest app.
2. Choose whether to sign up with your Facebook account or your email address. Note that you can’t sign up with Google through the app and you can’t sign up for a business account either through the app (to do that you need to visit the website, read more about this in the next section).
3. Follow the steps on the screen.

How to create a business account

To create a business account, you must use the website since there’s currently no way of creating a business account through the app.

Option A. Create a new business account

1. If you have a personal account, make sure you’re logged out.
2. Go to Pinterest for business. (pinterest.com/business/create/)
3. Fill in your email, password, business name and select your business type.
4. Read the Business Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and accept.
5. Click “Create account”.

Option B. Convert a personal account to a business account

1. Log in to your account.
2. Go to the “Convert to business account” page. Pinterest.com/business/convert
3. Fill in your business name and website, then select your business type.
4. Read the Business Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and accept.
5. Click “Create account”.

Navigating through the site

Have you ever googled on a certain type of product you’re looking to buy, to see which photo seems most appealing? That’s what Pinterest is for. Whereas Instagram might be more for inspiration and community building, Pinterest is a lot more product focused.

Regular users with a private account often use the search function on Pinterest to get information about a certain topic or find new products to buy.

Just like on Instagram you can follow other accounts. But not only that, you can follow certain topics or board as well. Go to the “Following tab” on the top of the page (desktop version) or at the bottom (app version). The content on the “Following” page is largely shown in chronological order.

How to start posting content

On Pinterest, it’s not actually about posts, it’s about Pins and Boards. One Board can include several Pins. And one user can have several Boards.

You can think of Boards as physical boards where you save content that follows a certain theme. There are several ways to post Pins.

Method 1: Create a Pin by saving a Pin you found within the app

Hover with the mouse over the Pin you want to save.
Click the arrow to choose which board you want to save it to.
Done!

Method 2: Create a pin from images you find on the web

First, download the Pinterest browser button.
From the page you want to Pin, click the Pinterest icon on your browser’s toolbar.
Select the image that you want to post as a Pin.
Add a description and choose which board you want to save the Pin to.

You can also save a Pin from webpages without the browser button. This is done from within your Pinterest profile. But we highly recommend installing the Pinterest browser button, making your pinning a lot easier.

Method 3: Create a Pin by uploading your own image

Click the + symbol on your profile page, right above your boards.
Select the image you want to upload. (Note: You can’t upload videos in this section. Videos are only supported in the ads manager. I.e. it’s not possible to add your own video unless it’s a promoted post.)
Add a description, source link and choose which board you want to save the Pin to.
Save.

Make your site ”pinnable”

Here’s why Pinterest is really different from other social media: As a marketer you can actually benefit from Pinterest even without having an account. Since Pinterest users can save Pins from anywhere on the web, chances are your website content is already pinned by a number of your customers.

And luckily, there are a number of simple things you can do to make your site pinnable and increase your chances further of having your web content saved and shared on Pinterest by your customers and fans:

Add the Pinterest follow button and board widgets to your website.
Add the Save button to your website (formerly called the Pin It button). This lets your visitors easily save images from your pages with the click of a button.
Add images to every single page and blog post on your site. Pinterest users save pages and articles by pinning the images on the site, so make sure you always have quality images to accompany your written content.
Create title images for each article or page. This is related to the previous bullet point. You want to provide your visitors with an image that conveys the topic of the page or blog post so they can easily save it to their boards.
Overlay text on photos to make it more clear what your page or article is all about in cases where the photo itself doesn’t really convey the message or topic.

By thinking of your website content in visual terms, you’ll get the right mindset for making your site more pinnable.

Common terms

Board

A place where you collect your images. Clusters of several Pins that follow a certain theme or that the user considers related in any way.

Group board

A collaborative board that is owned by one single user.

Pin

1. Noun: An image that a user has posted to their Pinterest account.
2. Verb: The act of posting an image to a Pinterest account.

Pinnable

Content that’s worth saving to Pinterest.

Pinner

A Pinterest user.

Pinterest tag

A tool that tracks visitor actions on your website after seeing promoted Pins.

Promoted Pin

Pins that businesses pay to be placed where people are more likely to notice them.

Repin

1. Noun: A Pin that’s created from existing Pinterest content.
2. Verb: The act of pinning an image that’s been created from existing Pinterest content.

Rich Pins

Pins that include extra information and provide more context. There are different types of Rich Pins: product, recipe, app and article Pins.

Source link

The URL that a shared Pin links to.

Key takeaways

While Pinterest has fewer users than Instagram, it’s still growing rapidly and has a number of features that Instagram doesn’t.

The biggest advantage of Pinterest is the ability to add links to Pins, making it an easy way to drive website traffic and a suitable platform for content distribution.

Instagram doesn’t allow link sharing in posts, other than in paid ad campaigns. So if your goal is to generate traffic, Pinterest is the recommended platform.

There are also aesthetic differences between Instagram and Pinterest:

On Pinterest, images without faces and with less background space tend to generate more engagement, whereas on Instagram, images with faces and a higher proportion of background get more likes.
Pinterest also has a slightly older demographic than Instagram, and a higher share of female users than Instagram. Users on Pinterest expect a value in addition to the photo itself, such as DIY instructions or a recipe, whereas Instagram is more used for inspiration and focused on lifestyle.

Whether or not to use both Pinterest and Instagram for marketing or only one of them depends on your business, products and target audience. However, Pinterest and Instagram are used in different ways, so it’s not recommended to use the same type of content for both platforms.

Pinterest is more than a social network, it’s more of a search engine for visual content. And why shouldn’t your brand be searchable in a visual content search engine?

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