Founded in 2008, Pinterest has become a unique form of social media. While other social media accounts focus on the “social” half of their namesakes, Pinterest is about sharing media, including short videos and images. While users still have a discovery feed like other image-sharing sites (think the dashboard on Instagram), board creation and tailored interests set this platform aside from the rest.

Just because Pinterest is a unique form of social media doesn’t mean you should leave it out of your marketing agenda. Here, we cover the ins and outs of marketing on Pinterest and how you can leverage the unique sharing features of this site to increase brand recognition. We’ll also cover the importance of keyword research and how often you should post for maximum effectiveness. 

Topics at a Glance

• How to Set Up a Pinterest Business Account
• How to Create Boards
• How to Create Pins
  • What Is the Difference between Pins and Idea Pins?
  • How Often to Post on Pinterest
• How to Do Keyword Research
  • Using Insights
  • Using Keyword Research Tools
  • Using Pinterest Trends
• How to Write Board Descriptions with Keywords

How to Set Up a Pinterest Business Account

Before we dive into how to maximize Pinterest for business marketing, let’s start with the basics. First, decide if you want a linked or unlinked account. If you have a personal Pinterest account using your business email address, you can easily create a linked business account for free through Pinterest. On the other hand, if you’d rather keep your accounts separate, you can use a new email to start a business account.

Business accounts on Pinterest are similar to normal accounts, with a few key differences. For example, you can run ads with business accounts and get insights into your media performance. Business accounts can also access the Pinterest Business Hub, visit  Pinterest Analytics, and run countless advertisement types, including video and carousel ads. 

Suppose you’re looking for a step-by-step guide on where to go to create a business account. In that case, Pinterest has a helpful walkthrough to make crafting a separate or linked business account easier than ever. 

Keep in mind that Pinterest recommends businesses use employee names and business accounts when making a business account, as this speeds up the verification process and saves you time hunting down a personal email account and information. 

If you’ve been running your business Pinterest as a personal account and want to keep your content, don’t panic. You can turn a personal account into a business Pinterest account (and revert it at any time). However, note that linked accounts cannot be made into a business account (for example, you can’t have two business accounts linked on Pinterest), so you’ll need to unlink those before changing account types.

TLDR:

• Pinterest allows free business accounts.
• You can link a business account to a personal account, create a stand-alone business account, or change a personal Pinterest account into a business account.
• Business accounts can run ads and access unique insights and dashboards.

How to Create Boards

Now that you have an account, it’s time to make a board. Think of boards as Pinterest’s built-in category maker. Pinterest has essentially become more of a search engine rather than a social platform. Most of their organization and searchability come into play as boards. These boards are optimized with use of keywords in the descriptions. 

Boards are great for compiling ideas into one place, like favorite decor options, recipes, or wedding inspiration. For businesses, boards are a great way to showcase insights and products without overwhelming followers.

Making a board on Pinterest is incredibly easy:

1. First, open your mobile device (both Android and iPhone work).
2. Go to your home feed or profile and tap the “+” button at the bottom of the screen.
3. Give your board a name, add group members/collaborators who can add things to the board (if you want), or mark “keep secret” if you don’t want the board to be public.
4. If you’re on Android, hit “Next,” for iPhone, hit “Create.”

And that’s it. Congratulations on making your first Pinterest board! Some advanced ways to use boards include adding sections for added organization. In addition, you can be on a mobile device or the web to add a section to a board.

For web users:

1. Make sure you’re logged into your Pinterest account.
2. Open your profile (top right of the screen).
3. Find the board you’d like to have a section and click it.
4. Find the “+” at the bottom of the screen and click that.
5. Select “Section.”
6. Name your section, then hit “Add.” 
7. Click “Organize” at the top of your board, and then hit “Move” to move your pins of choice to the new section.
8. Once you’re done, hit “Save” next to the section with your new pins. 

For mobile:

1. Open the Pinterest app.
2. Make sure you’re logged in to your business account.
3. Open your profile from the bottom right corner of the screen.
4. Tap the board you’d like to have a section.
5. Tap the “+” button and select “Section.”
6. Give your new section a name, and hit “Next.” 
7. Move pins to your new section, and hit “Done” if prompted. 

TLDR:

• Pinterest boards allow businesses and users to organize their pins.
• Boards can have sections for ease of access.
• Boards can have multiple group members or collaborators.

How to Create Pins

You’ve done it. You finally have a business Pinterest account and boards with beautiful sections. If you want to share content made by other businesses, you’re well on your way. However, a large part of Pinterest marketing involves making and sharing your pins. 

You may be asking yourself, “What exactly is a pin?” Think of Pinterest as a combination bookmark bar and bulletin board. Each pin contains some form of media, usually an image or a short video. These usually act as link bookmarks, though some pins only include an image or video with no external link. 

A big part of Pinterest is getting users to save and share your pins, especially for Pinterest marketing. 

Here’s how to create a pin using the web:

1. Make sure you’re logged in to your Pinterest business account.
2. At the top left of your screen, click “Create” and select “Create Pin.” 
3. You can add an image to your pin using the “↑” symbol or drag and drop an image into the upload field.
4. Add a title, description, alternate text, and a link, then save your pin. To edit a pin, click the pencil icon on the left of any of your pins.

To create a pin on mobile:

1. Open Pinterest on your mobile device and make sure you’re logged in to your business account.
2. Select the “+” symbol at the bottom of your screen and choose “Pin.”
3. Choose an image from your mobile device gallery to save as a pin.
4. Click “Next.”
5. Add a title, keyword, description, alternate text, and a destination link to your pin. You can tag up to five Pinterest accounts using an “@” symbol and their usernames.
6. Tap “Next” and choose a board for your new pin. This automatically saves the pin and adds it to your board of choice.

How Often to Post on Pinterest

The debate about how often to post on Pinterest is always a hot topic – but generally speaking, the more the better! Some experts recommend pinning 10+ times a day. Our recommendation is to just get started with what you can and work up to a posting cadence you feel comfortable managing consistently.

Creating and managing 10+ pins per day is very time-consuming and not everyone has the bandwidth or resources for that! We have seen success for brands posting a couple of times a week on a consistent schedule.

The best part about Pinterest is that it is a sharing-based platform, so your posts don’t rely on timelines or “newest” feeds to stay relevant.

How to Do Keyword Research

Keywords and search engine optimization (SEO) are just as important on Pinterest as on other platforms. Since Pinterest is an interest-based form of social media, ensuring customers can find your content is crucial to reaching your target audience. 

One of the easiest ways to find keywords on Pinterest is to use the search bar. The Pinterest search bar has an autocomplete function that allows you to easily see what Pinterest ranks as the highest searched keywords for that phrase. This is a clever way to track what other users search for most often, especially for your niche.

Of course, there are several other ways to track down keywords and boost pin performance than just skimming the search bar. Here are some top ways to boost your boards and draw in your audience. 

Using Insights

Audience Insights is one feature that comes standard with a business Pinterest account. These stats help you see which users interacted with your posts, including pinning, liking, commenting, and sharing your content. In addition, these insights are helpful in seeing which pins performed best and can show you which keywords pull the most weight. 

To access Audience Insights on the web:

1. Make sure you’re logged into your business Pinterest account and visit the analytics page. 
2. Choose “Analytics” from the top of your screen.
3. Select “Audience Insights.”

To see the same information on mobile:

1. Open the Pinterest app and ensure you’re logged into your business account.
2. Navigate to your profile using your profile image in the bottom right corner. 
3. Tap the graph bars icon.
4. Choose “Analytics.”
5. Select “Audience” from the top menu.

Audience insights allow you to easily track data from the last 30 days for categories including:

• Your engaged audience (people who interacted with your pins or account)
• Your total audience
• Pinterest’s engaged audience
• Pinterest’s total audience

These tools allow you to easily see which pins resonated with your target audience versus those that fell by the wayside. Your Audience Insights page has several other features that are much too complex to include in this article, but they can allow you to:

• Compare insights across several accounts
• Track audience affinities
• See demographic information
• Export insights for future research

With all these tools, you can track and identify keywords for your target niche and see how your next marketing campaign performs compared to past pins.

Using Keyword Research Tools

Did you know Pinterest has a built-in keyword research tool for business accounts? It takes some practice to find this hidden gem, but once you have it, you can easily see recommended keywords for your target audience and use this information to plan your next marketing campaign.

To access the keyword research tool:

1. Log in to your business Pinterest account and navigate to your ads dashboard.
2. Choose “Create Ad.”
3. Select “Consideration,” scroll to where it says “Continue,” and click that prompt.
4. Choose the option “Find New Customers” as your targeting strategy.
5. You should be on the “Keywords and Interests” page or dropdown. Choose “Add Keywords” and use the generated keywords to identify new niches.

Using this method, you let Pinterest do the heavy lifting part of keyword research. Remember that you don’t have to create a real advertisement to use the keywords research tool; navigating to the menu just requires you to be in the “Create Ad” portion of the site. 

Using Pinterest Trends

If you’ve ever used Google Trends for keyword research, you have a good idea of how Pinterest Trends works. This new feature was released in 2020 and showcases a great way to see exactly how popular a keyword is at any point in the year. 

You can use the search function to find long-tail (read: wordy) keywords and track down exactly when your term of choice is most popular. For example, a quick search of the term “dogs” shows you that man’s best friend peaks in popularity on the Ides of March. 

While we’re not sure what dogs have to do with the death of a Roman senator, we would never know this specific peak in interest without Pinterest Trends. Remember that this search feature doesn’t show exact numbers but how popular a term is on a scale of 1 to 100. However, with key insights like demographic information, top pin examples, and more, Pinterest Trends is a great way to jumpstart your keyword research.

How to Write Board Descriptions with Keywords

At this point, you’ve created an account, made your first pins and boards, and finally narrowed down your target keywords. Now you’re probably wondering what to do with those keywords. Creating a keyword-friendly board description may seem daunting, but we have a few tips and tricks to help you nail it.

• Use a “question title” to direct interest if you’re stumped (for example, “How to Train a Dog”).
• Use the same keyword in your title and the body of your description.
• Take time to make the keyword fit naturally into the text.
• While Pinterest allows for 500 characters, you don’t need to reach this threshold to make your board searchable; focus instead on a natural description.
• Add in keywords that relate to your main search term (ex., our example board about dogs should include mention of toys, training, clothes, beds, and more in the description).

See? Creating a board description may seem overwhelming, but once you get the hang of natural-sounding descriptions, you’re well on your way to reaching your target audience.

If you want to grow your business using social media marketing, contact Planted Marketing. Our team of experts can answer any questions and help you raise your business to new heights. To find out more, contact us today. 

Planted Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency created for small to mid-size businesses. If you’re ready to take your social media strategy to the next level, send us a message to learn more about how we can help – info@plantedmarketing.com. Talk soon!