Tips For Using Pinterest For Your Local Business

There are over 55 million unique monthly Pinterest users “Pinners” in the US, according to Forbes about 22% of all Americans, ahead of Twitter at 19% and about equal to LinkedIn, a completely different platform.

Marketing on Pinterest, is a little different and many businesses don’t know where to start. Here are a few quick tips to get you started on using Pinterest for marketing your business.

Choose a cover image for all your boards that gives a clear idea of what your business is about, don’t forget the board title on the image either.

Pinterest allows you to pin gifs, videos and regular images. All have their uses and should be used for variety and also because they each have relative merits, detailed information is better suited to a infogram or perhaps a video. Pin and repin media regularly, aim to to this at least twice a week.

The relative scarcity of words on Pinterest makes the title even more important, to be clear it’s critical. The internet is full of distractions, visitors usually won’t look at information on a “maybe interesting” basis, you need to grab their attention and tick the “interesting?” box immediately.
Be extra specific with boards and make sure that you include clear titles. Don’t waste words with your business name unless your brand is instantly and widely known, be specific; boards like “Buckhead’s Favourite Steakhouse” will attract better traffic and more traffic than Jimmys Steakhouse”
Categories
Ensure that board and pin categories are set correctly, that way they can be easily found when users are browsing.

Use hashtags on Pinterest when appropriate but be sure you only use 2 or 3 per pin as a maximum, also use keywords, not made up words, like #howinvisalignworks

Verify your site and then use the free Pinterest analytics: http://www.pinterest.com/source/YOURSITE.com/analytics/

Once you have verified your website on Pinterest add your Twitter account to add authenticity.

Identify well networked and/or engaged users or communities, Invite them to a shared board for collaboration or brainstorming.

People like to do business with people, ideally people that share their values, show your business identity, have a board that to show who you are as a business, your values, your history, your work your people, your customers. Also consider images of your staff and events really humanize a business and can work well for some businesses..

Like we do! Make sharing easy by installing the pin it button on all of your eCommerce pages, it also works well for your site media too, images and videos you’ll be amazed at how many people will share if you help them..

No Surprises here! Take the time to make sure all your site images have alt tags so they can be pinned easily, use the Localadworks SEO audit took to get a full report on any that need attention in seconds. Remember that the alt tag auto-populates the description field for the pin.

Sort your Pins so that they are easy to follow, either pin all your blog posts or newsletters on a specific board for each or in their applicable category, that way interested visitors can see if there is anything of interest super fast, and Pinterest is all about speed..

Overlaying images with a title because it explains what the link is too and it makes them much more likely to be shared. Use a tool like Canva or PicMonkey to create a featured image for your blog posts with the title on it. You could also add your company or blog logo in the corner, on a transparent background. Here’s an example :

No need to miss out on Pinterest if you have something more complicated to share, infographics and colorful charts are hugely popular pins for a good reason, they work!.

Make connections and regularly repin your customers pins to show what you like, do it in a genuine natural way.

Add the buttons! Share and follow buttons to your own profile should be shown and easily found

Ensure that you engage on the Pinterest platform, as a minimum you must respond to comments/questions on your pins but you should also consider initiating appropriate engagement too, use @ tag usernames in comments, just like you do in Twitter and Facebook.

Use a minimum of 6 images on a new board, ideally 10 to make your profile look filled out

Using this tool creates content for your profile, adds to your identity and there’s a good chance they will follow you back just like Twitter and Facebook users do.

Find Pins from outside your Followed Boards by using the “Everything” search, because the home feed is pins just from users that you follow just like on Twitter. This increases visibility because other Pinners are notified when someone repins their pin or follows them.

You can quickly expand your network by finding similar users, use search via hashtags on industry terms, activities, names or brands to find more users to follow, pin from, or engage with.

Pinterest is about being creative, so push the envelope a little, think Longtail-images. For example if you are a loft conversion specialist there’s a good chance that your customers fit a certain demographic changing family accommodation requirement, the catalyst for your demand could be a variety of events, new children, elderly parents, a family death or an investment property purchase

So often Marketing advice is about giving something for Free, nothing wrong with that it works, but when there’s cost involved there’s a competition for a few gifts for a lucky few can make sense.

It’s about connecting and engaging, whenever someone pins something from your website get a PinAlerts to receive an email so that you can thank them via the comments or follow their boards in a sensible timeframe.

Be sure to complete your profile bio and photo. Update it for promotions or branding campaigns.

As a platform Pinterest is about being creative and it gives you a chance to show the more fun side of your business too, don’t try to be too salesy, being a bit more creative works better than simply pinning your last Adwords advert.
Pinterest works well for some businesses but not all, if necessary stalk a competitor and carefully analyse what they do, their content and connections to assess whether you think it can work for you too.