Having spent some time looking through the State of Search blog to see what areas have not been covered, I was surprised to see that we had a limited number of posts surrounding Pinterest. This up and coming social platform is continuing to gain traction and more and more businesses are starting to take note.
With this in mind, I wanted to share with all the State of Search readers some 9 tips for making Pinterest work for your business profile page.
Verified Account
The first port of call when it comes to your business Pinterest account is to make sure you have it verified. This can add authority and trust to a profile and can also make it stand out from other profiles within a search.
There are two ways that you can do this but for ease, I would recommend that you upload the HTML file rather than add a meta tag:
- HTML file upload
- HTML meta tags
In order to begin this process, go to your Pinterest profile and click on the pencil symbol within your profile description.
You will then be taken to a screen that allows you to verify that you have control over the website you have listed. Click on the Verify Website button.
You can then download the HTML file and upload it to the root of your website domain. Once this action has been done you can click ‘Complete Verification’
This system can sometimes get a little confused so if be a little you get to this stage and have uploaded the file, you can go back to your profile page and follow the initial steps by clicking on the pencil. When you hit verify website, this should verify and you will see the tick next to your profile.
Pin It Buttons
The Pinterest Goodies page is packed full of buttons and widgets that you can use to drive engagement and invite people to pin things directly from your website.
By selecting Make Pin It Button from within the widgets section you will be taken to a page that allows you to customise the buttons to suit your website requirements. The most popular buttons used by website owners are the Pin It button and the Follow Button.
Link up your social
Pinterest gives you the option to link up your Twitter account to your Pinterest account giving searchers an easier way to connect with you on the various social platforms.
In order to get this set up, simply go to the settings page within your Pinterest account and navigate to the social media section. You will see a screenshot similar to the one below where you can switch Facebook and Twitter on and off.
If you opt to switch Facebook on, you can currently only connect a personal profile page and not a business page. This is not recommended and I would wait until Pinterest allow business pages to be hooked up before you do this.
Engaging Cover Photos
Creating boards is just the start of having a Pinterest account but one of the important things to consider when you begin creating boards is to select an engaging cover photo for each board.
When a visitor lands on your Pinterest profile, you want the content to stand out and you can do this very easily by carefully selecting the cover photo for each board.
Take a look at the screenshot below taken from Mashables Pinterest account. All the images pretty much fill the boxes making them really eye catching and enticing.
Board Descriptions
Making use of the board descriptions can not only help viewers to understand what the board is about, but it can also help when it comes to users searching for specific content. Pinterest will use the text on a page to decipher what the board is about. Descriptions can be no longer than 160 characters.
You used to be able to include links within the content description but this will become a redundant feature within Pinterest soon.
The example below is taken from Topshop who have used this board to show case a competition that they were running.
Pin Descriptions
Including a detailed description for each image you pin is just as important as the description you write for the board itself.
Again, the text can be used by Pinterest to understand what the image is about so that when users are searching for specific content, they know what to show in the results.
In the below examples, you can see that a #hashtag has been used in each pin in front of some of the terms. This used to be a method that was used to help make pins more searchable but this component has now been removed by Pinterest so adding #hashtags will no longer have a benefit.
Tag Pinners
If you re-pin any images onto your boards, you can help increase engagement by referencing the person that originally pinned the image. To do this, simply use the @ symbol in front of the person’s name within the pin description and this will alert them to the fact that you have mentioned them within a pin.
Analyse Data
Pinterest has recently added an Analytics section which is available for verified accounts. Some of the data is limited at the moment but I can envisage this increasing over the next six months to include a lot more actionable insights into your accounts performance.
At present, the analytics reports available from within the platform directly are:
Site Metrics
- Pins and Pinners by day
- Repins and Repinners by day
- Impressions and Reach by day
- Clicks and Visitors by day
Most Recent
- Pins that you have created recently
Most Repinned
- Your pins that have been repinned most
Most Clicked
- Your pins that have gained the most clicks
An example of one of the graphs can be seen below:
There are a number of independent tools that also allow you to measure activity for your Pinterest account, some of which have been around a lot longer than Pinterests own analytics platform so they are worth taking a look at. Some of the tools that I have seen mentioned around the web include:
- Pinalytics – http://pinalytics.co.uk
- Piqora – http://www.piqora.com
- Curalate – http://www.curalate.com
- Reachli – http://www.reachli.com/landing
- PinReach – http://www.pinreach.com
- Repinly – http://www.repinly.com
- Pinpuff – http://pinpuff.com
Mobile and iPad App
As with most of the other social platforms, Pinterest have created a mobile and iPad app to make it even easier for businesses and individuals to interact with Pinterest on the move. The app is available on Google Play and the App Store.
You can also take photos and upload them directly to your Pinterest account. This will mean that you are the originator of the image which can help increase engagement and followers as you are uploading original and unique content.
Any More Tips
Have you had any experiences with setting up and running Pinterest accounts for a business? If you want to share any additional tips or suggestions, please feel free to add them into the comments below. It would be great to hear your ideas.
