Pinterest Strategy 101: Grow Your Traffic and Following With Pinterest

MeetEdgar is now an official Pinterest Marketing Partner and you can now schedule Pinterest Pins with Edgar. To celebrate this partnership, we hosted Pinterest Program Manager, Margot Chock for a webinar all about the basics of Pinterest and how you should build your Pinterest strategy for success. Watch the full webinar or read the recap below!

Margot is the program manager for the strategic partnerships team at Pinterest. She has some tips on the basics of Pinterest so you can get straight from the Pinterest source, how best to create a Pinterest strategy as a creator and build a strong presence on Pinterest.

What Is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine with the mission to inspire. It's not to keep you glued to a screen, but rather the opposite. The idea is to bring you the inspiration to create a life you love and then go out and actually live it. 95% of Pinners state Pinterest inspires them and gives them ideas for their life and 91% state that Pinterest helps them achieve their goals. So, how do we go about doing that?

How Does Pinterest Work?

The content distributed on Pinterest is not exclusively chronological, but rather surfaces when it's relevant. Content is based on users' interests, engagement, and searches. This leads to a highly personalized and curated experience and also means that content is evergreen and will continue to perform for you over time. Your content will continue to be there when Pinners are searching for it and need it the most.The power of visual discovery shouldn't be overlooked because when we think about how people retain and store information, it's really impactful. We actually tend to retain 10% of what we hear, 20% of what we read, and 80% of what we see and do. On Pinterest, your content is sought after by Pinners in a unique mindset - that mindset sets Pinterest apart from other platforms. Pinners are recorded to feel especially positive and optimistic when using Pinterest. They're open-minded and willing to try new things. For brands and marketers, this mindset is incredibly valuable because it allows you to build a trusted brand voice.

Listen here for more information on how Pinterest can benefit your marketing strategy:

Where Can Your Pins Get Discovered?

When creating your Pinterest content strategy, you need to know who you are creating your content for and where they will likely find it. These are the top places users discover new pins:

• Home feed - A Pinners home feed is a curation just for them. This is based on what they've saved, searched for engaged with, and more it's also where they'll discover content from creators that they follow because Pinners come with intent.
• Search - Pinners often use search as well for ideas and inspiration. So this is another valuable placement for your Pins and presents the perfect opportunity for brands to be discovered by a potentially new audience.
• Related Pins - This is a really cool surface that brings another opportunity for discovery. So, if a Pinner is engaging with a Pin, they can scroll down to see similar ideas and visuals, and essentially it's more riffs on that idea.
• Today Tab - This is a daily curation of relevant and trending content featuring spotlights from inspirational creators. This is the first thing users see when they tap over from their personalized home feeds.>

Great content keeps on giving, so remember that the more people engage with your content, the more it appears across Pinterest and while followers on other platforms can be the ceiling of your content distribution, on Pinterest, we see it as the floor where the content we'll likely see many more impressions over its life span.Want to create pins that get more clicks? Check out these 13 hacks.

Pin Formats To Add to Your Pinterest Strategy

There are a few primary formats when creating your Pinterest strategy template.

• Standard Pins -This is the bread and butter of Pinterest. You're probably very, very familiar with it. They are great for single images and can link out to websites or domains. Remember to keep a 2:3 aspect ratio. This longer sort of vertical format ensures your content can take up the best amount of space within the Pinterest feeds.
• Video Pins - Video Pins stand out in feed and are great for driving awareness for your brand. It's great for catching that attention and for building a native audience on Pinterest.
• Story Pins -story Pins enable creators to publish right on Pinterest. This includes the capabilities of adding text, overlay music, step-by-step instructionals, and much more. They are multi-page formats, so you can feature videos and images. They are perfect for all types of content, whether it's food, fashion, DIY, travel, tips, and tricks. You are able to request access for story Pins here.

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Create a Pinterest Marketing Strategy

There are probably a lot of assumptions you have when thinking about Pinterest and creating your Pinterest strategy. But there are many easy wins you can get for your business by using Pinterest. Take these points into consideration when planning your strategy:

1. Pinners Take Action

Pinterest aspires to be the world's inspiration company. Pinners come to Pinterest to get inspired, but they are also taking action. Pinners are people who buy so 89% of weekly Pinners use Pinterest for inspiration in their paths to purchase.

83% of Pinners have made a purchase based on the content they saw from brands on Pinterest. On other platforms, it's all about what you've done or what you're doing currently, whereas, on Pinterest, users are likely thinking about a future state. This presents a significant opportunity for brands because you're able to speak to our audience before they've made up their minds on what they need to do or what they want to purchase. Learn more about how to get Shopify sales through Pinterest in this guide.

2. Pinterest Is More Than A Social Network

Pinterest inspires you to be more productive and browse possibilities rather than search for specific information or even seek social validation.To put it another way, Pinterest is personal media, not social.That's because it's about your personal interests. You're focused on yourself and not your selfie. You're not fishing for likes or scrolling endlessly through someone else's vacation photos. You're trying to figure out how to make your life a little bit better. We really strive to maintain a positive corner on the internet. Keep this in mind when creating your Pinterest growth strategy - you want to create content that inspires users to take action. Here are some ideas on the type of content to create if you want to get more Pinterest followers.

3. Your Audience Is On Pinterest

When you think of Pinterest, you may immediately think of a platform for women planning their wedding, arts and crafts, DIY's, and while the platform is still strong in those areas, there is a multitude of different verticals.The Pinterest Audience Includes:

• 80% of US moms
• One in two millennials
• 76% of millennial women
• 40% of millennial men
• One in three of our US dads
• Millions of Pinners seeking content related to travel or health or diet and nutrition

Pinterest has over 444 million monthly users worldwide and that equates to about 240 billion pins saved and over 5 billion boards created. Your audience is most likely on the platform and they're open to hearing your branded message. People aren’t just coming to Pinterest for big life moments. They're also coming for those daily decisions and seasonal celebrations. There are dozens of moments throughout the day where you think about things like, what am I going to paint my nails? Can I create a cute new face mask or even what am I going to have for dinner? These are all ways that people are engaging on Pinterest. That journey to bringing a moment to life isn't linear. There are so many opportunities to influence those decisions. After that first flash of inspiration from a pin comes the planning, which involves creating some boards, maybe adding some collaborators, saving some pins to those boards, and then ultimately deciding on what to do and what you want to buy.

Use these 7 steps to engage your customers via Pinterest.

4. Your Pins Have A Long Shelf Life

Inspiration can strike at any time throughout the year. There are some patterns when it comes to planning for specific moments. The below image looks at those tent pole moments. This one specifically is focused on the US but there are different versions internationally. There are about 27 different moments that happen throughout the year and the time in which Pinners are searching and planning for these moments, usually starts earlier and lasts a lot longer than you may see on other platforms.

So, if you look at Thanksgiving for instance, which is that third row up from the bottom, you'll see that Pinners start collecting information all the way in July. Pinners have been already looking for Thanksgiving inspiration five months ahead of the event. What that means for you and your Pinterest strategy is that your content has a longer shelf life and a slower burn. Here's a look at some upcoming major moments. Pinterest searches for ideas related to seasonal moments, the line in blue starts earlier and lasts longer when compared to the leading search engine, which is the line in black. If Pinners are showing up earlier, brands also need to show up earlier on Pinterest. That's how you influence decisions and all the purchasing and planning main around moments.

Pinterest is essentially a search engine so remember to optimize your pins for Pinterest SEO. Learn how to drive quality traffic to your website with these Pinterest SEO tips.

Best Practices for Your Pinterest Strategy

Pinterest is for brands. Your content is what Pinners are looking for. It's not just to find inspiration, but it's to inspire others. Brands should publish native content and build for your specific audience mindset. Aim to create quality content regularly with your Pinterest strategy and engage with your audience when you can.

1. Brand Basics and Account Set-Up

If you’re starting out with Pinterest, you can use our beginners guide to get to grip with the basics. The first step for building your brand on Pinterest is to create a business account. You can either convert your personal account to a business account, or you can create a linked business account. This will help unlock special features such as advanced analytics and a few other profile features.

2. How To Create Successful Pinterest Content

There are a few best practices to keep in mind when createing your Pinterest content. These are:

1. Create fresh content regularly
2. Optimize for discovery when developing your pinterest posting strategy
3. Engage with your audience and again, publish native content to drive awareness

Pinterest wants to bring Pinners new ideas daily. Focus on sharing new recipes, life hacks, or workout routines, as opposed to focusing on repinning existing content. Pinners engage with those types of content. So take the opportunity to inspire them, to try something new. Think about how you can inject some fun, and re-energize your ideas and present something timely and relevant to your audience.Another helpful tip for designing on Pinterest is to add text overlay to your pins. Texts will ensure that your content is easily discoverable and that Pinners know what they're getting.

For standard pins and video pins, titles, and descriptions are also key to helping surface your content across Pinterest. Ensure that your content is concise, it's relevant and we recommend pin descriptions that are about one to two sentences.Write these as you would for any human, don't load them with too many keywords. Pinners want o find helpful information from your pins and descriptions, so a tasteful logo on your pins can help build your brand presence and establish yourself on the platform. Successful pins often feature a logo in the bottom or top corners.

3. Don’t Neglect Your Pinterest Boards

Don't forget about your boards! Boards help you organize your content and give it a broader context and purpose. Board names, descriptions categories, all of those elements can impact how your content shows up on Pinterest search results. Use clear descriptive language in your board titles and descriptions. Then you can also add collaborators to turn any board into a group board. Group boards should be part of your Pinterest traffic strategy. Here’s how to use group boards to maximize your visibility on Pinterest.

4. Measure Your Success

There are several ways for you to measure your Pinterest success. Real-time reactions are available on video pins, as well as the story pins. You can use this feedback to know what your audience is loving, where you can optimize, and just get some real-time engagement from them.

Comments and tries are also really helpful and great to monitor. This is where Pinners may give feedback. They may ask questions or they may upload a photo of how they've actually tried to create your idea.

Pin stats are also great to track your success on Pinterest. These are stats for specific pins, and are only visible to you, as long as you have a business account. This delivers insights that will help you create more high-performing pins. This includes information such as impressions, link clicks, follows profile visits so you can see what's really driving the most engagement with Pinners.

Pinterest AnalyticsPinterest analytics is helpful because you can see which pins people like as well as what they save from your other channels. You can view not only pins that you publish but also pins that other people are publishing that link to any of your claimed accounts. This can be really insightful for you to learn what people resonate with, what they're engaging with, what they want to see more of. It really helps you learn what your audience wants.

Audience InsightsYou can access insights through a business manager under the analytics tab, this tells you what else your Pinners are engaging with on the platform. It's a snapshot of your audience over the last 30 days and it varies from brand to brand. You can look at your audience insights to see what interests your audience has and use it to build out new pins. A great Pinterest strategy for bloggers with a lot of travel content is to look at their audience insights to find their audience's other interests. Perhaps they'll notice that people are also interested in health and nutrition so the blogger should try creating content on how to maintain a healthy diet while traveling.

Trends ToolsLastly, there’s the trends tool which you can access directly through your business manager on Pinterest. It's a self-service tool for any creator or business to plan. It helps you make a Pinterest strategy by exploring the top Pin, the top trending terms on Pinterest, and understanding the seasonality behind them. Here’s an in-depth guide to making Pinterest trends part of your Pinterest traffic strategy.When you use trends you'll also see these really helpful graphs for you to understand when it's peaking, and then when it sort of downtrends.

Here are the key metrics that to focus on with Pinterest:

• Monthly Viewers: These are the viewers attached to your profile. And again, this is really interesting because it's based on your content, and it's a bit different than just looking at your follower counts, which are people who are only opting into your content, monthly viewers include all of your distribution
• Impressions: This is how many times your Pin was seen on Pinterest
• Close-ups: This tells you how many people are considering doing more with your idea by tapping your Pin to take a closer look
• Link clicks: The total number of times people have clocked on your Pin to a destination
• Saves: How many times they're saving your pins
• Save to these boards: This shows the most recent boards that your pin has been saved to. And this is only available for people who have created public boards that they're saving pins to

These are all super helpful to just have a better understanding of what Pinners are engaging with, what is successful, what types of themes are popping up. It can help inform the type of new content that you're creating and build your Pinterest strategy. Download the Edgar Pinterest success templates here.

Pinterest 101

With over 444 million people on Pinterest looking for content, you need to include the platform in your 2022 marketing strategy. Your audience is there and they want to hear from you, they want to see what you’re creating. Use Pinterest to engage with new audiences and build a new following by creating fresh ideas on the platform.