Pinterest A hidden Gem

By: Nada Ashraf

Pinterest was first launched as a website and a mobile application back in 2010. However, it was only available to the public with no need to be invited to the platform in 2012. Despite being open to the public for almost 4 years now, I still believe it’s a hidden gem to a lot of businesses especially in Egypt. While the idea of being a pioneer may scare away some brands, we all know that early birds catch the worm. So here are a few reasons why you should establish your brand on Pinterest today, whether you have a B2B or B2C business nature.

What makes Pinterest beneficial for businesses?

1. The platform contains more than 100 million active users, and It’s worth mentioning that according to wall street journal’s statistics (December 2014) more than 71% of its users are Females.This definitely signals to all brand owners with female target audience to act fast and promote their brand on Pinterest.
2. Pinterest has a wide range of content topics. However among the most popular content topics are: DIY, fashion, Recipes, Home décor, fitness and health related content (this explains the huge female audience).
3. Rich pins feature: Pinterest has five types of rich pins that go beyond a beautiful high resolution image. You are able to add the following to your pins:
   1. Article pins: Include the headline, author, description, and link. A tool to promote that website blog of yours.
   2. Product pins: Include real time pricing, availability, and where to buy, as well as a direct link to the product page. And Guess what the most important feature these product pins can do, product pins prices’ are updated in real time, and if a user pins a product pin to one of his or her boards, they will be notified when the product’s price is changed.
   3. Recipe pins include ingredients, cooking times and serving info. But in the form of filled in categories like serving size, cooking times, details about whether a recipe is vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free. This makes your content easily discovered by audience.
   4. Movie pins include ratings, cast members and reviews
   5. Place pins include the typical address and phone number features. But when you enable place pins your pins are will then be overlaid on an interactive map.

Using Pinterest strategically

Here are some of the best practices when using Pinterest

1. Always include your website link in your pins

State your brand name, logo, and website address on your pins. Give the audience who loved your pin a chance to explore your other content by providing the web address in all your pins.

2. Use A Call to action

Same as any other advertising tool, it is always best to insert a call to action at the end of a pin, users need to be guided towards the next step you want them to make.

3. Link your Pinterest account to your Facebook page

Linking Pinterest and Facebook allows people that are already a fan of your Facebook page and value your content to discover your Pinterest account without the need to spend your pennies on sponsoring your content and getting them in front of the right audience.

4. Include the Pinterest hover button in your website

What’s better than making your website visitors advertise your content for you? Use Pinterest browser extension and add the “pin it” button to your website to make it easy for people to pin and share your content.

5. Make your content Pinterest friendly

Don’t miss opportunities because your content isn’t suitable for Pinterest, Know the guidelines and apply the required sizes. Remember the goal is to make it easier for people to share your content and have it look its best on different devices. Here are the guidelines and sizes:

Pinterest Photo guidelines:

1. Pinterest doesn’t recognize background images
2. images embedded in iFrames or within Flash websites

Dimensions:

1. Vertical images can have an aspect ratio of 2:3 to 1:2.8 and must be at least 600px wide.

6. Promote Pins

Promoted pins appear in different locations across Pinterest. Using the simple audience targeting will show your pins in home feed under “everything” and “popular”. But if you would like to dig deeper and reach a more specific target audience in their search and categories you can use interest, keywords, devices, genders, and locations.

7. Analytics

Just like any other channel, you need to know how well you’re doing with numbers and figures. Use the Pinterest Analytics free tool to see the engagement you got for your pins as well as your boards. Discover likes, comments, re-pins. But that’s not all, know your fans what they like, and what devices they use to Pin your content.

Also Pinterest analytics lets you know if your ‘Pin it” button on the website is doing its job of directing traffic to your Pinterest account or not.

Pinterest is a channel that will definitely continue to grow and expand by the year. If you haven’t explored it yet, we recommend you get to it fast to enjoy all the unique features for businesses Pinterest has to offer. And finally here are some trends on Pinterest to keep an eye for during 2016: Healthy habits, Hands-on projects, and “Me” time. Happy pinning !!