Welcome to Lesson 5 in my 8-Part series: “Pinterest Marketing for Beginners”.
Learn how to effectively market, build your brand, and sell your products on the world’s #1 visual search engine!
Lesson 1: Why is Pinterest So Powerful? What You Need to Know.
Lesson 2: Pinterest Essentials – Small Business Marketing for Beginners
Lesson 3: Understanding the Pinterest Interface – Complete Guide for 2021
Lesson 4: How to Create a Winning Pinterest Marketing Strategy in 2021
Lesson 5: 7 Ways to Take Your Pinterest Marketing to the Next Level
Lesson 6: 5 Brands with Amazing Pinterest Marketing Strategies
Lesson 7: Putting it All Together – Your 4-Step Pinterest Marketing Plan
Lesson 8: Wrapping It Up: Pinterest Marketing – 13 Do’s & Dont’s
In my previous blog post, ‘Pinterest Essentials — Small Business Marketing for Beginners‘, I discuss a basic approach that you should be applying to your Pinterest marketing. This post also explains how to go about providing value on a regular basis and growing your audience.
But if you want to step up your game, then you should look at using some of the advanced tools that Pinterest offers.
Compared to other social media sites, the amount of tools and support that Pinterest offers, specifically for businesses and marketers, is really quite staggering, so it’s crucial that you start taking full advantage of this!
Here are 7 advanced strategies that you should implement to increase your Pinterest engagement.
1. Pinterest Business Account
Get started with your business account, if you don’t already have a Pinterest account. Simply click ‘Join as a Business’ to get setup with your own business account.
If you do already have a Pinterest account, then, thankfully, there is the option to ‘Convert Now‘ which lets you change your current account into a business account. This is completely free and takes a matter of seconds, so it’s worth doing.
2. Pinterest Analytics
Using Pinterest Analytics is an incredibly good idea, because it will allow you to see which of your articles and images are being shared and interacted with on Pinterest.
This is an extremely useful tool for assessing which of your content is performing the best, and that helps you to refine your marketing approach.
Maybe your memes are getting the most shares? Maybe shorter articles perform better? Looking at these metrics let you know. This is a very powerful feature that a lot of other social sites just can’t come close to!
3. Rich Pins
We discussed the use of ‘Rich Pins’ in a previous article. These include:
RecipeArticleProduct
Rich Pins mean that you can provide additional information about your pin and setup your site so that when someone else shares your pin, the additional information will be there automatically.
Visit the Pinterest Developers page to apply for and validate Rich Pins for your Pinterest account. From there, you simply need to add some meta information to your website so that Pinterest can see what type of content you’ve shared.
When your site is enabled for Rich Pins, all content that contains correct meta tags on your site will start appearing as Rich Pins when added to Pinterest. Existing Pins that link back to pages with Rich Meta Tags will also start appearing as Rich Pins.
Note: If you want to prevent your pages from showing as rich pins, simply add this tag to the header of your page before the closing body tag:
<meta name=”pinterest-rich-pin” content=”false” />
If you want to remove Rich Pin data from a content page, simply add this tag to the header of your page before the closing body tag:
<meta name=”pinterest-rich-pin” content=”false” />
If you ever want to turn Rich Pins back on, remove this tag.
For marketers, one of the most interesting types of pin, other than the Rich Article Pin, is the Product Pin. A Product Pin enables you to show availability for an item and displays the pricing in real time.
If you don’t have the ‘Buy’ button on your pin, this is the next best thing for making it easy for people to buy your products and to learn more about them.
Again, you need meta content for this to work. This time the following Open Graph markup between the <head> </head> section of your HTML code for each page you want to enable Product Pins on:
<meta property=“og:title” content=“De Young Copper Bookmark” />
<meta property=“og:type” content=“product” />
<meta property=“product:price:amount” content=“15.00” />
<meta property=“product:price:currency” content=“USD” />
Note: You do not need to add any markup if your website is hosted by Etsy, Teachers Pay Teachers, or eBay. New pins from these sites will have product information on them within 24 hours.
4. Emailing from Pinterest
Pinterest has some useful utilities for influencer marketing, thanks to its own ‘Pinterest Email’ feature, which was introduced in May 2013.
This tool allows you to send your contacts on Pinterest a personalized message that might recommend a specific pin or can be used to start a conversation.
What makes this useful is that it means you can now get in touch with other users that are performing well on the site. In turn, this then means you can invite them to collaborate.
This can be beneficial for both parties and, if you gradually approach more and more highly influential users, you can progress up the ladder, thereby, increasing your reach on Pinterest.
You can also use this to turn prospects into buyers – send someone who is engaging with your content a pin that you think they’ll like, or that you think will solve an issue they’re having. This could turn into a sale for you, or at least a new subscriber or follower!
5. Pinterest Widgets
If you want to go one step further with your website/Pinterest integration, then you should look into adding widgets. You can get ‘Follow” buttons as well as Pin, Profile and Board widgets.
Widgets be added to the sidebar of your website, which will make your profile much more tempting for people to follow.
Not only will your visitors be able to see that you’re on Pinterest but, this way, they’ll also be able to see the type of content you’re sharing and the kind of value you’re offering. This is also a great way to ensure that your website looks active if you’re busy and don’t have time to add new blog posts, for example.
6. Pinterest Competitions
As mentioned previously, Pinterest is the perfect platform for launching a competition. The visual nature of Pinterest creates a fun opportunity for people to send in their ideas or novel uses for your products.
You can run contests where you award the most inspiring boards on the platform that respond to a particular problem or challenge you pose.
Contests are a great way to get more people engaging with your brand which can, in turn, lead to more of your pins getting shared throughout social networks.
When running contests, make sure that you adhere to the guidelines that Pinterest established for brands.
7. Pinterest Apps
If you want to make your marketing strategy even more advanced then you should look at ways you can leverage other tools and software to streamline your workflow. Utilizing the right apps and services can save you a lot of time and help you to get more work done, quickly and efficiently.
Here are some of the best apps to consider using:
IFTTT
IFTTT (If This, Then That) is an incredible free tool that allows you to synchronize a large number of different apps and services that you use on the web.
It works by letting you setup certain actions on social media, web apps or even WordPress, which work as ‘Triggers’. These Triggers then cause an action to occur on a range of other connected services.
A simple example of this would be to have your WordPress site automatically share content to Pinterest when you add a new blog post. Make sure you’re adding in Rich Article metatags, and then let IFTTT take care of the rest by adding the articles to Pinterest automatically.
This can save you a lot of time but, do remember, that you don’t want all your content automatically added. It’s a good idea to actively curate your best content to make sure that you’re providing value.
There are also a ton of other ‘Recipes’ (as they’re known on IFTTT) that you can create to streamline your Pinterest posting.
For instance, why not have your Instagram pictures automatically shared to Pinterest as well? Or how about the Instagram pictures that you like?
Alternatively, you can make sure that your Twitter followers are notified each time you add new content to Pinterest.
Now, each new pin you add is another opportunity for your followers to gravitate toward your Pinterest account and increase the number of followers you have there. You can sync this up with any of your social media accounts which will help to keep your profile looking busy!
Pinterest Chrome Plugin
There is a Pinterest Chrome plugin that can save you a huge amount of time on Pinterest yet again. What this allows you to do is to easily share any image you come across online (as long as you’re using the Chrome browser) simply by hovering your mouse over it and clicking the Pinterest Share button.
This is much faster than having to navigate to Pinterest each time you want to add a photo and then manually enter the URL, and it means you’re more likely to add high quality content to your account as you discover it.
Pinterest for Android and iOS
Pinterest also has a great app for Android and iOS – both of which are the same, and make it easy for you to manage your account, add new photos, or respond to comments.
The great thing about these mobile apps is that you can use them wherever you are, which will save you time, and that means you can promote your brand when it’s convenient for you, instead of having it eat into your other business activities.
Another great feature about the Pinterest app is that if you hit the ‘Plus’ sign in the top left, you can quickly take photos to be added as pins. If you have a personal brand, or if you want to show off your company hard at work in the office, then this is a great tool!
Aside from this additional feature, using the Pinterest app is similar to navigating the website, so you should find it very intuitive.
Next, take inspiration for your Pinterest campaign from these 5 brands with amazing Pinterest strategies.
Pin It For Later!
Explore More Lessons…
Lesson 1 – Why is Pinterest So Powerful? What You Need to Know.
If you’re a marketer and you’re not on Pinterest, then you’re missing out on one of the biggest and most powerful platforms out there.
Lesson 2 – Pinterest Essentials: Small Business Marketing for Beginners
What features make Pinterest a good choice for your business? How do you go about using it to promote your website or company?
Lesson 3 – Understanding the Pinterest Interface: Complete Guide for 2021
When you first log onto Pinterest, you’ll notice the site looks very different compared to Twitter or Facebook, and the navigation might not seem intuitive. How do you find your way around?
Lesson 4 – How to Create a Winning Pinterest Marketing Strategy in 2021
Let’s start with the basics. What marketing strategies are successful? How can you use these strategies to increase your Pinterest engagement?
Lesson 6 – 5 Brands with Amazing Pinterest Marketing Strategies
If you’re still feeling anxious about diving into Pinterest, it might help you to see some great examples of how top brands have worked their magic.
Lesson 7 – Putting it All Together: Your 4-Step Pinterest Marketing Plan
Here’s a simple 4-step marketing blueprint that you can follow, one step at a time, to build your following and to gain mass influence.
Lesson 8 – Wrapping it Up: 13 Do’s & Dont’s of Pinterest Marketing
Crucial do’s and don’ts to guide you through your Pinterest marketing journey.
My passion for online marketing dates back to 2006, when I first opened my virtual doors as a one-woman agency, providing small to mid-sized businesses web design and SEO solutions. Fifteen years later, I've expanded my service offerings to include social media, email management, WordPress sites, and just about any custom project my clients need.
Aside from the Internet, I enjoy 3d puzzles, roller skating, and spending time with my two spoiled dogs. I'm a perpetual learner and always looking to broaden my skillset.
Let my knowledge work for you. Check out my "Work With Me" pages to start growing your online business now.