Last year, Pinterest boasted over 175 billion pins and 250 million monthly active users. 77% of its weekly users discovered new brands or products, 98% reported trying new things they found on Pinterest and 82% made a purchase based on the content they saw from brands.

With numbers like these, it’s no surprise that Pinterest is drawing more businesses and retailers to expand their presence on the site. Big brands like Birds Eye, eBay and Ikea have all run successful campaigns to build awareness, boost traffic or grow sales on Pinterest.

Pinterest might be the perfect place to showcase your business, its products, services and build brand awareness, but it might seem a little overwhelming to newcomers. We understand that Pinterest is a bit different to other social networks, so in this post we’re helping you get to grips with the basics.

It’s free to sign up for a business account and this gives you access to tools like Pinterest Analytics, Pinterest Ads, Pinterest Tag, widgets and a special Business Profile. It also allows you to claim your website — this ensures that your name and profile picture will appear on every Pin made from your website content, whether you created the Pin yourself or someone else has created it.

A pin is an image or video that someone has chosen to save to Pinterest. Every pin links back to the original source, so Pinterest can be a great source of referral traffic for businesses online.

Be strategic about your pins

When you create a new pin, it’s a good idea to start from your audience’s perspective. What kinds of ideas are they looking for? Do those ideas change seasonally? How can you help them make buying decisions? If you’re in need of some inspiration, Pinterest posts regular insights on the latest pin trends and behaviours of their users.

Pinterest Analytics is a great tool to help you measure your pins’ performance, follower growth and traffic referrals to your website. These insights will help paint a more accurate picture of your audience and what appeals to them most — helping you create stronger, more strategic content.

Create your pins at the right size

Pinterest recommends that standard and promoted pins (ads) are at 2:3 aspect ratio, or 1000 x 1500 pixels. Any pins with an aspect radio greater than 2:3 may get cut off in people’s feeds.

The recommended file types are .png and .jpg., and the maximum file size is 10 MB.

Include your logo

It’s a good idea to include your logo in your pins, but keep it subtle. It’s best to avoid placing it in the lower right-hand corner, as that space will get covered up by the Pinterest share icon when you hover or select a pin.

Overlay text on your image

Text in an image helps add context and enhances your message. Keep the messaging concise to make it easier for people reading on their phones. 

Write a full description

Make sure you write descriptive text to go along with your pin, as this gives people further context and an idea of what to expect if they click it. The first 50-60 characters are mostly likely to show up in people’s feeds, so put your most important information first. 

Descriptions also help reinforce your brand. For example, if you’re in the tourism industry and creating a travel-related pin, it might be a good incentive to add activity ideas for that destination. This adds value to your pin, and displays your wealth of knowledge.

When writing pin descriptions, it’s useful to do so in natural sentences. You might be tempted to stuff in keywords, but this will only make it harder for your audience to read. 

Improve search results through hashtags

Like other social networks, hashtags on Pinterest help serve as a search function. For that reason, it’s important to be strategic and descriptive with your hashtags. Pinterest recommends adding no more than 20 hashtags per pin.

Optimise your landing pages

When someone clicks your pin, you can link them to your website. It’s effective for a user to be taken to a landing page that feels like a natural progression. For example, if your pin features a product it would make sense to land on the product page so that users can buy it.

Rich pins automatically add extra details and information from the website pages they’re linking to. This is powered by a website’s metadata, meaning that if details change on the original website, the pin will also update in real-time. 

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. Any existing pins that link back to pages with rich meta tag data will also start appearing as rich pins.

There are three types of rich pin you can start using:

• Product pins include the most up-to-date price, availability and product description.  
• Recipe pins include a title, serving size, cook time, ratings and a list of ingredients. 
• Article pins include the headline or title, the description and the author of your article or blog post.

To find out how to make your website rich pin ready, send your website developer over to the Pinterest Developers Platform.

To keep your pins organised, you can arrange them into collections known as boards. Boards can be named and arranged however you like.

Users can opt to follow your entire account, or just a specific board that interests them. When you add a new pin to your feed or board it appears in your followers’ feeds.

Make boards clear and descriptive

A board’s name and description will impact how your pins show up in search results, which is why it’s essential to use clear and descriptive language. 

When creating a new board, make sure you assign it to a category as this helps Pinterest understand more about your content and will affect where your pins appear.

Add board sections

To help users navigate their way through boards, you can create board sections. These sections don’t influence how your content ranks in search and are purely for keeping your pins organised.

Collaborate with other users

You can even collaborate with other Pinterest users on your boards, which is great for getting inspiration and planning. For example, you could dream up new ways to decorate your office, or mood board the perfect photoshoot. 

Not all boards need to be public

If you want to keep some of your pins private, you can make a secret board. Only you and any users that you invite can see them. This is ideal for when you’re planning new projects or drafting new pins.

Now you know the basics, you’ll be building up your pins and boards in no time. Success on Pinterest does’t happen overnight, so just remember to keep pinning and adjust your strategy based on how audiences interact with your content.

If you’re interested in social media marketing, you might like our posts unpicking Facebook Pixel and Instagram campaigns.