Pinterest is growing in popularity, so we thought it was about time to share a few of our tips on how you can strengthen your presence on the platform. Here are our tips to get more brand visibility, more pin engagement, and more link clicks. Enjoy!

Profile Tips

Your profile is where your audience goes when they want to learn more about you, so you can’t be lazy when you create it. Here are two tips that will help you create a positive and impactful impression.

1. Your Profile Picture Should Be Your Logo

Having a logo helps your business become more memorable. Want proof? Think about a big business such as Apple. Most likely, you are envisioning the outline of an apple fruit with a bite out of it. This is because Apple stamps their logo on almost all of their products - a marketing strategy that encourages people to remember whose product they’re using.

Adopt this strategy by using your logo as your profile picture, so that people remember whose content they’re viewing and what business they’re following.

2. Optimize Your Bio

If you want to learn how to optimize your Pinterest bio (and also learn how to optimize other social media platform bios), we recommend reading this blog: What To Include In Your Bio (For All Social Media Platforms).

But, if you would prefer to skip that blog - here’s a quick breakdown of what should be included in your bio:

• 1-2 Keywords

• What Your Business Does

• Who Your Business Is

• A CTA

• Links To Your Other Social Media Platforms

• A Link To Your Website

• Your Location

Board Tips

Boards are what truly separate Pinterest from other platforms. I mean, think about it: what other platform allows you to separate your own content and put them in accessible categories that make it easier for your audience to locate what they’re interested in? The only other platforms that have adopted some of this structure have been Instagram with Instagram Guides and YouTube with Playlists, but Guides and Playlists are not required - meaning it’s likely that they’re not updated and that a lot of content won’t be added to these guides/playlists.

Pinterest, on the other hand, ensures that every pin is added to a board.

3. Make Sure You Use Keywords

This applies to both board titles and board descriptions. Discover what keywords your audience is using to find content from businesses like yours, and find a seamless way to use these keywords when you’re creating a board. For example, someone interested in social media marketing might want to look for platform-specific tips. Therefore, we created boards with titles like “Pinterest Tips” and “Facebook Tips.”

4. Your Boards Should Make Sense

If you’re a restaurant owner, then it’s probably not a good idea to waste time developing a board dedicated to dogs. However, it would be a good idea to develop boards dedicated to desserts and another dedicated to Holiday food and another board dedicated to dinner recipes.

In other words: be creative with your boards, but don’t stray too far from your business mission.

Pin Tips

The amazing thing about Pinterest is that you don’t need a huge following to gain a lot of impressions on your Pins or link clicks. Take our account for example. We currently have 8 followers - yet our monthly views are currently at 20k. That is a huge difference.

And how did we accomplish this? By using these tips that we are going to share with you now.

5. Include Branded Colors

Every brand should have brand colors. For Empowered Social Media, our brand colors include yellow, blue, purple, and orange. So if you look through our Pins, you will see that they all are designed with these colors and these colors only.

Note: you can play with shading and include black, white, or red text to emphasize a title.

6. Only Publish High-Quality Images

Pinterest is very much an image-based platform, so it’s important that you take extra care to only publish the very best of your images. These images must be crisp (if it’s blurry, don’t post it!), they must be eye-catching, they must be brand-centric, and they must showcase your business in the very best light.

People on Pinterest are looking for inspiration or things to purchase. And they won’t find something inspiring or worthy of their money if it doesn’t appear appealing.

7. Schedule Your Content

The Pinterest platform recommends posting a lot. But unless your job is to upkeep a business’s social media, then this isn’t really possible. Therefore, we recommend sitting down once a week to create a schedule for the next seven days. This way, your Pins can be up-to-date and you can have time to focus on other business-related things.

How many pins should you post a day? That depends on how much time you have. Pinterest recommends 5 pins per day, but we currently post 1 pin per day.

8. Be Transparent About Your Links

Your audience might be hesitant to click a link in your post if you don’t make it clear where the link will bring them. Simply stating that the pin will bring them to a blog post or a sale page can really ease any apprehension they might feel about leaving the Pinterest site.

9. Optimize Sizing Of Pins

You will find many beautiful and vibrant images on Pinterest, and you might wonder how you can compete with them. Here’s how: by having a Pin sized perfectly to capture attention.

Vertical images rule on this platform, so you want to avoid making a pin that is small and boxy. Here is the recommended sizing: 300x600 pixels.

10. Use Text

People need to click on your pin in order to read the description, so putting text on your pin can help hook them into wanting to learn more. Because while a great image will make them stop and appreciate the pin, a compelling title will take this a step further by encouraging further interest.

So this is our advice to help your text stand out:

• Use colors that are high contrast

• Use keywords

• Keep the phrase short and simple

• Let the text interact with the image rather than overtake it (don’t make the text too large or cover the best parts of the image)

• Use bold font

11. Gravitate Toward Brighter Colors

Pinterest users prefer light colors. Light pins get more engagement, more clicks, and more re-pins. In fact, warm colors (colors with a red tint) get twice as many re-pins as cool colors (colors with a blue tint). So keep in mind that there are some brand colors that will do better on this platform than others, and that if you don’t have light brand colors - then you might want to brighten the shade for this particular platform.

12. Create Step-By-Step Tutorials

How To’s and DIY’s are a huge part of this social media platform, so creating a few can really help you get the exposure that you’re reaching for. Why? Because Pinterest is a place where people go for inspiration, not just shopping. Audience members want to see what you’re doing and attempt to replicate that.

So our advice is to showcase your products/services through image tutorials. Create an infographic (or, even better, a video) that shows you walking through how to use your product, how you complete your service… etc.

Be creative! Be aesthetic! But most of all, make your audience feel like they can do what you’re doing, too!

13. Optimize Your Description Length

So we talked about pin size - and now it’s time to talk about description length. Pinterest’s descriptions are interesting because paragraphs and line breaks don’t exist. So whatever you write for your description will appear as a single, center-aligned paragraph that can look very unappealing if you have too much going on.

This is why it’s important that you keep your description around 150 to 300 characters.

14. Don’t Forget To Include Links

People on Pinterest understand that your pin is like a thumbnail or a cover for more information, so don’t be afraid to throw a link in every single pin you publish - people are expecting it! And if you want to take this a step further, we even recommend putting the same link in the description, as well. This will help you increase clicks to your website because audience members will be able to see the link and understand where it’s going to bring them - and therefore will trust it more.

Tip: keep the link short.

15. Start Creating Idea Pins

Idea Pins are a new feature on Pinterest, so don’t feel bad if you’re not sure what they are yet. Click the button below to get a few of your Idea Pin questions answered.

Idea Pins have skyrocketed how much people know about our business and have seen our pins and even how many people have clicked to our website. So if you want to increase how many people see your brand, we highly recommend creating this new feature.

16. Pin A Lot

As we have stated before, pinning more will do a lot for increasing brand awareness and engagement. But this doesn’t only mean that you have to actively create original pins. You can also go through the Pinterest platform and re-pin other people’s content.

Take around five minutes out of your day to scroll through Pinterest, engage with your audience, and re-pin content from businesses that relate to yours. Not only does this allow you to push out more content more quickly, but it also shows the site that you are an active user.

17. Focus Your Content On How Your Product/Service Can Be Used

People on Pinterest aren’t looking for a description of your product/service - they’re looking for how it can be used to improve their lives. What does this mean for you? It means that as you create the pin, you should picture yourself as a customer. Are you a catering company? Show how your catering can result in a perfect brunch with friends and family. Do you create clothing? Show how people can style your clothes to create a unique and fashionable look.

18. Always Use Your Logo

Many people who see your pins won’t click to your profile. Sadly, this means that if you don’t include your logo, then people who enjoyed looking at your pin will never associate your pin with your business. This is why it’s so important for you to include your logo in every pin you create (place it at the top or bottom of your image). This way, even someone who scrolls past your pin will note that it was created by you.

Other Tips

19. Use Pinterest Widgets

Here’s what Pinterest widgets can do: help others help you market your brand.

They appear on your website and make it easy for people to share the image that they are attached to. An example of this can be seen on our website. Once you hover over our images, you will see the Pinterest logo pop up, and this allows our site visitors to share the image on their own boards. 

20. Review Your Analytics

This is very important because every business is different. While our tips will help you increase your brand awareness, engagement, and conversions - you will find even more success if you tailor your profile, pins, and boards to your individual brand.

How can you know how to do that? The answers are in your analytics.

See what pins get the most engagement, see what profile header results in the most follows, see what board types attract the most people. Your analytics will show all of these things - and you can alter your strategy based on your results. If one pin gets a lot of clicks, keep that template! If one board is significantly more popular than the others, create a board that is similar!

Need More Guidance?

Feel free to schedule a consultation with the Owner and Founder of Empowered Social Media: Jamie Cocco. Pick the time and date you would like to start discussing your social media strategy when you click the button below.