Pinterest Business Personas and why use it?

Pinterest Marketing may be an underdog social media marketing arena but it definitely still holds merit. For highly visual or product focused brands, Pinterest still remains a decently effective tool for promoting brand awareness and driving sales. Here, we’ll learn about Pinterest, how to use Pinterest for Business and a bit about Pinterest Strategy.

Pinterest remains a go to idea generating machine. Although this can be annoying for creators like us who generally prefer to let creativity flow naturally, it can be extremely beneficial for some. A whopping 93% of active Pinterest users say they use Pinterest to strategize purchasing decisions. This means that for certain brands, it can be crucial to have products listed and promoted on the platform.

For example, if you’re a fashion based brand, promoting pins will help your business to cut ahead of the thousands of other Pinterest images in the fashion category. Users attempting to find a new outfit will see your products first, this makes them more likely to click through and purchase your product before any other. Stock up your Pinterest boards with related quality content on other clothing items and suddenly you’ve got a flock of loyal followers/customers.

To give you a solid idea of what type of brands/products would perform well on a social platform such as Pinterest, we pulled a few stats:

• 48% of users pin, repin and save content on Art, Art Supplies and Hobbies
• 47% of users pin, repin and save content on Flowers, Food, Drink and Gifts
• Followed by 45% in the arena of Home, Garden, Pool, Spa/Health and Beauty
• And 37% in Clothing/Apparel

Footwear and Baby gear had the lowest category interest of all ranking in at 7 and 13 percent of user category search queries. The top ranking category can be very ambiguous but if you’ve got a brand selling something that could be considered art/hobby, there’s definitely an audience for it on this platform.

Pinterest users are definitely some of the most active users across all social platforms. Nearly 70% of users report they regularly search, save and click pins. This ultimately leads to discovery and purchases from new brands found on Pinterest. What this means for you is that if your brand fits within the most searched categories, you may find more audience engagement on Pinterest than you would with more typical social platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Features to utilize:
Pinterest is its own beast and offers tools that are extremely different in nature than other social media platforms. These tools include:

• Pincodes - These Pin codes are Pinterest’s unique twist on traditional QR codes. Businesses are able to place these pin codes on promotional materials, products, etc. When these codes are scanned, customers are directed to the business’ Pinterest account where they can browse additional products for sale. See how it works here.
• Shop the Look - Pinterest’s shop the look feature allows for poster’s to plug in interactive white dots on specific items to users are able to click directly on individual pieces they are interested in purchasing.‍
• Rich Pins - These pins allow for more information to be included within the pin such as pricing, recipe details, etc.
• Pinterest Analytics - Every social platform has its own means of measuring data. Pinterest Analytics is the platforms answer to Facebook and Twitter Analytics.
• Pinterest save button - The Pinterest save button is a plug in you can add on Google Chrome. This allows you save any idea you find around the web so you can easily get back to it later. Business’ may use this for saving content ideas, concepts, etc. (save in a private board if you don’t want your followers to see it)

The platform also offers the typical features of uploading original content, re-posting (re-pinning) content and liking other people’s content. Much like other platforms, Pinterest offers related content when you’re within a specific pin but they’ve cut out all of the other user interaction features you see on Facebook/Twitter such as reactions and comments. Because the platform is so siloed, users are forced to focus on actively searching and shopping rather than mindlessly scrolling through content.

All in all, Pinterest Strategy is going to look different for everyone but there are a few basic principles to include: Upload, organize and cultivate consistent content, utilize the features provided and do some testing. It’ll take time to truly measure what works best for you but following the data is always your best bet in digital marketing and social media marketing in general.