If Pinterest is a platform you haven’t given a second thought, you need to think again. In the first quarter of 2019, Pinterest reported 291 million monthly active users worldwide. The site has steadily gained momentum and retained its following since its creation in 2010. Simply put, Pinterest might be the traffic driver your business is missing. 

When it comes to inbound links, Pinterest is king. Every pin has two link opportunities, one in the description and one in the source for the image. Pinterest’s ability to drive site traffic is an amazing opportunity for growth, especially for businesses that rely on their website to fuel leads and sales. According to this study from the University of Massachusets, Pinterest users, as opposed to users engaging with Facebook and Twitter, were pinning specifically to share a brand or product as part of their personal lifestyle. 

Pins Equal Purchases

What do all those personal-identity-statement pins add up to? Purchases. Pinterest has the highest post engagement to sales conversion rate of any social media platform, particularly from millennials. Over half of the generation is pinning every month and 47% of millennials said they had purchased something online after pinning it. That soars over Facebook’s 38% and Twitter’s 33% engagement to purchase rates. Looking at other studies the University of Massachusetts compared results with, Pinterest’s sales conversion was higher than Twitter in every demographic and every study across the board.

Those numbers are taken from the general population, not dedicated users. A whopping 93% of active pinners say they use Pinterest to plan for a purchase and 87% say they have purchased a product because of Pinterest. With two-thirds of all pins representing brands and products and 40% of pinners having a household income of $100k+, these aren’t passive content absorbers. Pinterest is a platform people engage with to purposefully inform and influence their purchasing.

Best Practice Pinning

It’s simple and free to get a business account with Pinterest. Business accounts have free analytics tools that allow you to see how your pins are performing. With that knowledge, you can make the decision to repin to other boards and attempt to gain momentum organically or pay to boost your posts (promoted pins are repinned an average of 11 times per ad). 

No matter how much money you’re wanting to throw behind your posts, you should make sure that they’re formatted in a way that optimizes your content for maximum engagement. Here are a few simple steps you can take to make sure your pins are reaching their fullest potential.

1. Connect your Pinterest with your other social media platforms – Pinterest is integrated with Twitter and Facebook. When you share a pin on Twitter the description becomes the Tweet. By using keywords in your description and your title you invite pinners to spread your message for you as they engage with your posts.  
2. Create your own pins by uploading a custom image with your branding directly on it. Fill in up to 500 words of text in the description (remember that people can tweet it directly so you want to keep it compelling and concise.) Add a link to your blog article or home page in the description and edit the pin to add the link in the source. Best practice for any type of branding is consistency. Make sure that the formatting of your pins is cohesive. 
3. Have a “pinnable” image on everything you publish. Pinterest pulls images directly from the source site when users create pins with the Pinterest plugin, so include a few visually appealing images on every landable page on your site. Use vertical images that are long and narrow (think roughly 3 x 5) to take up visual real estate in Pinterest’s feed. 
4. Add Pinterest buttons and widgets to your blog, website, and app. Make it simpler for users to pin your images, follow your feed, and save custom pins you’ve created of your content.  
5. Use keywords in your board titles. Pinterest has amazing search abilities and the title you choose for your board can help people find you and your business. Select a category for each of your boards as well to help get your content in front of the eyes of potential consumers. 

Speaking of Searches

Will your Pinterest presence help your SEO? Yes and no. It’s import to keep in mind that even though your pins will include links to your site, they are “no follow” links and not the backlinks that matter most for your SEO (search engine optimization) with Google. Bummer, right? Still, plenty of studies show a correlation between the number of times a piece of content is shared and the amount of backlinks it garners. In that regard, your presence on Pinterest can positively affect your SEO with the big names, Google and Bing.

Something to take note of is that Pinterest itself is a search engine. Pinterest reports that over 2 billion searches are taking place each month on the platform and that even though so much of the traffic on Pinterest is purchase focused, 97% of searches on Pinterest in 2016 were unbranded. This is an audience that is actively seeking influence in their purchasing decisions and you have the opportunity to make sure that your pins are the ones popping up at the top of the feed. Here at Rethink, we’d highly suggest you seize that opportunity and make your online presence Pinterest perfect. Remember, if you need any advice or don’t have time to manage that yourself, we’re always here to help.