3 Simple Ways to Maximize Your Pinterest Pins

“Get discovered by millions of people looking for things to plan, buy and do,” entices Pinterest on its business-focused landing page. It is a promising statement, but with the stats to back it up. Pinterest is now the third most popular social media site in the world behind Facebook and Twitter, and it actually comes out on top for inspiration, tracking, and product discovery. As you expand your business’s social media outreach, it’s time to consider including Pinterest and its 70 million users.

“Pinterest is an attractive and addicting social media site. The visual aspect of the site is what makes it so successful,” says Linnay Grosche, social media communication, at WarmlyYours Radiant Heating.

When creating a business Pinterest account, these three simple tips will help you get stronger results right from the start. 1) Use the best images. 2) Create links in your pins that drive people to your business. 3) Time your pins carefully.

Pinterest is the virtual version of a corkboard where you create “pins” (the Pinterest version of Facebook’s posts or Twitter’s tweets). With the corkboard in mind, you actually organize your pins (which can be images or video) by creating multiple boards, collections of pins that go together (kitchen inspirations, bathroom inspirations, remodeling ideas, designers to watch, etc.). When you pin an image or video to Pinterest, your customers can then repin it to archive it on their own boards and also share it with their friends. They can also comment on your pin, “like” it and follow your board so that any time you pin something new it will show up on their newsfeeds (which is similar to Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds, but in a slightly more “scrapbook-y way”).

Success on Pinterest starts with the quality of pins you create. Your customers want to see original content from you. Pinterest lets you showcase new services, products, project inspirations (that help motivate people to start their own remodeling projects), and more.

For business owners, Pinterest recommends “Instead of just showing off your products, show what inspires them. Create boards for the ideas, places, people and moods behind your brand.”

Images, Images, Images

Successful pins on Pinterest start with the images you use. Pinterest is all about the visual appeal. The top reason you should focus on images? Ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text, according to 3M Corporation and Zabisco. Research studies have shown that while images are critical, they vary in effectiveness based on some key details.

“Use only images that are a minimum of 600 x 900 pixels with 1900 pixels maximum in length,” suggests White Glove Social Media. This guarantees your customers can see the whole image, in its best size, in their newsfeeds.

First and foremost, no matter the image, post it in the right size.

Also, research shows:

• Images with less than 10 percent background get two to four times more repins than images with more than 40 percent of white space.
• Images without faces receive almost 25 percent more repins than images with faces.
• Only 20 percent of images on Pinterest feature a face.
• Interestingly, posts with red or orange images get twice the amount of repins as other colors, and images with very dominant colors will get repinned three times as much. There’s no room for the color faint of heart on Pinterest.

Grosche shares another important reminder, “When pinning photos, don’t forget to incorporate keywords in the description section. Pinterest users are very diverse, and using keywords makes it easy to attract your target audience.”

Create Links To Your Business

To get a good return on investment from Pinterest, you must consistently create and pin images with links that benefit your business, says Julia Campbell in “What to Pin on Pinterest? 10 Ideas for Businesses”.

She suggests:

• Link back to your website
• Link to your blog or a blog post
• Link to your email opt-in page
• Link to your product page and online catalog

Timing Matters

Once you find the perfect image to capture your product or design, the timing and frequency of your pins matters as well. You don’t have to overthink the timing of your posts (just getting a quality pin posted is most important). But there seems to be some common timing “rules of thumb.” Pinning is best in the late afternoon and from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. The best days are Thursdays and Saturdays when people have more free time to browse the site.

You don’t want to pin too many items at once either. “Spreading your pinning activity will get you a better chance of someone repinning your images versus dumping all your images in one sitting,” advises White Glove Social Media.

Here is a tip: you can hide boards from public view. This lets you set up the pins and do all the work, but actually move the pin to a board visible to your customers at the optimal time. You can also use various scheduling social media tools such as Curalate, Pinwoot, or GoPixel. Find more options with descriptions here. There are many options that let you schedule pins in advance.

By pinning the right content, with the right links, at the right time, you’ll be on track to get the most out of your business Pinterest account. Happy Pinning!

Check out our radiant images on the WarmlyYours Pinterest page at www.pinterest.com/warmlyyours.

Sources:

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33423/19-Reasons-You-Should-Include-Visual-Content-in-Your-Marketing-Data.aspx

http://www.whiteglovesocialmedia.com/pinterest-consultant-pinterest-cheat-sheet-2014-infographic-22-ways-to-make-your-pins-go-viral-based-on-research/

http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/pinterest-stats/#.U4TSS_ldXTo