Interest in Pinterest (rhyme intended) is at an all-time high. It has reached over 450 million monthly active users and has exploded in popularity as a result of the pandemic.
Why is this? Pinterest is an aspirational outlet. And that’s exactly why people go there. Both men and women alike, young and old are on Pinterest and they show up for very different reasons than they go to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube. Pinterest is a place where people go to plan their future projects, get away from the stresses of life – including the pandemic, the news and hateful content. The Pinterest algorithm is very robust when it comes to suppressing controversial, hateful content and fake-newsy type of posts.
Any brand or company who has shoppable products or offerings that help with planning for the future should explore an organic Pinterest presence. Here are some obvious and not-so-obvious brand types that can thrive on Pinterest:
- Cosmetics
- Fashion/Jewelry
- DIY/Crafts
- Weddings
- Events
- Food/Drink/Recipes/Cooking
- Restaurants/Bars
- Travel
- Health/Fitness
- Home Decor
- Automotive
- Entertainment
- Retail
- Technology
- Software
- Financial Products/Investing
- Business and Entrepreneurship
Here are 5 reasons why an organic Pinterest strategy can be more effective than other organic social media strategies.
1. Keyword Driven Reach
While followers are important on Pinterest just as on other social media platforms, it’s not as important. On Facebook and Instagram, you need followers to get organic reach (or you need to rely on hashtags which are hit and miss). And even then, organic reach is only about 3% of your follower count on Facebook and Instagram.
On Pinterest, you can gain organic (unpaid) reach with a low follower count because Pinterest shows relevant content to users in the “Picked For You” section of their feed as well as to people searching for specific topics. So ANYONE who matches your buyer profile can be shown your content – for free. Think of it as a visual Google search strategy.
People who follow specific interests such as cocktail recipes, mountain biking, drone photography, etc. will be shown organic content that matches their profile in “Picked For You”. People searching for specific keywords will also be shown your organic content as a search result. 95% of Pinterest users’ searches are unbranded, so you are exposing your brand to a net new set of eyeballs here. The key to getting high visibility and reach is to target the right keywords in your board title and pin descriptions. You can use the main search bar in Pinterest to do a guided search and see what types of keywords in your space people are searching for.
2. Drive Traffic to Your Website and Get More Reach in Return
Linking your beautiful pins to a valuable resource on your website, eg. a blog post, will trigger the algorithm to show those pins more frequently. So you can essentially get the best of both worlds – more traffic and more reach – unlike on Facebook and other platforms that penalize you with less reach for driving traffic to your own web properties.
3. Pins Stay Around Much Longer
Pins have a much longer tail than posts on Facebook or Instagram or tweets on Twitter, for example. It’s true that 70% of your Pinterest clicks will come within the first 2 days of posting, but you can see clicks coming in for 30 days or more after the pin was posted. This means, if you pin regularly and consistently, your reach will be multiples higher than posts on other social media platforms.
4. Reach Audiences in a Different Mindset
Including Pinterest as part of your organic social media strategy opens you up to audiences who are in a completely different mindset than those on other social media channels, and the size of that audience is growing in leaps and bounds, as previously mentioned.
5. Shoppability
Pinterest is extremely shoppable. With its shoppable pins, “Shop” tabs on Search and on Pinterest boards and its improved visual search to make more products shoppable from Pins, you’re able to seamlessly capture conversions from impulse buyers and long-time planners alike.
If you’re not on Pinterest, now is a great time to get on board! It has many advantages and can be an excellent addition to your social media marketing mix that will drive compound results for your business.
