Tips for Incorporating Pinterest Into Your Social Media Marketing

How can you leverage the appeal of Pinterest in your social media marketing strategy?

Shortly after its launch, Pinterest exploded as the fastest growing social network and, more important, the first of its kind. This first mover advantage meant that an entirely new demographic now had a social network that differed from all others. What did this mean to marketers? It meant that social media marketing strategies had to be tailored to include Pinterest along with the majors. At first glance, marketers may shrug off the idea that Pinterest is a crucial tool for business. After all, it is simply boards with a collection of themed (or not so themed) images for people to share, right? Wrong. Pinterest is a traffic driving juggernaut that is quickly moving up in the ranks to be among the top sources of referral traffic from social networks. The image below from Shareaholic back in February 2012 shows just how quickly Pinterest is moving up, and there are no signs of slowing down.

So how can your brand leverage the referral power of Pinterest by incorporating it into your social media marketing? Below is a set of tips that can help you benefit from all that Pinterest has to offer, and take your social media marketing to the next level.

1. Create a Pinterest Business Page

Back in mid-November, Pinterest launched business pages. For the first time, a business was able to set up an account separate from a personal account and include some information that was otherwise unpublished on the social network. Creating or converting an existing account into a business page is as simple as opening the “About” section and selecting “For Businesses”. Once there, you will be able to select the appropriate option, and customize your business page for Pinterest.

2. Don’t Forget the Links

People are constantly clicking on images in Pinterest, but if they are not going anywhere, then you’ve missed an opportunity to drive new traffic. After loading an image onto one of your boards, you can edit it to include a link back to your site, or blog, or store. It’s as simple as typing it in. These links will help drive traffic directly from the social network as opposed to hoping the individual viewing the image will visit the site organically. Oh, and did we mention that links benefit SEO as well?

3. Keep SEO in Mind

Just as with the links for your images, keyword-rich captions and properly categorized images will help with your SEO. Simply posting an image onto your board with no description or category is the equivalent of posting an image on your site with no alt tags – it makes it much more difficult for search engines to find. Furthermore, a caption will also engage your audience, and as we never tire of pointing out, engagement is crucial to the success of your social media marketing.

4. Create a Catalog

Did you know that Pinterest is a phenomenal source for driving traffic to your online store, particularly if you are using Pinterest as an online catalog? And it doesn’t take much tweaking either. For those looking to drive customers to a store of advertise items for sale, Pinterest automatically includes a small price tag in the top left corner of a pinned image when the caption ends with $X.XX. So next time you’re looking to showcase a product at a great price, do it on Pinterest!

5. Engage!

We noted briefly that engagement is crucial to the success of a social media marketing strategy, and that holds true for Pinterest as well. It is one thing to pin thousands of images, but if you are simply posting the images and leaving them to be seen by Pinterest users, you are missing out on one of the most important aspects of brand growth on social media. Post comments on other pins, engage with users who comment on your images, and share pins from your followers.

Pinterest is as important as any other social network, even if you may think it “doesn’t apply” to your industry. Anyone can be using the social network, and the numbers show that it is an essential tool for driving referral traffic from social media.

How are you using Pinterest for your business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!