How to use Pinterest for marketing your business

There are confusing elements to marketing your online business especially when it comes to which social media platforms are the best to use.

Once you’ve chosen a particular platform the next steps to uncover and understand is how to use it to gain a following of raving fans for your offerings.

I’m narrowing the focus here to specifically speak about Pinterest.

It’s a platform that you’re familiar with and have likely perused on a personal level. Hold on to what you already know about Pinterest because it’s relevant to this discussion of how to use Pinterest for marketing your business.

Let’s dig into the following four main points:

Building brand awareness
Establishing your expertise
Find and gain your ideal customer’s trust
Find your voice with Pinning opportunities

Building brand awareness on Pinterest to market your business

Pinterest monthly active users discover new brands that they have not previously known about.

The chances that a pinner finds and learns about a new brand and company is high.

Specifically, Pinterest shares that a whopping “80% of weekly Pinners have discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest.”

How does this statistic translate to your business?

It means that discoverability on the platform is high which increases your brand awareness and you reach audiences that are specifically searching for the exact thing that you offer.

You can see how it would be a missed opportunity if you decided not to expend your marketing efforts to include content on Pinterest and your competitive gained all the visibility because they already have a Pinterest strategy in place.

This feels and looks like leaving money on the table.

Using video to connect with your audience

The fastest and most effective way to boost your brand awareness on Pinterest in the current environment is through video content.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, video content is off the charts in terms of how it connects you to your audiences.

To narrow the focus down further, I recommend video content through leaning into the Idea Pin format.

Idea pins are a new format that Pinterest introduced beginning the summer of 2020.

This new format allows a Pinner to create up to 20 individual frames of content as static or video content.

While a static image is allowed, Pinterest recommends to use video as the best practice for idea pins in order to gain the most reach.

In my Pinterest strategy I have consistently pinned idea pin content in the form of videos related to my niche and awareness for my brand has exploded on the platform.

My reach on Pinterest through the impressions metric in one year is 221,000,000+ (see figure below).

That’s a lot of zeros, my friend! This is a perfect example that using idea pins paired with video connect can give your brand the boost and awareness that you want for your marketing efforts.

Share ideas with your audience through content that inspires action

Remember when I asked you to hold on to how you personally use Pinterest?

Well, it’s relevant to this discussion.

Let’s examine your own pinning behavior on the platform.

When we take a look at our own actions on Pinterest, we see that we visit the platform when we are planning a project or wanting to learn something new.

Pinterest is the go-to place when you seek out ideas and inspiration. This intent is powerful because it drives how Pinterest, though a sophisticated algorithm, connects relevant content to a Pinner’s search.

As a Pinner searches for ideas to support their future project, if you publish marketing content specific to your niche, your brand and business is going to be discovered by the Pinners looking for that information.

The discoverability of your brand on Pinterest is very high and it would be a mistake to ignore it.

Establish expertise in your specific niche

Another and equally powerful strategy on how to use Pinterest for marketing your business is to create content that establishes you as the expert in your particular niche and industry.

The easiest and best way to establish yourself as the expert is to share what you know. Pinterest is a platform where our audiences are discovering us and are at the very beginning of their journey.

Based on this fact alone, you are already the expert by being further along on the journey than your ideal customer.

Use this to your advantage.

You might have thoughts like “but I’m not the expert because I don’t know everything about my niche.”

My response to you is that you don’t need to know everything.

You simply need to know more than those you plan on teaching or sharing your ideas with.

Also, most students aren’t interested in learning from the guru in a particular field because it can be intimidating.

Many like to learn from someone who is one step or a couple of steps ahead because that individual is perceived as more approachable.

They are also closer to the step that you are on and might actually be better equipped to teach you because they more recently crossed the path compared to a guru that crossed the path many years ago or even decades ago.

In truth, the guru’s experience may no longer be relevant to the current environment. I see this a lot with different Pinterest educators that have been around from the beginning (5-10 years ago) and are still teaching outdated Pinterest strategy that is no longer applicable.

Pinterest is the perfect platform to flex your muscles as the true expert that you are. So own it!

Use Pinterest to gain your audience’s trust

It isn’t enough to establish yourself as the expert in your niche.

Your marketing efforts must take another step forward to also build your ideal customer’s trust. Establishing your expertise is part of gaining trust, but here are additional ways to build it:

Show up consistently for your ideal customer – When you show up consistently, creating relevant content for your audiences, you begin to establish rapport and trust with your ideal customer.

Give before you ask – The content that you share on Pinterest must deliver value first before you ever begin the process of asking for a sale. Following this order establishes the trust you need in order to gain a conversion or sale.

Solve your ideal customer’s pain point – Simplifying your customer’s pain points with a step by step how-to or introducing ideas on how to solve them is the fastest way to gain a new best friend. Delivering this level of value is what creates the raving fan.

Use Pinning opportunities to find your unique voice

The final strategy for how to use Pinterest for marketing your business is to treat each and every pinning opportunity as a way to find and refine your unique brand voice.

A clear and strong message in your brand and marketing is essential when connecting with your ideal customer.

Let’s connect with our audiences by showcasing our unique voices.

Each pin that you create acts as a bridge to your brand. Use pinning as a means to build bridges with your ideal customer and to refine your voice.

The repeated action you take with a solid pinning practice will nail down your voice and build the connections for drawing your audience to your content.

Conclusion

The power in how to use Pinterest for marketing your business depends on the repeated action on the four points. Strategy is only useful when supported by actual action. If you want to take Pinterest marketing seriously for your business, I challenge you to take on these actions for each strategy:

Strategy 1: Building brand awareness
Strategy 1 Action: Create an idea pin using video content

Strategy 2: Establishing your expertise
Strategy 2 Action: Teach your audience about one step at the beginning of their journey

Strategy 3: Find and gain your ideal customer’s trust
Strategy 3 Action: Post pins on a routine and consistent basis. The number of the frequency isn’t as important as the consistency. Commit to a number and then stick with it.

Strategy 4: Find your voice with Pinning opportunities
Strategy 4 Action: Challenge yourself to create three different idea pins on the exact same subject matter using three different ways of saying the same thing. This action will help you refine and define your voice in content creation.

Success on how to use Pinterest for marketing your business is within reach by following these strategies and adding them to your marketing mix.

I apply these strategies to my Pinterest account and I have seen tremendous growth, engagement, and conversions on the platform. Finally, the hard work I put into creating content gets in front of the right audiences, as Pinterest is one of the top three main traffic sources for my business website.