With the ever-growing list of social media sites available to start marketing on, it’s often difficult to choose which ones you want to actually prioritize. Facebook is almost always a given for brands to start with, and Instagram and Twitter are normally ranked high, too.

Pinterest is also gaining more attention as one of those top, must-be-on-them platforms, and I’m glad.

Pinterest functions a little differently than any of the other social media sites listed above; for many pinners, the idea isn’t necessarily so much to broadcast images or ideas to followers, but it’s to save ideas, products, or content for later. This makes it a perfect marketing platform.

This step-by-step guide to Pinterest marketing is going to provide marketers and businesses with everything they need to build a strong content marketing presence on the platform—including how to get your individual pins noticed.

Why Pinterest?

One of the key ways Pinterest is different from other social media sites is that it serves a different function; as mentioned above, the focus of Pinterest isn’t primarily to post your own ideas or content, it’s to save content that you find valuable for later. For businesses looking to have their content or products purchased, Pinterest is a great tool to have in your arsenal. I’ve saved products I liked to Pinterest and gone back and purchased them later, and I’m far from the only one.

Another key difference: Pinterest displays content differently than any other social media site, and it does so in four ways. Users can view your pins:

• On their homefeed, if they follow you or the pins are deemed to be particularly relevant to their interests.
• By searching for a keyword relevant to your pin.
• In relevant categories (like “Food and Drink” and “Health and Fitness”).
• On your actual profile, under themed/categorized boards.

This means that relevant, interested users can find your content organically, whether they’re following you (or even know anything about you) or not.

Finally, the biggest and best reason businesses should be on Pinterest: research has shown that large amounts of Pinterest users actually use the platform to research purchasing decisions before buying, and with many buying something they’ve found on the site. If that’s not a good reason, I don’t know what is.

Setting Up Your Pinterest Profile

When I first got a Pinterest back in 2012, you had to wait at least a few days to be allowed to create an account. Now, it’s much easier—and instantaneous.

Creating an Account

When you go to create an account, you’ll see the option at the bottom of the sign in box to “Continue as a Business.” If you miss it, you can still convert your account to a business later, but it’s easier to do it now.

When you create your account as a business, you’ll be asked to fill out the additional fields supplying the information of your business’s name, what type of business you are, and your website (though this is optional).

Once you’re done, hit create account.

You’ll then be asked to follow 5 topics that interest you. This doesn’t really matter, since you’ll be using this to promote your content instead of following others, but it never hurts to select topics that are relevant to your business.

Once your account is created, your home page will look like the screenshot below. This is just what you see, not what anyone following you will see. Click on the red thumb tack in the top right-hand corner to get to your profile.

Setting Up Your Profile

Your profile starts out looking like this—blank and ready to be filled in. To do so, first click the “Edit Profile” button.

I’ve seen some businesses make the mistake of not filling out all the information here, and that’s a mistake. Give as much information as you can—users will see this, and the more info, the better. Choose an image that best represents your brand; for many, this is a logo. Make sure to add your website so users can visit you through it. Locations matter if you’re a local or brick-and-mortar location, and always, always try to use keywords in your “about me.”

Once your profile has been set up, you can start creating your boards.

Setting Up Boards

You can create a board from your profile page. You’ll be asked to name it, describe it, what category it falls under, if it’s secret, and if you want to invite collaborators.

When you name your board, keep keywords in mind, and make sure it’s a relevant title. If you’re creating a board with candy recipes, for example, you could name it “Sweet Treats,” but this could also include cakes, cookies, and pies; adding “candy” in the title as a keyword could help your search results and help you connect with more relevant users.

Having numerous, specialized, detailed boards can help increase the visibility of your pins

The description matters just as much as the title; again, keywords matter, and describe it accurately.

This is a great example of an accurate description that’s detailed and features some keywords

If you invite collaborators, keep in mind that they can pin to and edit the board.

Once you add pins to the board, you can choose which image you want to represent the board. You’ll go to “edit board,” and then choose to change your cover image.

You can scroll through the images selected and choose your new cover image.

Viewing Analytics

Pinterest has their own analytics program, availably only for business accounts. You can view the analytics by clicking on the tab on the navigation bar in the top left hand corner of the page.

This account is new, so it doesn’t have any analytics information yet, but Pinterest’s analytics can tell you how many views and how much engagement your pins and boards are getting, along with information about your followers or those who viewed your pins.

For more information, we’ve got a full post about Pinterest Analytics that goes over everything you need to know here.

How to Get Pins Noticed

While setting up your profile in a way that’s optimized for success is important, your actual pins will be what matters most. Your pins need to be visually striking so they stand out against the others, whether that’s in a page of other search results or under a general category.

There are several ways you can get your pins noticed and increase their visibility, in addition to choosing the right keywords to describe them. These include choosing the right image size and following best image practices.

Best Image Size

Choosing the right image size on Pinterest can help your pin stand out from the rest, regardless of where users are viewing it.

Image on Pinterest will be scaled to fit the platform, with the width being scaled to 236 pixels.

By Pinterest’s own recommendations, the best aspect ratios for Pins fall between a 2:3 and 1:3.5 (width to height). The minimum recommended width is 600 pixels. Having Pins that are taller than they are wide can help your pins have enough space to stand out, but pins that seem to go on forever and are too long don’t get nearly as much engagement.

Best Image Practices

To help get your pins noticed, there are several best image practices you can use to increase views, repins, and engagement. These include:

• Tasteful branding. This comes from Pinterest’s own recommendations; according to Pinterest, including “tasteful branding” in the image can help increase repins and engagement, which can lead to purchases. Whether this is featuring the packaging of your product in the image or just a small logo or watermark, they recommend adding it in where possible.
  
• Add lifestyle images. While images of your products alone can be effective, adding in lifestyle images where users are actively using your product can help it get the attention of users. Avoid overly user-generated images, but having high quality images of someone using your product in its best use case can be effective.
  
• Text overlays. This isn’t Facebook; there’s no 20% rule. Adding text overlay to your image can help get your point and your ideas across quickly.
  
• List images. Lists and listicles are big in content marketing right now; Pinterest is no different. Having an image that demonstrates the list your pin will take you to can be a great way to stand out and increase engagement.
  

Final Thoughts

Pinterest is a valuable tool with marketers, providing a huge potential opportunity for increased sales—and for free. With paid options like promoted pins and additional features like buyable pins, that potential has only increased.

When it comes to Pinterest, sticking to the basics—simple keywords, straightforward image, clear description—can help improve your results, making our job as marketers and businesses much easier.

What do you think? Do you use Pinterest as part of your marketing strategy? How do you get your pins noticed? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!