5 Smart Ways to Use Pinterest to Market Your Business

5 Smart Ways to Use Pinterest to Market Your Business

While the social media landscape changes constantly, the top social networks in the United States remain fairly consistent: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. You may not have a Pinterest account - and you may not want to add another social network to your online marketing mix - but there are a number of ways you can use it to market your business.

Pinterest is not a traditional social network but more of a visual search engine with social features. To get the most out of the platform, make sure to set up a free Pinterest Business Account or convert your personal Pinterest account into a business one.

With a business account, you can claim your company website and track the performance of your pins. Pinterest can then also pull data from your website and automatically sync it to your pins to perform actions such as updating product prices from your online catalog.

Not sure how else Pinterest can augment your marketing? Here are five ways:

1. Drive website traffic

While posts on other social networks tend to come and go quickly from view on the feed, a Pinterest pin linking to your website can have a longer lifespan, driving referral traffic to your website for months or years. The better a pin is crafted and optimized, the more life it can have as a traffic-driving tool. Pinterest remains in the top five social networks that still drive traffic to your site organically, meaning without having to pay for advertising. Other top social networks that can drive organic traffic are Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn.

2. Repurpose content

Producing content for social media can be a time-consuming task so any opportunity to leverage the content you’re creating is helpful. Pinterest is a great platform for repurposing vertical videos, carousel photographs or graphics, and infographics you are already using on other social networks. As long as it is vertical, it is ready for Pinterest.

You can also pin your posts from some of your other social networks to cross promote and drive traffic to gain followers. Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook allow you to pin your posts, however, you cannot pin from Snapchat or TikTok as both are closed systems.

3. Showcase visuals

Show off your work visually, whether you’re in an artistic field such as photography, fashion design, or interior decoration, or you are producing visuals to feature your work, Pinterest is the perfect platform to create a portfolio of work. If you’re a designer of any kind, Pinterest boards can be used as mood boards or to demonstrate your aesthetic. Changing the board cover images lets you customize the look of your entire Pinterest page.

4. Promote products

If you have an online catalog on your website, you can attach your individual product links directly to Pinterest pins. This isn’t exclusive to physical products but can also include digital products, promotional items, or anything else that someone can order from you for a fee or for free. You can also pin from an Etsy or Shopify store if you have one. If you are a service business, you aren’t left out. Simply create visuals to promote what you do and pin them, linking directly to your website or specifically a lead generation form to lead prospects into your sales funnel.

5. Tap into consumer discovery

Because Pinterest is a visual search engine, users often use it to conduct research for everything from making a purchase to planning an event, such as a wedding or vacation. Paying attention to Pinterest trends and the most popular pins on the platform can give you insights to what Pinterest users are seeking. This, in turn, can give you some ideas for pin content to help put your products or services in front of Pinterest users.

While Pinterest may not ever be your main social network, taking advantage of the best uses of the platform can supplement your online marketing.