One of the most powerful, yet seemingly overlooked, social platforms on the web is Pinterest. Pinterest goes beyond the traditional role of a social platform - it’s a dynamic search tool used to inspire users while simultaneously driving awareness, traffic & conversions for your brand. If you’re a business owner looking to take your social media to the next level, we highly recommend taking the plunge into Pinterest. 

Whether you’re totally new to Pinterest or a current user, we’ll be providing the most effective tips on how to gain success on the platform – and how PLANOLY’s Pin Planner features might just be your best sidekick in perfecting your marketing strategy.

Getting Started on Pinterest

The first question you may be asking yourself is, “is my audience even on Pinterest?” The short answer is - yes. Over 478 million people use Pinterest every month to browse, discover or buy across a wide range of categories. Not only this, but 97% of top Pinterest searches are unbranded, which gives your business a great chance to be discovered and drive more brand awareness. 

Aside from reaching a large audience, Pinterest is also a great resource for content ideas for your brand. In 2020, Pinterest predicted 8 out of 10 trends that came true. These trends ranged across categories including beauty, finance, parenting, food & beverage, weddings & more. Utilizing Pinterest Predicts ‘not-yet-trending report’ can help give you ideas of what kind of content could do well for your audience on Pinterest as well as other social channels.

5 Types of Pinterest Content

With a Pinterest Business Account, you will have access to five types of Pin formats. These include standard Pins, Video Pins, Product Pins, Collections, and Idea Pins. 

Here’s a quick description of each type:

• Standard Pin: A static image or carousel with multiple images that link to a URL

• Idea Pin: A short multi-page story that brings an idea to life

• Video Pin: A short 4-15 second video that can tell a story for your brand, idea, or project

• Product Pin: A shoppable Pin featuring 1 product that can show real-time pricing and availability

• Collections Pin: A shoppable Pin featuring multiple products

If you’re just getting started, we recommend first testing standard & Idea Pins before diving into other formats. These tend to be a little less intimidating and can give you a good baseline for how your content is resonating with users.

For standard Pins, your goal is to create fresh content that drives to a URL where you’d like to increase traffic. You want to make the Pin visually appealing while thinking about ways to have your content stand out from other Pins when a user is searching for inspiration. Take some inspiration from Oh Joy! Her Pins are so colorful and inviting. Even if you don’t use text on your standard Pins, make sure the image is attention-grabbing and aligned with what you’re linking out to.

Idea Pins are a new type of content on Pinterest. Recently, Pinterest shared that they are seeing 9x the average comment rate on Idea Pins compared to standard Pins. Idea Pins give you the opportunity to share an idea in video form to create a more engaging experience with your community on Pinterest.

Creating a Pinterest Content Strategy

It’s important to note that Pinterest content differs from other social channels. It has a longer lifespan and can reach audiences long after it has been published. While it may seem daunting to create custom content specifically for Pinterest on top of other social channels you’re managing, the benefits should pay off in the long run. 

Pinterest values fresh content leading users to discover new ideas, products, and inspiration. To get started, brainstorm 5-7 key topics or categories for your business. These can serve as your Pinterest boards. From there, start grouping content within each board. Some ideas include seasonal content, new product launches, blog posts, and other important URLs for your website.

Here are some brands that have inspired how we create and group content.

Beauty Brand: Glossier

No matter what kind of brand you are, collaborating with clients, coworkers, or your community is important when it comes to Pinterest. You can do this simply by creating a group board! Glossier’s BEAUTYCHAT Board illustrates how their community of creators can effortlessly share their ideas and beauty tips – establishing a stronger digital community on Pinterest.

Lifestyle Brand: Camille Styles

There is no limit to how many different topics and categories you can tap into with the Pinterest Boards you create. Camille Styles’ profile is a perfect example of how you can divide your content under different Boards – accommodating various heavily searched topics, increasing discoverability, and overall content engagement.

Fashion Brand: Lisa Says Gah

Pinterest is the perfect place to create a virtual shopping experience for your customers. You can organize your products within your Pinterest board by creating sections. This keeps everything organized and easy to shop for users. If you’re going to set up shop on Pinterest, be sure to apply for Pinterest’s verified merchant program! This confirms to your audience that you are a vetted brand and will make your products stand out. 

Food Brand: Love and Lemons

PLANOLY Pro-tip: hop on the Idea Pin bandwagon to create a beautiful first impression for users visiting your profile. Pinterest has refreshed the user Profile experience so that all of your created Pins live at the very top. All Idea Pins you create will live above all of your Pins under the Created tab. Take some inspiration from Love and Lemons, all of her beautifully created recipe Idea Pins are the first thing user’s will see when visiting her profile!

Aesthetics: Velvet My Soul

Last but not least, there has been a noticeable trend on Pinterest lately where people have been creating Boards dedicated to creating a certain aesthetic. The look and feel of these Boards are definitely reminiscent of mood boards. This is an excellent way for a brand or business to showcase its creativity and vision. If you are an influencer or blogger, you can use this as a tool to plan a new look-and-feel for your Instagram feed or just share the overall sense of style you aspire to. You also have the option to make this Board secret if you would rather keep your ideas personal to you.

How to Use PLANOLY’s Pin Planner for Pinterest

Pin Planner is PLANOLY's marketing tool for your Pinterest content. Plus, we’re an official partner of Pinterest. Pin Planner enables you to visually plan, schedule, publish, and measure Pins in just minutes. You can access Pin Planner from PLANOLY’s Web Dashboard or the Mobile App. While we know creating a Pinterest content strategy can feel overwhelming, we consider Pin Planner your virtual assistant to help take away some of the more time-consuming tasks of planning and scheduling your content.

Pin Planner Key Features

There’s a lot to love about PLANOLY’s Pin Planner, but we did our best to narrow down the top features that our users love.

• Visual Planning Calendar: With our Pinterest visual planning calendar, you can easily see what days & times you have Pins scheduled. 

• Quick Schedule: Creating a quick schedule allows you to create a consistent cadence of days & times for your Pins to go live. Once your schedule is created, you can drag & drop content from your Library into your quick schedule times.

• Campaigns: Use our campaigns feature to bulk schedule content across multiple boards all at once.

• PLANOLY Uploader: Our browser extension for Chrome & Safari allows you to easily Pin things while browsing online.

Measuring Success with Pin Planner

Once you’ve spent some time and effort creating your Pinterest content strategy, it’s important to check in to see what content is resonating with Pinterest users. With the Pin Planner ‘Analyze’ feature, collecting insights and data from Pins has never been easier. With ‘Analyze,’ you can dive deeper into the important Pinterest metrics: Impressions, saves, clicks, and close-ups. It gives you an overall view of your Pins and your Boards performance. You can also toggle the dates in which you want to measure these analytics.

Now that you know the ins and outs of Pinterest marketing, give Pin Planner a try to save you time and help you create a consistent presence on Pinterest. Ultimately, this should lead to more brand awareness, traffic and conversions for your business.