For many small businesses, social media marketing is like a never ending battle for attention.

Going up against larger brands on Instagram and Facebook isn’t just an expensive task. It’s also very tiring. And that’s why you need a platform where things you post don’t just disappear in a day. A platform where users can find what you’re selling by searching for it, and, especially, a place where small businesses can grow without needing huge ad budgets.

That’s what Pinterest offers!

Unlike old school social media, Pinterest is more of a visual search engine. So instead of having to put in words to find products, you can locate things that you’re looking for through pins.

Pinterest is filled with millions of users looking for ideas, products, and aesthetic inspiration. That’s what makes this app the key point for small businesses that want to reach potential customers. Whether you’re dealing with handmade items or offering special services, Pinterest can help widen your reach and build your online presence.

And it requires minimal effort!

As you read on, you’ll go through the most useful Pinterest marketing ideas ranging from SEO optimization to effectively using ads. At the end, you’ll have all the info needed to kickstart your Pinterest campaign. Let’s start!

Understanding Pinterest’s Unique Features

Before going straight to the marketing tactics, understanding why Pinterest isn’t like other social media is crucial. 

Unlike your go-to apps like Instagram or TikTok, Pinterest doesn’t use algorithms that track real-time engagement. Instead, it acts like an idea hub or search engine. Here, you won’t find people scrolling through endlessly. You’ll find customers actively looking for products and inspiration.

Social Media’s Visual Search Engine

Before Google introduced the feature of Similar search, brands always had Pinterest to go to. The platform isn’t just a place for pretty pictures. It’s a platform where users can discover new projects and find future purchases.

Each pin that you view acts as a visual bookmark. These can be saved into personalized boards which allows users to come back to the content they find. This means that your content is going to survive longer than posts on traditional social media.

Having a well-optimized pin set up can keep bringing in people for months or even years.

Key Features Offered By Pinterest

Focusing on the app’s core features is a great way for brands to start making the most of Pinterest.

• Pins: The base of what Pinterest is. Pins refer to the posts, pictures, or videos that you come across when looking through the app.
• Boards: Looking for content about a specific topic? On Pinterest, you’ll find a never ending list of ideas. And with Boards, you can gather all those pins into one spot. Having a well-organized board set up can help boost brands’ visibility.
• Idea Pins: Essentially, Pinterest’s version of Instagram Stories. But unlike Instagram, these stories won’t disappear after a day. They’ll stay up as long as you keep them, which is great for tutorials or showing off products.
• Pinterest Trends: Remember, Pinterest is both a visual and normal search engine. That’s why the keywords you use play a role in promoting your content to more people.
• Rich Pins: More complex than your normal pins. These are best for selling products as they showcase information that’s written on your websites.

By having an idea about what Pinterest offers, brands can do a better job at setting up their marketing strategies, and this allows them to focus on long-term discoverability.

Maximizing Your Visibility Through Pinterest SEO

Since Pinterest also works like any other search engine, brands need to edit their content to boost visibility. When you optimize content on Pinterest, it allows your posts to stay visible for a longer time period. Unlike traditional social media, it won’t just fade away into the background after some time.

Finding What Your Audience Wants

Just like Google, Pinterest also uses keywords to know what to suggest. To improve your reach, you’ll need to find them. After that, you'll have to use them properly. 

Here’s how you can go about finding the right keywords:

• Using Pinterest Search: When you use the search bar on Pinterest, you’ll notice that it starts to autocomplete your sentence. You can use this feature to find the most used keywords. Start off by typing a word that’s relevant to your niche, then use the suggestions to mark your keywords.
• Exploring Trends: Apps like Instagram or even Pinterest’s analytics can be used to find what’s popular at the moment. Usually, anything trending on one social media platform is probably also trending on every other platform. Go through other social media’s FYPs to find trends and search for those on Pinterest.
• Checking Competitor Pins: Search for pins that are doing well in your niche. Chances are, there are already some established brands that have done the hard work of keyword research. You can look through competitor pins to find useful keywords to use.

Placing the Keywords Properly

Finding the right keywords is one thing. Using them properly is a whole other problem.

If you’re not using the keywords properly, it’s as if all your efforts were for no reason. Poorly placed keywords or too many keywords clumped up in one area can negatively affect your reach.

Here are the best places to put your keywords:

1. Pin Titles: This is where your main keywords should go. These keywords should accurately represent what’s in your Pin.
2. Descriptions: Add some keywords to your description. Don’t make it too long because people aren’t going to spend a lot of time going through it. The point of adding keywords to your pin’s description is to ensure it gets picked up through SEO. Avoid adding too many keywords. This can make your description look spammy.
3. Board Names: Like pin titles, primary keywords can also be used in the title of your boards. By using clear and searchable terms, it becomes easier for users to find your personalized pin boards.
4. Profile Bio: Adding relevant keywords to your profile can also help boost your visibility. Generally, it’s better to use generic keywords about your niche in the profile bio.

Optimizing Your Pictures For Pinterest Search

Once you’ve got the normal search engine job out of the way, then you’ve got to deal with the visual search. 

To ensure that your pins show up in suggestions, you need to ensure that you’re uploading high-quality pictures. You should also ensure that the pictures you upload are vertical. Ideally, most established brands stick to 1000x1500px for each pin.

Apart from the picture quality, adding keywords to your pictures can also help boost your visibility. This includes adding keywords as text overlays to help with engagement.

Generally, to stand out, you will need to build your online presence. This means sticking to a specific type of pin and color scheme. When you’re uploading your pins, add some unique and personal touches so users know that they’re looking at your content. While it’s good to experiment, messing around too much with your content type can make it harder for people to find your pins.

Finally, when you’re trying to widen your reach, you should also focus on posting accessible content. This can be done by adding descriptive file names/alt text. This helps show your content to people with visual disabilities.

Using Hashtags Properly

While hashtags aren’t as important on Pinterest as they are on Instagram, that doesn’t mean you should completely forget about them. Hashtags can help categorize your content, which is great for your content, especially your pin boards.

Using around 2-5 relevant hashtags in your Pin descriptions can help improve your reach. Similarly, you can tag relevant products using Pinterest’s built-in tagging feature.

Using Pinterest Analytics and Targeted Ads

Tracking the performance of your marketing tactics is crucial if you want to know how well you’re doing. Understanding analytics can help you improve your content strategies so you know what needs to be worked on.

The Key Metrics

Pinterest Analytics comes with a wide range of performance indicators that’ll tell you how your marketing strategy is going. These include:

• Impressions: This refers to the times your pin shows up in someone’s feed. If they come across it twice, this counts as two impressions.
• Repins: The saves of Pinterest. It tells you how many people have saved your pins.
• Outbound Clicks: It counts how many people have gone to your website through your rich pins.
• Engagement Rate: It tells you the percentage of interactions that you get after someone views your content.
• Top Performing Pins: It highlights which of your pins are generating the most engagements and saves. This helps you make similar content in the future.

Using Targeted Ads

For brands looking to widen visibility, Pinterest Ads can be a very useful feature.

Unlike Instagram or Facebook Ads, Pinterest doesn’t block your feed while you're scrolling. Instead, it blends into the feed, and that makes the ads look more natural.

Types of Pinterest Ads

• Promoted Pins: These are normal pins that are shown higher in search results and home feeds, and are the best for improving brand awareness.
• Carousel Ads: They allow brands to add multiple pictures into one pin. These are best for storytelling ideas. 
• Shopping Ads: These are your usual product promotion ads, and are best for showcasing products directly from your website.
• Video Ads: These are short video form content that’s meant to capture the user’s attention.

Even with a small budget, brands can effectively use Pinterest Ads to their advantage. Start off with a low cost campaign to test out features. Through this, you’ll also see which ads fit your content the best. You can use the trial run to refine your ad strategy.

The Bottom Line

For small brands, Pinterest brings something that’s very rare when it comes to social media. It brings a platform where your content doesn’t just disappear into the background after some time. It brings a platform where businesses can bring in engagement on months-old posts.

Brands won’t just be successful by posting their pins consistently. Instead, it’s all about working smarter. By starting off with a well-optimized profile and creative pin designs, brands can transform their accounts into strong discovery sections. By adding a bit of SEO research and experimenting with targeted ads, they’ll also be able to target wider audiences.

The best part?

It’s all done without needing a huge follower base or large budget. Small businesses can take the time to experiment and track their pins’ performances to improve their marketing tactics into a more steady stream of new followers and potential customers.

So, go ahead and pin with intention and watch your businesses grow!