E-Marketing

Pinterest is an online pinboard, where users categorize and share images. Unlike other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, you can't publish any content unless an image is involved.

Personal vs Business accounts

Although business accounts look very similar to personal accounts, there are 5 main differences:

1. To create a business account, you need to follow the prompts on this URL https://business.pinterest.com, whereas to create a personal Pinterest account you need to follow the prompts on this URL: https://www.pinterest.com.
2. To create a business account, you need to agree to the business-specific terms of service.
3. With a business account, you can name your account your brand or business name. So instead of naming your account your first and last name, you name your account the name of your business.
4. You'll be able to access analytics to give you insights about your audience and your performance on Pinterest with a Pinterest business account.
5. A business account allows you to create "rich pins", also known as "super pins" or "enhanced pins".

Rich Pins are Pins that include additional information on the Pin itself. There are 6 types of Rich Pins: app, film, recipe, article, product and place.

Should you have already created a personal Pinterest account, you can easily switch to a business account by going to https://business.pinterest.com and clicking on "convert now".

Here's an example of an appealing Pinterest business profile:

Terminology

Like any other social network, Pinterest uses its own jargon. So before you start using Pinterest, you'll need to know the following terms:

Pins are Images published on Pinterest (the equivalent of a social media post)

Boards are Folders on Pinterest to categorize pins

A Pinner is A Pinterest user

To Repin is The act of sharing someone else's pin with your Pinterest followers by publishing it in one of your Pinterest boards

Followers are The Pinterest users who are subscribed to your account and are able to see your pins in their newsfeed

Following are The Pinterest users you subscribe to, to see their pins in your newsfeed.

Feeds are What you see when you login to Pinterest. All the latest pins from the people you follow.

Once you're familiar with Pinterest terminology, you're ready to open an account and start using Pinterest effectively.


First, make sure you have a business account. It's free to sign up, and you'll get access to tools like Analytics and a special Business Profile. You'll also get more control over things like branding and content attribution. You can sign up for a new account or upgrade your existing personal account to use business features.

Make sure that you write a keyword-rich bio, underlining who you are as a business and how you help people. Add a profile picture, which can be your business logo if you are not the face of the brand or it can be a headshot of you. Then, add a URL where you want to point your followers to. It could be your blog, or your website, etc...



The next step when using Pinterest for business is to start adding content to your account. Start by creating boards with keyword-rich titles. Make sure you also select a category for each Pinterest board to help people find them and for Pinterest to recommend your Pinterest board. Your boards should be aligned with your topic and be of interest to your target audience.

Fill your boards with original and relevant pins. Pinterest is not an online catalogue for your products. Instead, it's a place where people look for and share unique and interesting images, so pin both images of your own (fresh content) as well as repinning others.


Lastly, when using Pinterest for business, you'll want to build your audience. To grow your Pinterest followers, a good habit to adopt is following people so a percentage of them follow you back. Follow up-to 100 people a day. This should get you an additional 20 followers if not more, a day. Another way to get noticed is by engaging regularly with other pinners' content, who attract a similar audience as yours. You can engage by liking their pins, sharing them and more importantly, by leaving interesting comments.

Summary

• Open a business profile.
• Add content - pin both images of your own (fresh content) as well as repinning others.
• Build your audience by following people and engaging with other pinners' content