MeetEdgar is now an official Pinterest Marketing Partner and you can now schedule Pinterest Pins with Edgar. To celebrate this partnership, we hosted Pinterest Program Manager, Margot Chock for a webinar all about the basics of Pinterest and how you should build your Pinterest strategy for success. Watch the full webinar or read the recap below!
Megan from MeetEdgar: Hello MeetEdgar community. I am so excited that you’re joining us today for our Pinterest basics webinar. We’re really lucky to be Pinterest partners here at MeetEdgar, because that means we get to bring awesome guests like Margot, right to our MeetEdgar community. So you can get straight from the Pinterest source, how best to use Pinterest as a content creator.
Margot from Pinterest: I’m Margot, I’m the program manager for our strategic partnerships team at Pinterest and super excited to dive into some basics on Pinterest and just get to know you all a bit better and hopefully leave you with some good, helpful tips.
I’m Margot, Pinterest Program Manager, and I’m really excited to talk to you today about creating on Pinterest and how you can find success. In this presentation, we’ll be focusing mostly on the foundations of your Pinterest strategy and building a strong presence.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is the visual discovery engine. Our mission is not to keep you glued to a screen, but rather quite the opposite. We want to bring you the inspiration to create a life you love. And then we want you to go out and actually live it. So we actually see that 95% of Pinners state Pinterest inspires them and gives them ideas for their life and 91% state that Pinterest helps them achieve their goals. So, how do we go about doing that?
Well, we’ve built it into our core premise of being a visual discovery engine, meaning the way we distribute content is not exclusively chronological, but rather our content is surfaced when it’s relevant and it’s based on users’ interests, engagement, and searches. This leads to a highly personalized and curated experience and also means that our content is evergreen, and will continue to perform for you over time. Your content will continue to be there at when Pinners are searching for it and need it the most.
And the power of visual discovery shouldn’t be overlooked because when we think about how people retain and store information, it’s really impactful. We actually tend to retain 10% of what we hear, 20% of what we read, and 80% of what we see and do. On Pinterest your content is sought after by Pinners in a unique mindset. And that mindset is what we believe sets us apart from other platforms. Pinners are recorded to feel especially positive and optimistic when using Pinterest. They’re open-minded and they’re willing to try new things. For brands and marketers, such as yourselves, this mindset is incredibly valuable because it allows you to build a trusted brand voice.
So, let’s dive into a little bit about how Pinterest works. First, off you should know that at Pinterest, we see every business, every brand, every self-starter as a content creator. Without amazing content creators, such as yourselves, we wouldn’t have Pinterest. You really are the core of our platform, and the reason many Pinners are looking for inspiration, but so I don’t create some confusion, I’ll try to refer to you all as brands from here on out.
To get started, just want to walk you through our various surfaces where your pins can get discovered.
- Home feed – A Pinners home feed is a curation just for them. This is based on what they’ve saved, searched for engaged with, and more it’s also where they’ll discover content from creators that they follow because Pinners come with intent.
- Search – Pinners often use our search as well for ideas and inspiration. So this is another valuable placement for your Pins and presents the perfect opportunity for brands to be discovered by a potentially new audience.
- Related Pins – This is a really cool surface that brings another opportunity for discovery. So, if a Pinner is engaging with a Pin, they can scroll down to see similar ideas and visuals, and essentially it’s more riffs on that idea.
- Today Tab – This is a daily curation of relevant and trending content featuring spotlights from inspirational creators. And this is the first thing users see when they tap over from their personalized home feeds.
Great content keeps on giving, so remember that the more people engage with your content, the more it appears across Pinterest and while followers on other platforms can be the ceiling of your content distribution, on Pinterest, we see it as the floor where the content we’ll likely see many more impressions over its life span.
Pinterest Pin Formats
There are a few primary formats when creating for Pinterest.
- Standard Pins -This is the bread and butter of Pinterest. You’re probably very, very familiar with it. They are great for single images and can link out to websites or domains. We highly recommend keeping a 2:3 aspect ratio. This longer sort of vertical format and this ensures that your content can take up the best amount of space within our feeds.
- Video Pins – Video Pins stand out in feed and they’re great for driving awareness for your brand. It’s great for catching that attention and for building a native audience on Pinterest.
- Story Pins – We’re really excited to bring story Pins to creators, which enables them to publish right on Pinterest. This includes the capabilities of adding text, overlay music, step-by-step instructionals, and much more. They are multi-page formats, so you can feature videos and images, and we really see them as being perfect for all types of content, whether it’s food, fashion, DIY, travel, tips, and tricks, you name it. Story pins right now are currently in beta, but keep your eye out as this format develops. You are able to request access for story Pins here.
Pinterest Myths – Busted
There are probably a lot of assumptions you have when thinking about Pinterest and creating your Pinterest strategy and don’t worry, I did too, when I first joined, but I quickly learned that Pinterest has really grown over the years.
Myth Number One: Pinners come to get inspiration and don’t take action.
At Pinterest, we do see ourselves as the world’s inspiration company. So 50% of the statement is true. Pinners do come to Pinterest to get inspired, but they are also taking action. Pinners are people who buy so 89% of weekly Pinners use Pinterest for inspiration in their paths to purchase.
In fact, we’ve also seen that 83% of Pinners have actually made a purchase based on content they saw from brands on Pinterest. Now, on other platforms, it’s all about what you’ve done or what you’re doing currently, whereas on Pinterest, we’re likely thinking about a future state. This is one of those fundamental differences core to our mission. And it presents a significant opportunity for brands because you’re able to speak to our audience before they’ve made up their minds on what they need to do or what they want to purchase.
Myth Number 2: Pinterest is just a social network.
We’re here to inspire you to be more productive and browse possibilities rather than search for specific information or even seek social validation. To put it another way, Pinterest is personal media, not social. And that’s because it’s about your personal interests. You’re focused on yourself and not your selfie. You’re not fishing for likes or scrolling endlessly through someone else’s vacation photos. You’re trying to figure out how to make your life a little bit better. We really strive to maintain a positive corner on the internet.
Myth Number Three: My audience is not on Pinterest
I’m sure when you think of Pinterest, you immediately think of a platform for women planning their wedding, arts and crafts, DIY’s, and while we are still strong in those areas, we actually touch on a multitude of different verticals and we aren’t just for women.
Our audience includes:
- 80% of US moms
- One in two millennials
- 76% of millennial women
- 40% of millennial men
- One in three of our US dads,
- Millions of Pinners seeking content related to travel or health or diet and nutrition.
We now reach actually over 416 million monthly users worldwide and that equates to about 240 billion pins saved and over 5 billion boards created. Your audience is most likely here and they’re open to hearing your branded message. And they’re not just coming to Pinterest for big life moments. They’re also coming for those daily decisions and seasonal celebrations. There are actually dozens of moments throughout the day. As you think about, what am I going to paint my nails? Can I create a cute new face mask or even what am I going to have for dinner? These are all ways that people are engaging on Pinterest.
And that journey to bringing a moment to life isn’t linear. There are so many opportunities to influence those decisions. After that first flash of inspiration from a pin comes the planning, which involves creating some boards, maybe adding some collaborators, saving some pins to those boards, and then ultimately deciding on what to do and what you want to buy.
Inspiration can strike at any time throughout the year. We do also see some patterns when it comes to planning for specific moments. These are looking at those tent pole moments. This one specifically is focused on the US but we do have different versions internationally. There are about 27 different moments that happen throughout the year and the time in which Pinners are searching and planning for these moments, usually start earlier and last a lot longer than you may see on other platforms.
So, if you look at Thanksgiving for instance, which is that third row up from the bottom, you’ll see that Pinners start collecting information all the way in July. Pinners have been already looking for Thanksgiving inspiration for a while now, and that is five months ahead of the event. What that means for you and your Pinterest strategy is that your content has a longer shelf life and a slower burn.
Here’s a look at some upcoming major moments. Pinterest searches for ideas related to seasonal moments, the line in blue starts earlier and last longer when compared to the leading search engine, which is the line in black. If Pinners are showing up earlier, brands also need to show up earlier on Pinterest. And again, that’s really how you influence the decisions and all those purchasing and planning main around moments.
Best Practices for Your Pinterest Strategy
Pinterest is for brands. Your content is what Pinners are looking for. And it’s not just to find inspiration, but it’s to inspire others. We want brands to publish native content and build for your specific audience and mindset on our platform. Aim to create quality content regularly with your Pinterest strategy and engage with your audience when you can.
There are three primary things to consider, to find success.
- Create fresh content regularly.
- Optimize for discovery when developing that content.
- Engage with your audience and again, publish native content to drive awareness.
We really want to bring Pinners new ideas daily. And what we mean is that we want you to focus on sharing new recipes, life hacks, or workout routines, as opposed to focusing on repinning existing content. This is because Pinners are planning for relevant moments and trends. They really engage with those types of content. So take this opportunity to inspire them, to try something new. For example, Halloween this year is certainly going to look a lot different than last year. So think about how you can inject some fun, and re-energize your ideas and present something timely and relevant to your audience.
Another helpful tip for designing on Pinterest is to add text overlay to your pins. Texts will ensure that your content is easily discoverable and that Pinners know what they’re getting.
For standard pins and video pins, titles, and descriptions are also key to helping surface your content across Pinterest. Ensure that your content is concise, it’s relevant and we recommend pin descriptions that are about one to two sentences.
Write these as you would for any human, don’t load them with too many keywords. We really want Pinners to find helpful information out of your pins and descriptions, and also a tasteful logo on your pins can help build your brand presence and establish yourself on our platform. Usually, we see successful pins feature a logo in the bottom or top corners of their content.
Don’t forget about your boards! Boards help you organize your content and it gives it a broader context and purpose. Board names, descriptions categories, all of those elements impact how your content shows up on Pinterest search results. Use clear descriptive language in your board titles and descriptions. Then you can also add collaborators to turn any board into a group board. We recommend using that feature for inspiration, planning, and partnerships.
Brand Basics and Account Set-Up
The first step for building on Pinterest is to actually create a business account. You can either convert your personal account to a business account, or you can create a linked business account, but this will help unlock special features such as advanced analytics as well as a few other profile features.
The second is to update your information. When you create that business account, make sure that the business name is correct, your business type is accurate, and also dropping your website if you have one. Your website is going to be displayed on your profile and that’ll make sure that we are driving traffic directly to your site for any of the content that you’re publishing. You can customize your profile with descriptions, photos, and boards that really represent your brand. There’s also a follow button. So Pinners will be able to stay engaged with your ideas as they’re posted.
The next tip is to claim your accounts, which includes things like your Instagram account, YouTube, Etsy pages, anything like that. You can edit these settings in your profile settings, and it’s important to claim these because this helps build your brand presence. Your profile picture will actually appear next to any pins that links out to these claimed accounts. And that’s so that you can get the distinction you deserve when your content is added to Pinterest. And if you find it difficult to create pins or need a bit of help with just some layouts, we also have a few creative tool partners we work with that give you some best practice layouts. That can be a great start.
How to Measure Success
We’re excited to launch some real-time reactions, which you may have noticed, and this is available on video pins, as well as the story pins. And you can use this feedback to know what your audience is loving, where you can optimize, and just get some real-time engagement from them.
Comments and tries are also really helpful and great to monitor. This is where Pinners may give feedback. They may ask questions or they may upload a photo of how they’ve actually tried to create your idea.
Pin stats are also great. So this is stats for specific pins, and they’re only visible to you, as long as you have a business account. This delivers insights that will help you create more high performing pins. This includes information such as impressions, link clicks, follows profile visits so you can see what’s really driving the most engagement with Pinners.
We also have Pinterest analytics. This is helpful because you can see which pins people like as well as what they save from your other channels. So you can actually view not only pins that you publish, but also pins that other people are publishing that links to any of your claimed accounts. And this can be really insightful for you to learn what people resonate with, what they’re engaging with, what they want to see more of. It really helps you learn what your audience wants.
Then, we have audience insights. You can access this through a business manager under the analytics tab, but this tells you what else your Pinners are engaging with on our platform. It’s a snapshot of your audience over the last 30 days. And it varies from brand to brand. You can look at your audience insights to see what interests your audience has and use it to build out new pins. For example, if you’re a travel blogger, and you look at your audience insights and notice that people are also interested in health and nutrition, then maybe you create content on how to maintain a healthy diet while traveling abroad. And those are just some ways to iterate on the learnings that you find through this tool.
Lastly, we have our trends tool, and I love this, and encourage you all to check it out. You can get to this page by going to trends.pinterest.com or you can also now access it directly through your business manager on Pinterest, but essentially it’s a self-service tool for any creator or business to plan. It helps you make a Pinterest strategy by exploring the top Pin, the top trending terms on Pinterest, and understanding the seasonality behind them. So we will highlight what we see trending on our platform. And then you’ll also see these really helpful graphs for you to understand when it’s peaking, and then when it sort of downtrends.
Then I’d just like to sort of call out some of the key metrics that we really like to focus on with Pinterest:
- Monthly Viewers: These are the viewers attached to your profile. And again, this is really interesting because it’s based on your content, and it’s a bit different than just looking at your follower counts, which are people who are only opting into your content, monthly viewers include all of your distribution.
- Impressions: This is how many times your Pin was seen on Pinterest
- Close-ups: This tells you how many people are considering doing more with your idea by tapping your Pin to take a closer look.
- Link clicks: The total number of times people have clocked on your Pin to a destination.
- Saves: How many times they’re saving your pins.
- Save to these boards: This shows the most recent boards that your pin has been saved to. And this is only available for people who have created public boards that they’re saving pins to.
These are all super helpful to just have a better understanding of what Pinners are engaging with, what successful, what types of themes are really popping up. And so hopefully it can help inform the type of new content that you’re creating and building your Pinterest strategy.
So our top takeaways are that, there are over 416 million people on Pinterest and they’re looking for content and your audience is here and they want to hear from you. Your content is what they’re here for. You can use Pinterest to engage with new audiences and build a new following. And you do that by creating fresh ideas on Pinterest.
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