What Is Pinterest? [Why You Should Use It] 2022

When I want to connect with my family and friends, my go-to social media platform is Facebook.

I often share status updates, photos, check-ins, etc on this platform; however, I noticed that more and more people use Pinterest to share their photos, ideas, likes, and interests (pins).

They spend lots of time pinning, sharing, clicking, and viewing the content on Pinterest.

But…

What Is Pinterest?

In short, Pinterest is a visual social media platform. Users can share and discover new interests by posting (pinning) images, videos etc. They can pin to their boards or find and share from other Pinterest member’s boards.

I find Pinterest fascinating as it is a site that is comprised almost exclusively of images.

That is why when you first land on the site, you might be confused at all the images you’ll see. I know I was.

As more and more people I know started hanging out on Pinterest, I started to feel left out, so I decided to finally create a Pinterest account to experience firsthand what all the praise and love for Pinterest was all about.

In this blog post, I will detail my personal experience with Pinterest.

I’ll share with you what I like, observed, how it works, what makes it unique from other social media platforms, and how it can be used for fun or as a social media marketing tool.

Note: If you want to get right to the marketing strategies using Pinterest check out my article How To Schedule Pins On Pinterest For Free [Tailwind]

How does Pinterest work?

Pinterest is a visual social media platform.

On Pinterest users can share and discover new interests by posting (also called pinning) images, or videos to their own or other users’ boards (i.e. a collection of ‘pins,’ usually with a common theme) and browse through other users’ pins.

Just like all other social media platforms, when you log into your account, you can immediately like other users’ pins or pin your own post.

The concept of this social media platform is focused on a person’s lifestyle. The site uses a visual orientation and allows you to share your tastes and interests with others.

Recently the site has even added a feature called the “Pinterest Lens” to their app. With this new feature, you can easily discover ideas about anything you point your Pinterest camera at.

To be able to use the “Lens” you must simply:

• Open the Pinterest app on your mobile device
• Tap on the “search bar”
• tap on a specific object so it can focus on your camera
• Tap on the button to snap a picture or choose a photo from your camera roll
• Discover and explore ideas

This “Lens” feature is a great addition in the Pinterest app.

Pinterest stated that their goal is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.”

Pinterest allows its users to either upload an image from their device or use the pinterest bookmarklet to pin things they find on the web.

While Pinterest is a visual platform, it still has many similar functions to other social networks, such as leaving likes and comments on other users’ boards, following friends, sharing other people’s pins to other social media platforms, repining content to their own boards, run searches and embed individual pins on their website or blog.

In 2013 Pinterest experienced an incredible surge in growth – surpassing even email as a sharing medium.

This growth also resulted in Pinterest outpacing Facebook (which was surprising as no one would even think that to be possible).

As of 2020 Pinterest amassed a user count of 320 million monthly active users worldwide. Today the Pinterest demographics consist of 40% male.

Pinterest is also the third-largest social network on the internet.

In its early days, Pinterest attracted mostly women who were interested in the arts like decorating, fashion, cooking, decorating, gardening, etc.

But as the interests expanded, the site diversified its user base to all genders and age groups.

Nowadays there are boards for literally everything on Pinterest – even boards for things I find interesting such as cars, men’s fashions, fitness, etc. so you can probably find an image from virtually any category you can imagine.

What Is Pinterest Used For?

Interestingly, a new report from online content distribution services stated that Pinterest is now the fastest-growing media platform for online content sharing.

The report evaluated the millions (currently billion-plus) of monthly shares that were made in the third quarter of 2013 via 120 plus social media channels.

From this evaluation it was discovered that content sharing on Pinterest skyrocketed 19.2% in the latest quarter of 2013.

The same report also claimed that content sharing on LinkedIn grew 15.1%. Facebook saw content sharing rise 14.7% while sharing on Twitter fell 7.6%.

With this new data businesses are reminded to expand beyond the established social media channels when managing their social media outreach.

CEO Kurt Abrahamson stated in a release: “The more advertisers understand how consumers are using all social channels — beyond Facebook and Twitter — the more effectively they can use social media to augment and improve ads, and campaigns,”.

The surge in Pinterest users offers a great advantage to businesses and shopping websites to market their products and services to new Pinterest users.

This allows them to grow their consumer base as part of their marketing program, and steadily increase their profits.

As a highly visual medium, Pinterest, give businesses to share appealing graphics to engage customers.

With Colorful infographics, and visual media, that promotes deals, new products businesses can produce quality sales and traffic to their websites.

In addition, with Pinterest, it is easy to pin pictures of employees! By doing this, businesses are putting a face to a name and customer so customers can identify with people who work at the company.

Small business owners can also add “share” buttons to every page of their websites to facilitate conversations about their brands online.

The share buttons make it easy for visitors to share the content that they like through a specific Pinterest board, which adds to your website’s user experience.

It is safe to say that Pinterest can help businesses create brand awareness and possibly facilitate website leads.

However, while Pinterest is helpful, search engines can provide better ROI and direct conversion of website visitors into customers.

How to Make Pinterest Work for your Business

If you’re looking for some proven Pinterest brand marketing strategies, then you’re in the right place.

Pinterest users are relatively good consumers as 50% of people who see an item promoted on Pinterest, make a purchase!

This is great for new business owners as it means that with even one image on Pinterest they can already make some sales.

This is why as a new business owner; Pinterest is worth investing your time and effort in. Without further ado, let’s check these strategies out.

Set Up a Pinterest Business Account

The first step towards Pinterest’s success is by setting up a Pinterest business account.

It is crucial to not just set up the account but to also make sure that it is done in such a way that it reflects the voice and aesthetics of your brand.

Pro Tip: Fill your bio with numerous keywords while reflecting your company’s voice.

Branding Your Account

Make sure to also add a board cover to your profile. Board covers make your account more cohesive with your brand and are therefore a must.

Furthermore, you’ll also have to use search-friendly board titles that are short but often searched. Make sure to insert important information, keywords, and hashtags in the board’s information section.

Pro Tip: Put as many useful hashtags in your description. Hashtags give an idea of the products or services your target market is looking for. You can use the info you’ve gathered about your target market to create more targeted hashtags.

Optimize Your Website Images

Make sure that your website visitors find it super easy to save an image from your web pages onto their Pinterest boards.

If this process is easy, you’ll be guaranteed to have more people share images from your home page or website. You can make this process easy by installing Pinterest’s ‘Save Button’.

This allows users to easily, with just a few simple clicks save your image to their Pinterest account.

Rich Pins

If you are using Pinterest to market an e-commerce store, make sure to use rich pins as these pins display pricing info.

Rich Pins for e-commerce stores are the equivalent to ‘article pins’ for blogs as these are just great for driving traffic.

Top Tip: Use scaled vertical images with at least a 600-pixel width and an aspect ratio of either 2:3 or 1:3.5. The below image is 1000-pixel with by 2000 pixel length (2:3).

Handy Hack: If you’re finding it difficult to create Pinterest-friendly images, use Canva. Canva is free and offers numerous pre-made templates that can be used for Pinterest.

You can even take it a step further by syncing your online store with your Pinterest account. By doing this, you give users the opportunity to save your pin, “Add to bag” and pay for your products on Pinterest itself.

Apply for Rich Pins

Now that you know how important Rich Pins are, I think it is fair to assume that you would like to know how to use them. First of all, you can only use rich pins on a validated site. This means that you will have to apply to get your site validated.

Here’s how the validation process goes:

• Pinterest code on site: The first step of this process is to add the Pinterest code to your site. Use the Yoast plugin to do so. Yoast SEO adds a Pinterest meta tag and the option to copy and paste the necessary code from Pinterest.
• This gives Pinterest permission to review the legitimacy of your site.
• Next you’ll need to validate your site on Pinterest with the Pinterest validation tool. This gives you a preview of your pin and the opportunity to apply for rich pins. If the application is successful, Pinterest will send you an email notifying you that your Rich Pins have been enabled.

The verification process duration can last up to seven days, so don’t worry if you receive an email immediately. Applying for rich pins, but most importantly it is worth doing as rich pins will surely boost engagement.

Stay Active

Now that you have everything you needed and your profile is up and running you need to stay active on Pinterest.

It is important to constantly upload fresh content to your profile and assess what users are searching for.

By doing so you can offer your audience content that relates to them and their needs.

Pro Tip: To stand out and build a strong brand, try to pin at least five times per day. You don’t have to do this manually. You can do this with a scheduling tool like Buffer.

Handy Hack: Do not pin all your activity at the same time, rather space your content out. Pinning content at different times throughout the day increases your chances to engage with your audience.

When I stay “stay active” I also mean that you must constantly evaluate your current strategies and their effectiveness. You can use Pinterest analytics to do so and what your most popular pins are. That way you’ll know what kind of content to replicate.

Note: Pinterest is very strick when it comes to spam – they will suspend, even cancel your account, so make sure you pin according to their requirements. To make sure you don’t get into trouble, I’ve written an article that shows you how to maximize your pins WITHOUT getting banned – How Often Should You Pin On Pinterest?

Other Pinterest Things You Can Do

Pinterest offers a wealth of opportunities to expand your reach. Here are a couple of highly effective things that you can do to maximize your efforts:

• Categorize your boards: By doing this, users can find your pins a lot easier. Another benefit is that it can result in increased engagement and you can attain some loyal followers.
• Find popular group boards. Create more brand awareness by contributing to popular group boards. You can use a resource like PinGroupie to find these boards.
• Boost brand recognition: You can boost brand recognition by simply adding your logo to the bottom of all your images.

Note: Pinterest has begun to place less value on group boards but there’s good news – Tailwind “Communities” is a much better option. Find out how to use it in my article; How To Schedule Pins On Pinterest For Free [Tailwind]

Final Words

Pinterest is a great way to create brand awareness and get new customers. Use these tips to help improve your Pinterest branding and boosts your conversions!

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PLEASE “bookmark”, “like” and “share”. It helps a lot.

Thanks!