For many marketers, Pinterest may seem like too much of a niche social media platform to consider using. However, this app has come a long way since its early days of simply being a place for users to save content to their own Pinterest boards.
With robust ad options, new shoppable features, and an easy-to-use interface, Pinterest has, in recent years, become a more effective place for digital marketers to share content.
Similar to our previous Instagram and LinkedIn articles, we’ll outline three reasons why your business should consider using Pinterest in 2021. From increasing awareness to creating your own virtual storefront, keep reading to learn how Pinterest can benefit your brand.
Why your business should use Pinterest in 2021
Build awareness on Pinterest
Use Pinterest as a virtual storefront
Create more engaging Pinterest ads
1. Pinterest search trends are effective for getting your brand discovered
On Pinterest, posts (or “pins” as it’s referred to on the platform) can be saved to a user’s board. Pinterest users take a more active role on this app since they carefully analyze and save pins if the content suits their needs. With that in mind, it’s no wonder why Pinterest search trends can provide marketers with deep insight into what audiences are looking for.
On a platform like Twitter or Instagram, users might take a more passive role as they scroll through their feed. By tapping into Pinterest, marketers can engage with a user base that is more active about what type of content they want to engage with.
For instance, one of the most popular trends users searched for during the 2020 holiday season was “easy Christmas treats.” If your brand sells cookies or other sweets, one strategy would be creating a content series around this theme, such as using this exact copy on the post graphic or using it in the post copy.
What your brand should do on Pinterest in 2021:
- Develop a Pinterest content strategy that makes use of relevant Pinterest keywords and search trends. For 2021, develop a content calendar a few months ahead of time and target other holidays that may be relevant to your brand and its products. You might need to do some guesswork to “predict” what the popular keywords will be, so we recommend looking at other holidays and building from there.
- Update yourself on hashtags. Note that as of late 2020, Pinterest hashtags no longer work the same way it used to. They now function as keywords and are no longer clickable. That being said, our expert tip is to still include a few of them at the end of your post copy, particularly if it targets keywords that aren’t present anywhere else.
2. Pinterest has refined its shoppable storefront
If your brand offers consumer products, Pinterest should be one of the first platforms to consider in 2021. In 2020, one major trend in terms of app updates was that social media is becoming more shoppable. We said the same thing in our previous Instagram article and the same can be said for Pinterest.
The company’s partnership with Shopify in 2020 was a sign of things to come. Pins became shoppable, not only letting users save content to their boards but purchase products in a few simple clicks. One example of a brand using Pinterest as a shoppable storefront is Filson, a clothing and accessories brand with a Pinterest Shop.
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While businesses that offer consumer products may have an easier time using Pinterest to showcase their products, that doesn’t mean B2B brands or businesses that offer services are left out. B2B brands should consider creating educational resources that can appeal to the Pinterest audience. How to’s, recipes, step-by-step guides, and other resources can be valuable to your audience.
What your brand should do on Pinterest in 2021:
- Businesses should make sure they have high-quality product photography ready to go. When creating your storefront on Pinterest, it’s important to show your products in a way that catches your audience’s attention.
- For brands that don’t offer consumer goods and can’t take full advantage of Pinterest’s storefront, consider ways to drive traffic back to your site, such as sharing a link to a case study. Focus on developing a content strategy that identifies your potential customer’s pain points and highlights the services you offer.
3. Capture your target audience’s attention through ads
Similar to Instagram, Pinterest’s content is more visual than other platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn. In some sample case studies, Pinterest found that shopping ads built for awareness delivered 7x the ROAS (return on ad spend), while another brand saw product awareness rise by 25%.
Whether you want to develop a Pinterest marketing campaign to boost awareness, drive conversions, or increase offline sales, this channel has proven to be a cost-effective platform for many digital marketers. One study found that Pinterest was 2.3 times more efficient when looking at cost per conversion ads compared to other social media platforms.
Because Pinterest is such a visual platform, you can expect its ad options and formats to emphasize images and video while looking similar to organic content. With video and carousel ads, digital marketers can really get creative when delivering brand messaging. The Shopping ads let users convert product pins into ads, making them even more convenient to create.
What your brand should do on Pinterest in 2021:
- Review Pinterest’s best practices. This provides a general overview of what to look out for when developing your marketing campaign. Of course, if you want to take optimization a step further, look to social media marketing experts that are knowledgeable in ad creatives and audience targeting parameters.
- Dig deep into your brand and the product or service you’re creating ads for. Social media ads help tell your brand story in an authentic way to an engaged audience. Certain ad formats will have restrictions on the images or videos you can create. Consider ways to tell your brand story that immediately captures the viewer’s attention.
If you missed our previous article, click here to learn why your brand needs to be on Facebook in 2021. Be sure to check back every other Monday to read the rest of this mini-series, which will feature other social media platforms, like Twitter and Snapchat.
Speaking of social media advertising, have you heard of FitVine Wine? After experiencing a decline in its paid social media program, they partnered with our team to turn performance around.
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