Earlier this year, Pinterest, the social media tool with more than 70 million users (80% of whom are women) released a new account feature made just for businesses like yours. Aside from being a free venue to showcase images of your products, it can drive sales. Pinterest stats from 2014 revealed that 47% of online shoppers had bought something thanks to a Pinterest recommendation; the average order value for Pinterest buyers is nearly $60. Here’s how to get started with the new business feature on Pinterest, and why it may soon become your social media of choice.
Establish A New Business Account
Despite that you may have been using Pinterest as a marketing tools for years, the new feature designed specifically for business requires that you establish a new account. When you create your business profile, Pinterest will ask for your first and last name, but you may want to consider adding your business name. When you establish the account, you’ll also have the option to upload an image that’s representative of your business, which can be a logo, or an image you’re currently using as a background in your other social media profiles.
Verify Your Site
If you use a site-monitoring tool like Google Analytics, you’re already familiar with the process of verifying your site to activate the tracking features that reveal details about your online audience. In much the same way, Pinterest for business allows you verify your site to gain access to Pinterest Analytics. With the tool, you’ll see who “pins” images from your site, what type of images they pin, what type of Pins get the most Repins, and how much of your website traffic derives from Pinterest. Verifying your site on Pinterest may also provide an SEO benefit within Pinterest, to increase the odds that your Pins appear in relevant user searches.
If you have access to your site’s HTML, copy the meta tag code that Pinterest provides into your site’s index.html file for nearly instant verification, or upload an HTML file to your web server at the root folder. (Don’t worry—it’s not as complicated as it sounds!)
Add 'Pin It' Functionality To Your Site
Adding the “Pin It” button to your website allows customers to “pin” images from your site and share it. (Essentially, they’re doing your social media marketing for you!) As the Pin circulates around Pinterest, it gains even more visibility. (Pinterest reports that the average Pin gets 11 Repins.) Ideally, this activity generates traffic back to your site. Though adding the Pin It logo isn’t quite as intuitive as the verification process, it also involves copying and pasting HTML code into your site. There are several YouTube tutorials to guide you through the process specific to your site platform if you’re at a loss for where to begin.
Explore Rich Pins
In addition to the standard “Pin It” button, Pinterest for business now offers Rich Pins, which include more of your site detail than a standard Pin. Currently, there are five Rich Pin types: App, Place, Article, Product, Recipe and Movie. Though Rich Pins are a bit of a process that require you to add custom meta tags on your site and apply for Rich Pin approval with Pinterest, it can deepen the efficacy of your Pinterest activity, and ideally, result in more sales. For example, a “product” Rich Pin will include price, stock status and product description on any product-related Pin that you generate, or that a site visitor creates. Your business information (including logos) will remain with the Rich Pin as circulated on Pinterest. Given that Pins aren’t “supposed” to include any kind of promotional information in them per the Pinterest creative guidelines, preparing your site and applying for the Rich Pin tool could be well worth your effort.
