Best Practices for Sharing Content on Pinterest

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Video Transcript | Intro

Pinterest is a social network where individuals and brands can build visual collections, called boards, around different themes and topics. The content you share via your Pinterest boards can include images of your products, helpful visual guides to DIY projects, or photography centered around topics such as travel and food. This content can lead individuals back to your website and is an effective way to get people familiar with your brand using a visual medium.

How It Works

Pinterest users have the option to follow your company profile, your select boards or both. When creating boards, it’s a best practice to stick to one topic per board - for example, if you’re a wedding planner create separate boards for aisle decor, wedding shoe ideas, centerpiece styling, and dress inspiration.

Portrait-oriented pins display better in the Pinterest feed and on mobile devices, which is where most Pinterest activity occurs. Keep this in mind when you’re creating original content and repinning curated images. Videos don’t display well, but high-resolution infographics and images with text overlay can be used successfully. To help increase the visibility of your pins on Pinterest search, write descriptions for your Pins that include keywords and provide context for what you’re sharing.

Analytics

Pinterest Analytics provides useful information about which of your pins are most popular, what topics your audience finds interesting and what’s being pinned from your website. When you identify hot topics, keep adding content to your relevant boards and build more boards around similar themes. To gain access to Pinterest Analytics, visit your account settings and follow the steps to verify your website.

Your pinning activity shows up in the streams of your followers. Just as you wouldn’t tweet 30 times in 40 minutes, don’t pin new content in large chunks. Instead, plan to space out your pinning in regular intervals throughout the week in your content calendar.

Rich Pins

Rich Pins are enhanced pins that automatically include supporting information about your content. For example, a product pin will pull the most up to date pricing information from your website and will include your business name and logo under the image, giving your brand more visibility in the Pinterest feed.  This enhanced feature is well worth exploring but does require some technical know-how. Head to Pinterest for more information.  

Summary

To summarize, build your boards around separate central themes and use portrait-oriented images whenever possible. Write creative Pin descriptions that incorporate keywords to increase the chances of your pins being found via search.  Study your analytics to gain an understanding of your audience and the topics they find interesting. Tag original content creators when curating content and utilize Rich Pins to provide a high value, informative experience to your followers.

Looking for the best tools for scheduling and publishing to your Pinterest accounts? Checkout how Hootsuite helps you manage your content on Pinterest and other social networks!