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A Twitter User’s Intro to Pinterest

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A Twitter User's Intro to Pinterest - Twitter Smarter chat with Alisa Meredith on August 1, 2019

Our community members are excellent Twitter users. They know how to make use of their time online, participating in Twitter chats, sharing ideas, having fun, all the while learning exceptional tips and tricks from the best in the business.

But, Pinterest?

It’s that pinkish gleam that catches anyone’s eye even if only a small tab among ten others. Most of us use Pinterest for our personal interests—to find recipes, DIY home decor, tile styles, furniture, fashion ideas, and such. However, the platform offers much more than what you see right away. We were curious, so we asked Pinterest expert, social media consultant, and the author of How to use Pinterest Promoted Pins to Increase Traffic, Leads, and Sales to walk us through some of the less-known elements of Pinterest. We invited Alisa Meredith, the all-rounder.

Here’s a summary of our chat.

Topic: A Twitter User’s Intro to Pinterest
Guest: Alisa Meredith
Format: Eight questions directed to the guest. Everyone’s welcome to share.

Q1: Who should use Pinterest?

When you look at Pinterest, you see boards upon boards of images, quotes, and videos that catch your eye. Imagery that makes you want to save so you can return to it afterwards. That’s what Pinterest is all about—a place to discover content you want to keep. According to our guest, even though Pinterest has certain features that promote interaction between users, it was never meant to be a social platform. Instead, it’s for everyday things we cherish. Travel, beauty, fashion, and home decor are some of the most popular industries that thrive on Pinterest.

Best thing, though: it’s so versatile that anyone can make it work for them, if they put in some effort.

Most importantly, as Rhianna from Olesco pointed out, make sure your intended audience is on Pinterest. If they are, then you can easily link up all your visual content and blog posts, generating genuine traffic year round.

Q2: What’s the best use for Pinterest?

To put it in simple words, the best use of Pinterest is showcasing. Because the platform is intended for visual grandeur, you can use it to introduce products, ideas, and anything else you can photograph or capture in an infographic. Every post you pin will generate immense traffic back to your website, boosting your reach and contacts.

It’s also an ideal way to create clicks on evergreen content on your website, as Maura said. Since pins don’t stale and search is the primary way of engaging on Pinterest, you’ll see hits months or even years afterwards.

Of course, like Gaby from Bentley University pointed out, there’re many other great uses as well. Consider Pinterest a way to build brand recognition—create images that establish your tone and style, observe how others use the platform. If you watch long enough and carefully enough, you’ll notice that some types of content surface again and again—like a Mac and cheese recipe. These insights are invaluable in identifying trends in your industry.

Q3: Is Pinterest a standalone platform, or should you combine it with another?

This is a trick question.

Even though Pinterest works well as a standalone platform, more often than not, we combine it with other apps to leverage its potential.

Like Instagram, Alisa mentioned. You can use Pinterest for brand awareness and product discovery and pair with Instagram to showcase yourself as an individual and the others involved in your business. It’s an excellent way to combine business and the humans behind it.

Gigi made an excellent point: Pinterest is wonderful to find new products, but it doesn’t have a way to purchase those products. When you combine it with an ecommerce store or a mailing list, you immediately create a sales funnel—a more efficient use of your presence on Pinterest.

As some of our #TwitterSmarter members, you can use integration tools like IFTTT (If This Then That) and Zapier to connect with other apps you use. Or, better yet, like Tim said, use Pinterest data to display retargeting ads to potential buyers.

Q4: How are Twitter users different from Pinterest users?

Twitter is a place for engagement, to share ideas, learn new strategies, make suggestions, and debate opinions. As a social platform, Twitter’s primary motive is to foster conversation. Pinterest, on the other hand, is for inspiration.

People go to Pinterest to relax and feel motivated. As Alisa put it, it’s a happy place for most—they’re not there for serious debates, but instead to treat themselves. Negativity and hatred have no place in Pinterest users’ minds.

 

Our friends from Give had an interesting way of saying it: Pinterest users do silent research, whereas Twitter users voice their ideas in a fast-paced conversational environment. Which makes them, as Taylor mentioned, more tolerant to blocks of text—unlike a Pinterest user.

 

Q5: What are some effective ways to use video on Pinterest?

Ever noticed how videos are always on the top in your feed? Turns out, Pinterest prioritizes videos. However, as our guest suggested, don’t just stick to one format. Try a variety—short form and longer form, try how-tos, courses, or teaser videos for your products and services.

Melissa also shared a good tip: convert blog posts into videos or teasers. And if you have a YouTube channel you regularly update, you can also cut your longer educational videos to create a ton of shorter tips and tricks-like videos for Pinterest.

Q6: How effective are sponsored posts and ads on Pinterest?

When a whopping 50% of surveyors attest their purchases to Pinterest, you know it’s got something worth spending on. That’s why Alisa supports it—she even said she’s seen results from sponsored posts after she’s stopped paying for them. Now that’s a brilliant long-term investment.

 

Also, don’t forget, Pinterest ads meld beautifully with the content. As Taylor put it, because they’re not “in your face,” they’re far less annoying than ads on other platforms like Facebook.

With the audience right there, open to seeing helpful ads, and purchasing as a result, you have hardly a chance of going wrong.

Q7: Share some tips to stand out on Pinterest.

Like most social and online platforms nowadays, Pinterest also loves videos. Even though plenty of people post videos, there’s still a lot of room for you to stand out with video pins. They play automatically and immediately grab the viewers’ eyes in a continuous feed of otherwise static images.

Posting videos is one thing, but another, more important tactic, is using proper SEO practices. Pinterest, though largely image-based, still has a lot of elements you can use to boost discoverability. Try little things like categorizing your pins in appropriate boards, keeping boards publicly accessible, adding complete and meaningful descriptions to your boards and pins, and using relevant titles.

Some other things you can do, as shared by Jake, Justin, and a few others in our community:

  • Follow similar boards and users.
  • Focus on the experience you offer to your audience.
  • Make your profile easily accessible—use the bio section to tell your audience about yourself and what they can expect from your content.
  • Use keywords to your advantage—use them in descriptions to explain what your image is about.
  • Pin your own content as well as other users’.
  • Try variety, and avoid overly-common aspects of Pinterest like cursive text, floral prints, and colours that blend it.
  • Be mindful of image sizes—you don’t want your content cropped.

 

Q8: How important is it to add descriptions to your pins?

We already spoke about the importance of descriptions in the previous question, but it doesn’t stop there.

Firstly, not having a description is a sign of sloppiness. It shows you don’t care enough to explain your content.

Secondly, like Alisa mentioned, a description isn’t just for your audience, but it’s also for Pinterest’s algorithm. Text on your images aren’t searchable, and so to compensate, you need a proper description that can educate the system when and how to display your pins. Most of it might be hidden, but by rearranging the more important parts—like your business name in the title—can help build awareness.

 

The description is also a place to show off your personality, a great idea by our friends from Synthesio. Use it to share why you pinned a post, what it means to you, and how you plan to use the information in it. This will help viewers connect with you as a person and boost your popularity.

That’s all for now, folks. I hope this summary gave you some ideas on how you can use Pinterest in your business. If you’re looking for more insights on this topic, check out this Twitter Moment that Kyle Hetrick put together.

Feel free to hop in on our next chat on Thursday at 1pm ET.

About me, Narmadhaa:

I’m a writer of all things—technical and marketing copy to fill the pocket; haiku and short stories to fill the soul. A social media enthusiast, I’m a member of the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and always happy to take on writing gigs.

Say hello: Personal blog | LinkedIn | Twitter

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