Category: Pinterest Tips

Pinterest made headlines recently with an announcement that Promoted Pins are now available in the UK, with plans to open up Promoted Pins to other English-speaking markets in the second half of 2016. The past few years have seen a shift towards paid methods of advertising on major social networks like Facebook, Twitter and now Pinterest. According to the company, over 75% of Pins come from business profiles, so the logic is that companies are selling to a ready and willing audience. Given the situation, it’s worth taking a look to see whether Promoted Pins are right for your particular circumstances.

Before You Start Promoting Pins

Promoted Pins are currently only available to US and UK businesses who can target users in Canada, US, and the UK. A Pinterest business account is required to use Promoted Pins. Either set up a new one or convert your existing account here.

Since you can only promote Pins from your profile, make sure to add them before setting up a campaign. The Pin needs to be visible on a public board and can’t be a buyable, video or App Pin.

Once you’re ready, visit ads.pinterest.com to access the Pinterest Ads Manager.

Set up a Pinterest Campaign

The first step is to set up a campaign. Campaigns help organize Promoted Pins for different product lines, seasons and targets. You can have one or more pins in a campaign. Having just one Pin give you maximum control over optimizing and testing. Having multiple pins makes it easier to track your daily budget.

Every campaign needs a goal, and the one you choose determines how your Pin gets promoted. There are two options.

• A traffic campaign is one whose primary goal is to drive traffic back to your website. You pay when people click on your Promoted Pin and visit your site.
• An engagement campaign is used to reach a broad audience on Pinterest. You pay when people engage with your Promoted Pin in the form of a closeup, repin or click.

At the campaign level, you can manage the daily budget, as well as start and end dates. Your daily budget is the maximum amount that you will spend every day. If you set an end date for your campaign, you can limit the amount you spend on that campaign.

Pick a Pin to Promote

The Pin that you choose to promote depends a lot on your goal for the campaign. [Tweet “Pins with good organic traffic are great for promoting.”] Why? Because you already know that they work. Check your Pinterest analytics to discover which Pins get clicked the most or are frequently repinned. You can also search Pins by Pin URL, Pin ID, or keyword.

 

Although buyable, video and App Pins can’t be promoted, there is a way to get around this restriction. To promote a Buyable Pin, turn off Buyable Pins for that product on your e-commerce store platform. To promote an App or video Pin, edit the Pin and point it to a landing page on your website instead of the App store or video sharing website.

If you’re tracking marketing efforts via UTM links, you can update the Destination URL if you so choose. You can also name your Promoted Pin, which can be helpful if you have many in one campaign.

Add Targeting Details

Pinterest’s assortment of targeting options ensures your Pin is promoted only to those who are most likely to be interested. Targeting options include genders, devices, languages, locations, keywords and interests. Select relevant interests, so your audience sees your Promoted Pin in their home and category feeds. Use keywords to ensure your Pin appears in search results and related Pins as people look for specific things.

Pinterest recommends including a set of keywords along with at least one interest to ensure you reach your audience as they browse and search. Pinterest will suggest some keywords for your Pin, which you can add if you so choose. Consider adding related interests to expand your reach. Keep your keywords relevant or risk getting disapproved for irrelevant targeting.

Genders – The default is all genders, but you can specify male or female. Unspecified means that a person signing up to Pinterest didn’t specify their gender.

Devices – The default is all devices, but you can choose specific ones including Android mobile, Android tablet, iPad, iPhone, desktop or mobile web.

Languages – The default is all languages, but you can select particular ones.

Locations – You can target specific locations within Canada, the UK, and the US. In the US, you can select DMA’s, metros in Canada and TV region codes in the UK.

The final step in the process is adding your billing information. Once completed you’re all set!

Adding additional Pins to existing campaigns is even easier once everything is set up. Just choose a campaign goal, pick an existing campaign and select a Pin.

As Pinterest matures, there are more opportunities for business owners to connect with their audience. It will be interesting to see how Promoted Pins develop as the company rolls out this feature to other English-speaking countries in 2016.

Have you used Promoted Pins yet? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

P.S. ViralWoot makes scheduling Pins way easier and helps build an audience of genuinely interested followers. Get started here.

The right Pinterest pin can drive a surprising amount of traffic to your site if you do everything right. Unfortunately, you only have a split second to grab a viewer’s attention and motivate them to click through.

So how do you do it? What makes for a great pin?

According to Kevin Knight, Head of Partnerships at Pinterest, the best pins have the following three elements in common; they’re beautiful, interesting and actionable. This post will teach you how to make an eye-catching pin, write an evocative description and create a strong call to action.

So let’s get started!

Image Size

Images need to be tall, not wide so that they look good in the Pinterest layout. Many people access Pinterest using a phone, where the image size is of particular importance. Here’s an example so you can see what happens if you use a tall picture (portrait orientation) versus a wide image (landscape orientation).

The difference is even more pronounced when viewed on a smartphone. Pinterest recommends using an aspect ratio between 2 to 3 and 1 to 3.5.

Don’t worry about memorizing any numbers because most of the popular image tools already have pre-designed templates for Pinterest and other social media platforms.

Snappa.io is a good first choice if you’re just starting out and have limited design experience. There’s a selection of layouts from which you can choose, and you can change a number of properties as you see fit; including background image, text, graphics, and effects.

A whole assortment of images and patterns are available for free, or you can upload your own.

With just a few clicks you can quickly transform a stock template into some unique. No design experience required!

If you need more flexibility to express your creativity, a good choice is the ever popular Canva. It also comes with a number of preset design types for various social media platforms, blog posts, ebook covers and more. They also have some fantastic graphic design tutorials that are well organized and perfect for users with little design experience.

In the visual theme of Pinterest, images can get drowned out by the sheer number of pins on a board. Text helps give visitors immediate context, so they quickly understand the purpose of your pin. Now, with this method, you look at the image and quickly grab the context with a few lines of descriptive texts.

Here’s an example where a little text can make a lot of difference.

Whether it’s recipes, DIY or financial advice, there no shortage of opportunity for the judicious use of text over images.

Sometimes one picture is not enough. Another way of making your pin stand out is to use multiple images in the same pin, something that’s easily done using Canva. Take a look at this pin from The Ugly Duckling House.

 

Whenever you pin something from your site, the URL is attached and stays with the pin every time it’s repinned. That makes it easy for people to find their way to your site. However, outside of Pinterest, it’s possible for people to share your image without linking back to you.

Although this can’t be prevented, there is a simple step you can take to increase the chance people still find your site. Just add your logo as a watermark to every image you create. It’s good practice for cases like this and helps reinforce your brand.

We had a new ViralWoot logo created as part of our blog makeover and are starting to use it on all our featured images.

File Size

Pinterest compresses images that are pinned to its site. However, it’s a good idea to compress any images you upload to your own site. Images with smaller file sizes load faster and provide a better user experience. There are a multitude of image optimization programs available, and my personal favorite is Kraken. It’s what I use to compress images for this blog.

Kraken is available in both a free and paid version. You can upload images to the web interface and download them individually or all together in a zip file. The paid version has a WordPress plugin that automatically optimizes images when uploading to a blog. Plus it can resize images as well. That’s good if you have images with varying widths and need to keep them to a maximum size, so they fit in your blog theme.

Kraken also has two methods of image optimization; lossless and lossy. Lossless mode removes any extraneous file information without changing a pixel. That’s ideal when you want to maintain maximum image quality. Lossy mode reduces image quality, although the human eye won’t see it while significantly reducing the file size. The amount of savings depends on the file, but it can save up to 90% of the file size.

Enticing Descriptions

Despite the visual nature of Pinterest, the written word is still very influential when it comes to describing your pin. The more detailed the description, the more your pin will resonate with viewers and the greater the chance it will show up in search results.

Remember to use keywords naturally in your description and make it a couple of sentences long. Tell them why your pin matters. If it’s a recipe that’s easy to make, say this in your description. If you’re pinning a skirt because you think it’s beautiful, tell them in your description and say why you feel this way. 

Sarah Fogle wrote a beautiful description of this pin. Write with a positive outlook to show your audience how your pin helps them with their lives. Providing added value by taking this extra step helps separate you from the multitude of other pins that lack description.

Remember that the ultimate motive for going the extra mile is to get your Pinterest audience to click on your Pin and visit your site. For that, you need a strong call to action.

Strong Calls to Action

People use Pinterest to discover and do things. Check that your description conveys the action you expect your audience to take.

Make sure the link is useful. In the case of a product pin, the link should lead to the product page on a site where it can be purchased.

When pinning a “How-to” article, make sure it’s obvious how it can help. Consider listing directions in the description, if they’re not too long, and link to a tutorial. Incorporating multiple images works well in this case. Use them to show step-by-step instructions.
Look at this example where Camille Juco repinned this DIY post from Brit Morin. In the original pin, Brit provided an account of the original pin while Camille added her own description to her repin.

Adding your own comment in your repins give you an opportunity for your audience to identify with you and hear your voice. Use comments in repins for the same reason you add descriptions.

By the way, the example above also shows why you should avoid automatically pinning your posts. In situations like this, the first “X” number of characters of the post are used as the default description. While that may have been a fine introduction for a blog post, in the context of Pinterest, the description could have been better.

Here’s a rewrite of the original pin’s description.

“Look good and save money with these five easy-to-make DIY body scrubs you can make using commonly found ingredients. Get your complete instructions right here.”

It’s been rewritten with the objective of getting someone to click through after reading that short amount of text. It’s far different than a 50-word intro to a 500-word article.

To recap, here’s what you need to do:

• Make sure you image is sized correctly, tall not wide.
• Use high-quality images with text overlay to command attention.
• Consider using multiple images for “how-to” articles.
• Make sure you link back to the right place.
• Provide a description that naturally employs relevant keywords.
• Use a strong call-to-action to motivate viewers to click through to your site.

What’s your favorite trick for creating viral pins? Is there anything I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments.