Pinterest is an incredible social media platform for sharing ideas, from recipes, to crafts, to fashion and even home décor. Maybe you have a Pinterest like we do and you use it to plan ideas for your future dream home. It may be a little tough to look at those pins though when you are focusing on growing your small business and your dream home seems miles away.
Good news–the very website you are using to pin those ideas can be used to help take your business to the next level. That’s right, Pinterest can help your e-commerce business and make that future mid-century modern home (and that fabulous wardrobe) a reality.
Here’s what you need to know.
Why you should use Pinterest to boost your e-commerce business
If you hadn’t already thought of using Pinterest to expand your business’ client-base, you should!
Behind Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest is actually the third largest social media platform in the world. That’s saying a lot. According to Neil Patel, “Almost every type of business can benefit from using Pinterest’s e-commerce platform.” The site has over 320 million users, largely in their early 30’s (meaning many of them are able to make purchases easily.) With its newer functions that allow users to make purchases directly through the site, it can be a revolutionary tool for an e-commerce business.
Pinterest is one of the easiest ways to promote your business in a visual way–and the site has made it easier than ever to do so too. With new functions made for e-commerce such as:
- The addition of a ‘Shop’ option in users’ boards to offer buyable product options based on the users’ pins
- Offering the aforementioned ‘Shop’ option during users’ initial search on Pinterest
- Including a ‘Shop Similar’ button in search results to make it easier to get results for immediately available products.
Altogether, these changes make it wonderfully simple to find buyable options on Pinterest even when someone is simply searching for inspiration. And how does an e-commerce business like yours make the most of this?
Post those buyable Pins!
Here are some ideas to get you started.
6 pinnable ideas to help you sell on Pinterest
Need help kicking off your social media strategy for selling your products and promoting your brand on Pinterest? Try some of these tips to start.
- Create pins to be mobile-optimized: Let’s talk about the nitty-gritty details first. It’s been found that around 82% of users scan the Pinterest app on their mobile phones, which means it is best for your content creation efforts to be optimized for mobile viewing. For you, that means you will want to create posts which use high resolution, vertical images that are paired with engaging descriptions and helpful links. Patel agrees on the importance of quality here too: “Quality counts here: eye-catching images, unique calls-to-action, and creative content will help attract and keep followers.”
- Make posts that are inspirational and promotional: The posts that you add to Pinterest can and should promote your products, but that doesn’t mean you should only focus on those. Try making both promotional and inspirational content for this site. For example, Foxblood Clothing has pin boards focusing on their products along with boards created to help inspire their followers such as their “Aesthetic” or “Halloween Dreams” boards. As Hootsuite puts it, “Pinners come to the platform for inspiration, with 85% of Pinners saying they come to Pinterest to start a new project. Consider also posting how-to Pins or inspiration boards to provide your audience with fun and valuable content.”
- Create content that matches the season and search trends: There is never a better time to discuss seasonal content than the start of fall and the witchy season. That Halloween Dreams board by Foxblood Clothing is of course a great example of this–it meshes seasonal interests with the use of their products.
- Look at becoming a verified merchant: As e-commerce businesses are increasing their presence on Pinterest, the site has even begun to make sure that it is providing users with added assurance with a verified merchant program. When you clear Pinterest’s quality and transparency requirements your profile gets a blue checkmark–and that verification can increase customers’ trust in purchasing from you through Pinterest.
- Consider your descriptions carefully: Pinterest allows users to search for what they want which makes it a search engine at its heart. This means you’ll need to ensure that the Pins you put up aren’t just visually engaging, but paired with descriptions that will match what users are looking for. Make sure to use keywords in your descriptions, hashtags and boards. Clear product titles that are followed by engaging descriptions can make a big difference in keeping a user engaged which makes them more likely to buy.
- Try out image “carousels”: Carousels are a series of images you can include in one post that users can scroll or click through. That means you can show one product in multiple ways or show multiple products of similar theme in one post. You can find the jewelry brand ETAH LOVE doing this. They created a carousel for the pieces that were a part of their Spellbound Collection to make it easy for users to find all pieces and check to see if they wanted one piece…or all of them.
Don’t forget to promote your Pinterest account everywhere you can too. Including it in your newsletters, on your website, and cross-promoting it on your other social media channels allows you to make the most of your effort on this site. Make sure you are making the most of your Pinterest and you may discover your e-commerce business taking things to the next level in no time.
Creating a Pinterest account from the ground up? Or looking for an ally to help you make the most of your Pinterest? Wherever you are at, the experts at RM Creative Services can help you build your social media plan into one that rocks. Get started by reaching out to info@rachaelmattice.com or visiting our Contact Us page.