5 Tips for Successful Pinterest Marketing

December 14, 2016

For bloggers and marketers, the holiday season means promoting content and selling to as many people as possible in order to increase sales and traffic.One way to do so is through social media, specifically, through the Pinterest platform.How can you get started?Follow these five tips:

1.Use the perfect image

As users scroll through dozens of images from brands, friends, and celebrities, your image needs to stand out in order to get them to stop to take a closer look.It's recommended you use avertical imagewith a minimum width of 600 pixels.Always choose lighter images over darker ones, and if appropriate, put a small text overlay on the image to make it clear why people should stop and look.For example, if you are advertising a sale on your product line, place atext overlayon the image to announce the discount.Even if you already have this information in the caption, it's much more effective when it's placed on the image.

2.Pin often

If you really want to increase the visibility of your pins on Pinterest, make sure you are pinning often.It's suggested that brands pin up to five times per day—but, don't pin everything all at once.Schedule your pins to post at various times throughout the day so you'll hit a wider range of people without coming across as spammy.  If you don't want to remember to log in and post a single pin every few hours, look for a third party tool that allows you to schedule everything in advance, such asViralTag.

3.Find group boards

Pinterest allows users to create boards and invite other people to pin on them.These boards, which are known as group boards, are a great way to promote your pins to people who otherwise wouldn't see your content.Use thePinGroupie toolto find group boards that are relevant to your business.Then, ask the board owner to add you as a pinner so you can begin to upload pins of your products.Make sure you don't overload the board with your products, otherwise the members of the board may be turned off by the amount of content you're sharing.

4.Focus on the product use

Instead of posting images that just show the product, think of how you can demonstrate how the product is used.For example, clothing and jewelry should be shown on models so users can see what the item looks like when it's on.If there are step-by-step directions that need to be followed in order to use your product, create a large image with each step of the process clearly displayed.These images are much more appealing to users who are scrolling through Pinterest than basic product shots.

5.Use detailed descriptions

Pinterest is all about the images—but that doesn't mean you should forget about the description.Every pin you post should have a detailed description full of relevant keywords.This will improve your chances of being shown in the search results of someone's query within the site.

For more information on how to maximize your presence on Pinterest—and increase your sales—take a look at this helpful infographic fromBrilliance:

Contributed by: Nick Rojas of Brilliance