Pinterest

When it comes to Social Media, Facebook and Twitter usually get the most attention, but what about Pinterest?

Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the most popular social media sites and caters to a very specific demographic, women.

In fact, 71 percent of Pinterest’s user base is women which means that if you have a product or a service that is catered to a female demographic, you should definitely be taking advantage of this growing trend.

While women remain to be Pinterest’s biggest audience, the number of men who are also using Pinterest is rapidly growing. In just a 12 month period, the percentage of men using Pinterest increased from 5 percent to 8 percent.

One study also found that Pinterest customers spend more than any other social media referral. The average order value for a Pinterest conversion was recorded at $80.54 whereas the average order for a Facebook conversion was recorded at $71.26.

If that wasn’t enough to convince you, over 70% of the brand engagement on Pinterest is generated by users and followers, not by the brand and over 80% of the pins on Pinterest are re-pinned which means that the site has a growing virality.

So, now that you are convinced that Pinterest is a new marketing source for your company, here is how to navigate the platform:

Understanding Pinterest

Users log into Pinterest and then “pin” photos that capture their attention on their pin boards. Users can have multiple pin boards and often categorise them into things like “Recipes”, “Fashion”, “Travel” etc. Each photo that they pin also comes with a description and a link.

Looking at Pinterest more analytically users go to the platform when they are both looking for something specific and just browsing. This browsing mindset can be scaled from “Just Browsing” to “Making a Purchase” and how they move through this scale is all based on emotional behaviour.

This is important to understand because psychologist, Nir Eyal who has studied the in’s and out’s of Pinterest states that users often tend to pin images based on feelings, not on rational thoughts.

This means that a potential customer could come to Pinterest, not even sure of what they are looking for, and end up walking away with your product because you inspired them and made them feel a certain way.

Even if they don’t purchase your product, just getting a “Pin” that remains on their board holds power. Your “pinner” may come back to it another day and in the mean time, it has a greater chance of being shared around on more boards. Basically, getting a “Pin” is definitely a win.

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How to Increase Engagement on Pinterest

Remember, the images that you choose to post on Pinterest need to evoke feeling and emotion. Therefore it is important that they look appealing and present your product in a way that creates interest and curiosity.

Here are 6 top rules for creating more engagement on Pinterest based on a recent study:

1.) Hue: The study found that images that had multiple, dominant colours received more than three times the pins than images that used just one single dominant color.

2.) Avoid humans: It may sound strange, but this study found that images with human faces did not pin as well as images without. In fact, images without faces were pinned 23 percent more often.

3.) Background: When it comes to the background of your images the study found that less background equalled better conversions. The statistics showed that images with less than 30 percent background did the best whereas images with more than 40 percent background did not do as well.

4.) Colours: The most popular colours that can score you a pin include red, orange and brown. In fact, these colors outperformed blue 2:1.

5.) Saturation: Images that were 50 percent saturated had four times more pins than images that were 100 percent saturated and ten times more pins than images that were not saturated. In short, saturating images at around 50 percent was proven to work best.

6.) Vertical: Vertical images were more popular on Pinterest because of the style and layout of the social media platform. The study found that 39 pixels high was the magic number for the most pins.

Now that you have an understanding of how you can engage your Pinterest audience, the next important step is about gaining followers.

One study found that the number of people who follow a board is directly correlated to the number of people you follow, the number of pins you have and the number of boards you have.

This means that when it comes to Pinterest, the more time you spend tweaking and playing with the site and growing your boards, the more likely you are to increase your following.

If you want to really hone in on your Pinterest following, the most popular categories on the site is food and drink, followed by DIY crafts, home decor, fashion and weddings.

Even if your product or brand does not fit into one of these categories, it doesn’t mean that you can’t take some creative license and attempt different photos and images that could help sell your product.

Building revenue and traffic from Pinterest takes an average of 3-6 months but if you are patient you will definitely see results.

Are you considering trying Pinterest? Give it a shot and see how Pinterest can grow your traffic and revenue.

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