How to create your official business profile page on Pinterest
It looks like Pinterest is here to stay for long. If you haven’t heard this yet, then it’s news for you. Pinterest just rolled out Pinterest Business Profile Pages. Their goal is to help more businesses provide great content on Pinterest and make it easy to pin from their websites.
Because this is very important from a marketing standpoint I want to share with you some great tips to help you position yourself more firmly from a marketing standpoint.
First of all create your Business Profile Page on Pinterest!
Pinterest in a short period of time became a serious social media platform, and whether you’re a retailer, online merchant, non-profit organization, brand, designer, blogger, institution, or local business it can provide great marketing value for your organization. If your organization is new to Pinterest, sign up on Pinterest for a business account. IF you already have an existing account on Pinterest it can be easily converted by following the steps on the business site.
How do Pinterest business and personal accounts differ?
Not much, according to Pinterest. In their frequently asked questions, they answer this question as follows. “Currently, business accounts and personal accounts have access to the same features. If you sign up for or convert to a business account, you’ll also receive updates on future products and services that will provide more powerful ways of reaching and understanding your audience on Pinterest.”
Now just remember that there are two sets of terms—one for people and one for businesses.
To be honest even as a social media consultant I was hesitant with Pinterest for its copyright rules. But Pinterest clearly has the power to help brands and companies of all sizes connect on a more personal level with their customers and followers. It can help you highlight a new perspective about your brand that might not always be apparent to your customers at first glance. And it is a great tool to engage with your audience that if you use it well, can help you listen in to your audience/customers to see what they really want and like.
So what kind of steps YOU should take TODAY to build your brand with Pinterest?
After you set up your Pinterest account for business, the big question remains how to use Pinterst to build your business.
Follow these pinterest marketing tips:
- Use your company, brand name for easy identification. Signing up with a business profile account allows you to specify your business name (instead of first name and last name).
- Verify your website! Pinterest recently released a feature for website verification on users’ accounts.
The online verification issue has been an important one since Twitter’s verified status and “blue checkmark” became public knowledge. Brands, celebrities, or groups of significant influence have always been prominently featured on Twitter with the elusive “blue checkmark” – a sign of social superiority and credibility.
On Pinterest when users verify their profile, people will see a checkmark next to the user’s domain in search results, as well as a full website URL and checkmark on your profile (See below).
The BEST part of the verification is its added SEO boost. Without getting too far into it, the kind of HTML tag that Pinterest appears to be using to display this appears to be what’s called a “Do Follow” link. What this means is that it specifically tells Google to follow that link in a different way than regular links without that code do. This in itself is a HUGE SEO boost to your website – and a way to boost your presence online NOW that might not be around forever.
For information on how to verify your website, visit this Support article.
- Add new Pin-It buttons. Just like Facebook’s “Like” or “Share” buttons, or Twitter’s the “Tweet this” button, incorporating a Pin-It button on your site will encourage visitors to pin content which helps fostering conversation with your audience and “listening in” to see what generates the most quality engagement. This is a great way not only to boost the visibility of your business but there is an added SEO benefit every time your graphics are repinned on Pinterest.
- Incorporate SEO Keyword Strategy for Link Building. More than ever, social media sharing is playing an increasing role in determining how pages rank onWhy? Quite simply, the role of a search engine is to bring you to relevant, useful content. One of the ways to measure relevance and usefulness is to see what people are sharing on social sites most frequently.
Knowing that Google indexes Pinterest profiles and personal boards use some well chosen keywords in your board descriptions and profiles (without keyword stuffing!). Obviously you will pin a variety of content to Pinterest from a variety of sources, pinning from your website to Pinterest provides a rich source of inbound links to your website, increasing your chance of ranking higher in a Google search.
Take advantage of this HUGE opportunity to boost your ranking via search from this rapidly growing, high-authority site.
- Explore Pinterest collaborative boards! One of the ways social media has improved marketing is by creating a simple channel for communication between brands and their customers. Marketing used to be about broadcasting your message and hoping it was heard; social marketing is about attracting your ideal customer, providing value, and fostering 2-way communication and community with your audience. Pinterest’s collaborative boards allow for that kind of communication. A realtor might use collaborative boards to allow new homeowners to post pictures of move-in day. A housecleaning business might create a collaborative board to allow customers to post pictures of what they’ve done with their free time, now that they’re not cleaning their homes. The possibilities are endless.
- Create “How To” Boards. Does your business offer products or services that might take some explanation to use? Use the power of pictures to demonstrate “how-to” do something that provides value for your customers. A foods company might post not only the ever popular recipes, but pictures of various cooking techniques for their customers to try. A renovation company might use Pinterest to showcase steps in a featured project.
- Show case Your Customers. People want to feel famous as well as appreciated – what better way to showcase your brand than to have a board featuring pictures of people using your product.
- Analyze with Analytics. By looking over your content and seeing which images get liked and repinned the most, you are getting valuable feedback from your customers regarding what kind of content is most valuable to them. Produce content and products that are valuable, and you’ve created a win-win for your business and your customers.
Now is YOUR turn!
What is your favorite way to use Pinterest to brand your business? Did you find this article valuable? I would love to hear – please leave a comment bellow and if interested Sign up to get free blog updates! Do you still need help with setting up your Pinterest Business page? Contact me
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