5 Brand Engagement Tips For Pinterest

If you think Pinterest is not ideal for business, think again. A few websites predicted that Pinterest may rival Google in search queries thanks to its new features like Guided Search and Rich Pins. A study revealed however, that brands are slow to market on the image-based site and that 70% of brand engagement is generated by the users themselves.

This won’t do. To better engage with these users, as an online business owner, you should add Pinterest into your social media marketing strategy to further drive traffic to your website. Besides, the more social networks you have, the more exposure you will get. And Pinterest is way up there when it comes to a visually stimulating displays.

To get you started, we have here 5 things you should do to maximize engagement for your brand on Pinterest.

1. Get Pinterest Account Verified

Like on Twitter, being verified lets people know that you’re actually who you say you are; it lends legitimacy and credibility to what you put up in the account and gives people confidence to take a chance with you and your products.

They’ll also be more likely to follow and pin your stuff, if it is from your official account. Plus you get full access to Pinterest’s business account features as well as a boost in traffic and SEO.

To get verified, follow these steps:

1. First go to your profile and under Settings (the top right corner of the page), scroll to the bottom and add your website’s URL in the Website field.
2. Click on the Verify Website button next to the field.
3. A new page will appear with instructions. Follow the instructions. If you are unsure about anything, ask your resident tech person.
4. Once done, a checkmark will appear on your Pinterest profile and pins.
5. For verifying tips on popular hosting websites, check out this link.

2. Engage Your Pinterest Followers Actively

Networking is important in business and things are no different online. The only difference is that you have a lot more social tools at your disposal. On Pinterest, you can make use of their social functions to like, comment, repin, and @mention users in pin and board descriptions.

Invite users to join group boards and help out with curating similar materials. This way you’ll get a better understanding of what your audience and customers want. It’s also important to engage with your customers and potential clients actively, to show that a real person sits behind the screen who is managing that account.

3. Refer To The Brand Guidelines

Need to use Pinterest’s logo badge on your site and various promotional materials? Get them from Pinterest itself. You can get the Pinterest logo and badgets from this link along with tips on how to use them optimally (e.g. use red logo on light backgrounds and white logo on dark backgrounds).

Also included in the guidelines are how to approach Pinterest contests, how to name apps and services, as well as info on visuals, names, phrases and merchandising.

4. Make The Most of Images

When it comes to brand engagement, Pinterest delivers in terms of visually appealing content. Thus, your picture size matters.

On top of that, research has shown that vertical picture pins get more engagement and are more likely to be repinned. This is because vertical pins stack better on Pinterest’s layout and makes for ideal browsing on mobile devices. The images that did the best were those in the aspect ratio of 2:3 and 4:5 as Pinterest tends to rescale images that fall outside of those range.

For a full guide on the ideal size of your images in pins, refer to this infographic. Lastly, name your images so that they turn up better in search as they are a part of image description. This will also make it easier for Pinterest to put them in Categories. This will further help people to discover your pins thus generating more reach for your pins.

5. Understand Pinterest’s Limitations

Limits are inevitable as they are part of all social media sites API including Pinterest. Currently, there are no ways to disable them. So your best bet is to pace yourself and to periodically springclean your account. If you are using any tools to help you schedule pins, adjust them accordingly.

Here are some of the limits you will need to take note of:

• You have up to 100 characters for Board Names. Pinterest cuts off the name if it’s too long, unless you expand the board. In case you are wondering, 17 characters is the optimum length.
• You are limited to 300 likes a day and 100,000 likes in total. Some users however have managed to by-pass the daily limit simply by liking less than 300 an hour or in timely intervals.
• You can only create 500 boards per account.
• You can only pin 200,000 pins per account.
• You can follow up to 300 accounts in a day.