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Your essential guide to organic marketing on Pinterest

Published

2 years ago

July 26, 2021

your essential guide to organic marketing on pinterest

What is Pinterest?

The days of organic reach on social media might be disappearing, but that’s not the case for Pinterest. In fact, it’s exploding in popularity and offering businesses valuable opportunities to reach and engage with new, high-intent audiences using organic content.

More marketers and brands are realizing the potential of Pinterest to boost search engine rankings, drive valuable website traffic and build brand salience.

Pinterest isn’t just another social media platform. While it’s often lumped into the social media category, Pinterest’s goal is to be a place of inspiration, rather than social networking.

A more accurate definition would be to call Pinterest a visual search and discovery engine. Here’s how the platform works: users can search, save and curate visual content (known as Pins) and add these Pins to a digital inspiration or mood Board. The entire platform is built on shareable, saveable visuals that can easily be discovered by users across the globe via their Home Feed.

One of the key features of Pinterest is the search ability of its content.

Unlike other visual-focused media platforms, Pinterest acts as a search engine where users can easily scout out new content based on specific keywords. Plus, each Pin includes clickable links that direct users to learn more (or even buy specific products) on the brand’s website.

While Pinterest has been around since 2010, it’s only just gaining significant traction now. The platform currently boasts 459 million monthly active users. That’s the biggest jump in usage that the platform has ever seen.

This offers a huge opportunity for brands and businesses to boost their search ranking and increase web traffic by sharing engaging, high-quality visual content on Pinterest.

How is Pinterest Different?

While Pinterest and Instagram are both built on visual content – it’s a paradise for visual marketers, but that’s where the similarities of these platforms end.

In the words of Pinterest’s founders, they see the platform as a “catalog that’s handpicked for user“, giving users the ability to discover, save and curate visual content with ease.

In fact, the team behind Pinterest have been making a very deliberate decision to distance themselves from other social media platforms. Instead, the focus is to give users a place to save what’s useful and inspiring to them.

So, what exactly makes Pinterest different from other platforms?

Focuses on finding ideas and inspiration, not documenting and sharing what users are doing with their network of friends and followers.
Allows users to search for visual content using handy keywords, rather than scrolling through an endless algorithm-focused news feed.

Why should my business support Pinterest?

Pinterest offers significant organic opportunities
Pinterest offers powerful SEO Benefits
- Pinterest acts more like a search engine than a social platform, which means there’s stacks of SEO opportunities up for grabs. In fact, Google loves Pinterest and frequently places Pinterest pages at the top of search results (including SERP features and Google Image search results).
- 75% of Pinterest users say they’re “very interested” in discovering new products, in contrast to 55% on other digital channels. By optimizing your Pins and Boards for your target keywords, you can easily reach new, high-intent users who are hunting for the products & services you offer.
- Pinterest offers valuable opportunities to drive traffic to your website. Every Pin you share offers multiple clickable links, allowing you to easily move users from inspiration to action.
Pinterest leverages visual search for marketing better than any other platform
- Pinterest offers a unique opportunity for users to search for visual content. As a visual discovery engine, brands are able to reach valuable new audiences using keywords and skillful SEO-friendly best practices.
- And if you’re trying to reach younger customers, Pinterest offers incredible opportunities. Pinterest Gen Z users grew 40% between 2019 to 2020 plus millennial audiences grew 35% in 2020 alone.
- And these audiences are craving new ways to discover brands and products, with 62% of Gen Zers and millennials say they’d like to be able to search by image.

Leveraging Pinterest SEO for organic discoverability

Pinterest’s search engine capabilities are one of its strongest points of difference. This powerful visual discovery engine allows brands to organically reach new audiences and build meaningful brand awareness.

Unlike other platforms, Pinterest’s Home Feed is curated for users based on the kind of content they’ve recently searched for and saved. That offers incredible scope for brands to reach high-intent audiences who are already interested in and searching for topics related to your businesses.

So, how can you boost the discoverability of your Pins and Boards with SEO-friendly content?

Conduct keyword research on Pinterest: start searching for keywords related to your business in Pinterest and see what recommended terms come up. This is an easy way to understand what popular terms you can try to rank for and inject into your content.
Optimize your Pinterest Boards: did you know that Boards show up in Pinterest search results? That’s why it’s important to ensure your Board name and description uses SEO-friendly keywords to boost your chances of organic discovery.
Optimize your Pins: the title of your Pins is one of the most important spots for SEO on Pinterest, so make sure to pepper in relevant keywords and keep this copy short, sharp and relevant (in under 100 characters).
- Plus, your Pin descriptions are valuable real estate you need to optimize to boost your SEO. While you have 500 characters to play with, make sure to focus on adding keywords to the first 50-60 characters (as this is the preview text “pinners” will see in their Home Feed).
Use Rich Pins: as we mentioned, Rich Pins offer extra opportunity to inject keywords into your Pinterest content. These Pins sync information from your website into your Pins, and allows you to drive users to your website, too. These Pin formats are free, but you’ll need to apply through Pinterest to access them. Currently, there are three types of Rich Pins:

Product Pins: these Pins draw on metadata from your website and include the most current price, availability and product information directly from your site. These Pins are a great way to drive shoppers to your website to boost the likelihood of conversion.
Recipe Pins: these Pins allow you to add the title, serving size, cooking time, ratings and ingredients from your website, with plenty of extra spots to inject SEO keywords.
Article Pins: these Pins let you show the headline, description and the author of your latest blog posts on Pinterest. This enables you to re-share SEO-friendly blog content to Pinterest and allow these keywords you’ve used to boost your searchability.

Kicking off a Pinterest Strategy

Ready to put your newfound Pinterest knowledge into action? Now, it’s time to turn your attention to crafting an organic Pinterest strategy that will help you drive the best results from this platform.

Pinpoint your marketing objectives for Pinterest

Like any marketing platform, Pinterest requires a unique set of goals to ensure it’s serving a specific purpose for your business. Before you begin posting content to Pinterest, make sure to clarify your objectives and why you’re using this platform in the first place.

Some goals you might consider could be to:

The key here is to be specific about what objectives are most valuable to your business, and use these to inform your content marketing strategy for Pinterest.

Optimize your website for Pinterest

Pinterest offers incredible search engine opportunities and has the potential to drive high-intent users straight to your website. However, it’s important to check your website is optimized to perform at its best for Pinterest users.

Here are three actionable steps you can take:

Ensure your website is mobile responsive: 85% of Pinners use their mobile app, so make sure your website is responsive to mobile user traffic.

Install the Pinterest Save button to your website: this allows your website visitors to save content straight from your site to Pinterest, boosting your chances of organic discovery.

Confirm your website: this ensures you receive analytics from the Pins you publish from your site.

Conduct keyword research on Pinterest

As Pinterest operates as a search engine, it’s valuable to use its search functionality to optimize your content strategy.

By completing a keyword research, you’ll be able to understand what key terms Pinners are searching for and build these into your Pinterest content.

Simply use the search function on Pinterest to search for key terms related to your business, and create a list of related terms you can leverage for your upcoming content. Keep this list on hand and update it regularly to ensure you’re capitalizing on new topics and emerging keyword trends.

Design Pinterest boards aligned to your target keywords

Speaking of keywords, these popular phrases can be used to inform the boards you create as a business on Pinterest.

By designing your content pillars and boards around popular keywords, you’ll be able to effectively curate your content and reach new audiences who will be interested in your content.

Make sure to clearly name your boards using these keywords to maximize the benefits of your keyword research (and boost your chances of appearing in the search results).

Create a Pinterest content calendar

The key to gaining traction as a business on Pinterest is to show up consistently and frequently. To keep your audience engaged and growing, a content calendar for Pinterest can help you plan your posts in advance. Plus, this document will ensure every Pin you share is tailored to a marketing objective and target keyword.

When planning out your content for Pinterest, make sure to:

Focus on high-quality visual content: as Pinterest is a visual-first platform, be sure to share a mix of branded imagery and custom graphics that showcase your brand’s visual identity.
Educate and teach your audience something new: 84% of Pinners say that Pinterest helps them learn new things, so design your content to educate your audience. Think about creating how-to tutorials, educational videos and insightful infographics that showcase and share your industry expertise.
Inspire your audience with aspirational content: give Pinners a reason to follow and engage with your content by sharing visual inspiration relevant to your industry (whether that be travel, interiors, style or anything in between).

The best way to be sure that your content is consistent, and your audience is growing, is to plan & schedule your Pinterest content. You can start scheduling your Pinterest Pins with Sked Social. Start a free 7 day trial, and if you like what you see, take 50% off your first month with code SKED50.

All the organic Pinterest format specs you’ll ever need

Now we’ve got your creative juices flowing, let’s chat about the specs and guidelines you’ll need to work with across all Pinterest content formats.

Static Pins: single image only
- File Type: PNG or JPEG
- Max file size: 20 MB
- Aspect ratio: 2:3 is recommended (1000 x 1500 pixels)
- Title copy: up to 100 characters
- Description copy: up to 500 characters
Standard Width Video Pins: same size as a Static Pin
- File Type: mp4, mov or m4v
- Encoding: H.264 or H.265
- Max file size: up to 2GB
- Video length: minimum 4 seconds up to a maximum of 15 minutes
- Aspect ratio: square (1:1) or vertical (2:3 or 9:16) is recommended
- Title copy: up to 100 characters
- Description copy: up to 500 characters
Carousel Pins: features multiple images users can swipe through
- File Type: PNG or JPEG
- Max file size: up to 32 MB per image
- Creative Quantity: 2 to 5 images per carousel
- Aspect ratio: square (1:1) or vertical (2:3) is recommended
- Title copy: up to 100 characters
- Description copy: up to 500 characters

It all starts with a single pin

We’ve designed 10 Pinterest cover templates to get your started! They’re free and customizable. All you have to do is follow this link to start editing your Pins with Canva.

So, there you have it. When it comes to organic Pinterest marketing, it’s all about understanding how to optimize your content for reach and discoverability. By harnessing the power of visual storytelling and curating your Pinterest content for maximum discoverability, you can capitalize on the benefits of this visual search engine. High-intent users are ready and waiting to hear from your brand on Pinterest – it’s just a question of whether you’re showing up to engage and convert them.

The best way to be sure that your content is consistent and your audience is growing, is to plan & schedule your Pinterest content. You can start scheduling your Pinterest Pins with Sked Social. Start a free 7 day trial, and if you like what you see, take 50% off your first month with code SKED50.

Socialmediatoday.com

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Biggest fines under EU privacy law

Published

2 hours ago

May 27, 2023

EntirewebNewsBot

Mark Zuckerberg’s social media firm — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — has racked up roughly two billion euros in fines – Copyright /File Brendan Smialowski

Joseph BOYLE and Jules Bonnard

The European Union rolled out its mammoth data privacy regulation five years ago this week, and has since handed down billions in fines.

Ireland’s data watchdog smashed the record for an individual fine on Monday when it demanded 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) from Meta over its transfers of personal data between Europe and the United States.

Here are some of the worst offenders of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

– Meta: undisputed fine king –

Mark Zuckerberg’s social media firm — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — has racked up roughly two billion euros in fines.

Breaches by Meta have included a mega-leak of some 533 million phone numbers and emails, mishandling children’s data and repeatedly failing to give a legal basis for its data collection.

Meta, along with the likes of Google, Twitter and LinkedIn has its European headquarters in Ireland, a low-tax regime that has courted big tech.

The Irish privacy watchdog has been reluctant to hand down big fines but said in a statement on Monday that the EU’s central authorities had ordered it to collect 1.2 billion euros from Meta.

Austrian campaign group NOYB said it had spent millions in a decade-long legal battle to force the Irish watchdog to tackle the case.

“It is kind of absurd that the record fine will go to Ireland — the EU Member State that did everything to ensure that this fine is not issued,” said NOYB’s Max Schrems.

– US giants: In Meta’s shadow –

Luxembourg lit a torch under the Silicon Valley data industry in 2021 by slapping Amazon with a record fine of 746 million euros.

The country, whose low-tax policies have led campaigners to label it a tax haven, refused to give details of its decision at the time, only providing a brief statement after Amazon revealed the fine in its regulatory filings.

The online retail giant had been sued by a European consumer group claiming personal data was collected for ad-targeting without permission.

However, Amazon denied any breach and promised to appeal. It is unclear whether the fine has been paid.

Google has faced plenty of GDPR pain too.

France’s data watchdog hit the search giant with 50 million euros in fines for a lack of transparency on its Android mobile operating system in 2019 — the biggest such fine of that year.

– Clearview AI: Widespread penalties –

Clearview AI may not be a household name, but it claims to own billions of photos of people’s faces that it sells as a searchable AI-powered database to law enforcement and other clients.

It scrapes the images from the web, often from social media accounts, without asking permission.

Privacy watchdogs in Greece, Italy, France and the UK have all hit the US firm with fines totally roughly 70 million euros, and regulators in Germany and Austria have declared it illegal.

The firm has consistently said it has no offices or clients in Europe and is not subject to EU privacy laws.

The status of the fines is unclear. France issued a penalty of five million euros recently, accusing the firm of failing to pay the initial fine.

– Public bodies, hacks –

In the early days of the GDPR, several watchdogs cracked down on public institutions, raising profound questions about the regulation’s scope.

Bulgaria fined its own tax authority around three million euros in 2019 after hackers stole the details of millions of people.

But several issues in the case were referred to the European Court of Justice, including whether such a hack automatically meant the data controller had not complied with GDPR.

The court has not yet issued a final decision.

Portugal handed down one of the first significant fines under GDPR — 400,000 euros — in November 2018 to a hospital near Lisbon.

The watchdog ruled that the institution had allowed unauthorised access to patients’ data and the case was seen as an early wake-up call for public bodies to get busy with GDPR compliance.

Portugal later gave public institutions three years to adapt to the new regime, meaning the fine was never enforced.

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I Hired Gen Zers and Was Shocked by Their Professionalism

Published

8 hours ago

May 27, 2023

EntirewebNewsBot

I Hired Gen Zers and Was Shocked by Their Professionalism

Jen Hartmann is the founder and CEO of a marketing agency in Louisville, Kentucky.
She recently hired two Gen Zers to help with social media.
Hartmann said the workers were eager to get feedback and improve.

Last year, Jen Hartmann found herself hours into a TikTok scroll. The founder and CEO of a marketing agency in Louisville, Kentucky, she was on the hunt for marketing trends. That night, she realized she needed a Gen Z employee. She’s since hired two and says it’s dramatically helped her brand.

This is an as-told-to essay based on an interview with Hartmann about hiring young employees.

The interview process surprised me

I started interviewing Gen Z candidates for our roles in public-relations coordination because I was spending too much time on TikTok. As a CEO, I wanted to take a step back from client strategy. I thought Gen Z could bring a fresh perspective.

How the interview process shook out was totally unexpected.

I came to the table thinking: “They’re just looking for a job or a paycheck. They’ll be in and out the door in a month or two.”

That was not true: They came to the interviews dressed better than we were. They were prepared, had listened to relevant podcasts, and had looked at our website. And they emailed and messaged us on LinkedIn after the interviews to thank us.

Their level of professionalism blew my mind. They were more professional than some of the millennials we had spoken with.

My Gen Z employees take ownership of tasks and are open to feedback

Our Gen Zers were onboarded very quickly; they didn’t need as much hand-holding as I expected.

They also asked a lot of questions. As a founder, I appreciated that they were eager to learn and get feedback — not just on what they did well but also on what they could improve.

I was also surprised by their willingness to take ownership. They contribute good ideas during client calls without even being asked.

And if they make a mistake, they’re willing to take responsibility and fix it.

Prioritization, however, can be a little difficult for them. When you’re a new employee, it’s hard to figure out where to start if you have 15 things on your to-do list. I’ve had to work on that with them.

And when it comes to communication, we have to deliver feedback differently. I have to be gentler so it doesn’t get miscommunicated that I’m mad at them or going to fire them.

Gen Z seems to be a little more feelings-centric than millennials. Millennials have a harder outer shell. That’s not a bad thing. It’s great that Gen Z is in touch with and open about their emotions.

But because of that, millennial bosses need to be careful not to send the wrong message, especially if it’s all done over Slack or email.

Gen Z’s knowledge of social media is critical for businesses today

Gen Zers are constantly on TikTok. They’re very in the know, very in the loop. To keep up with our clients, we needed to bring on some Gen Zers who knew the trends and what influencers were up to.

It has made the biggest difference during client conversations. Half of their timely pitches are angles directly from TikTok. Our pitches are standing out because of this, and they’re getting picked up a lot more than they were in the past.

Their knowledge of social also helps when building media lists, something that can take a long time for other generations. Many Gen Zers read major publications and keep up with the journalists and their work by following them on social media. That makes the lists much more effective and quicker than ever before.

Since hiring Gen Z employees, I’ve been able to take that step back that I was looking for, and their work has truly benefited the business.

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Twitter Provides Additional API Access Tier to Address Pricing Concerns

Published

14 hours ago

May 27, 2023

EntirewebNewsBot

Twitter Launches Test of Ad Targeting Based Specifically on Search Queries in the App

With its recent API access cost increases causing much angst within the developer community, Twitter has come back with a new API access tier, which will provide more tweet access for a more reasonable price.

As highlighted above, the new ‘Pro’ tweet API offering provides developers with access to a million tweets per month, at the low, low price of $5k per month – or $60k per annum. Which, for some, will be an improvement than the existing access points, which have already priced many developers and academics out of their various projects. But still, $5k per month for a million tweets is a lot – especially when Twitter’s free API access, up till February this year, provided developers with similar access to this, free of cost.

Twitter’s new API access charges, which it’s implemented to combat the creation of bot armies, are a significant jump on the previous costs, with Elon and Co. also looking to do all that they can to bring in more revenue for the company.

The updated pricing immediately saw many public service tools, like transport alerts, announce that they’d be canceling their automated Twitter updates – though Twitter has since announced that approved services like these will still be able to access the API for free.

One of the most important use cases for the Twitter API has always been public utility. Verified gov or publicly owned services who tweet weather alerts, transport updates and emergency notifications may use the API, for these critical purposes, for free.

— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) May 2, 2023

But that doesn’t cover many other bot tools and services that also provide value, and the risk in Twitter’s approach is that it could become a less valuable utility as a result, which may eventually impact usage.

But as noted, Musk sees the API as a potential vector for bot swarms. And as with Twitter Blue, Elon’s hoping that by tacking on extra charges to such access, that’ll effectively make it cost-prohibitive for bot creators to keep running their schemes.

Though there is another potential consideration in Musk’s API and access price rises, which is more aligned with his own personal grievances.

Twitter’s also taking on Microsoft over its use of Twitter data, via API access, which it claims is beyond the limitations imposed within Microsoft’s approved usage. Microsoft is now partnered with OpenAI, a company that Elon once had a significant investment in, and Musk’s view is that OpenAI has essentially stolen Twitter data to train its LLM systems, in order to fuel generative AI tools like ChatGPT.

The brief summary is that Elon gave OpenAI millions of dollars to assist in its development, then sought to take over as CEO of the company in 2018, in order to hasten its progress. OpenAI rebutted Musk’s offer, which then saw Elon turn his back on it, and pull all of his future funding pledges. But OpenAI had already taken some millions from Musk – and now that OpenAI is making big money from its generative AI tools, Elon is apparently not happy that he isn’t going to get a dime of that intake, despite his early involvement.

This could be another factor in his decision to hike up the price of Twitter API access, in order to restrict other companies from taking Twitter’s proprietary data, and profiting off of his content in a similar way.

Elon’s also building his own generative AI model, which will be free of ‘woke bias’, and everything considered, it’s not beyond the scope of possibility that Elon’s pushing up the costs of Twitter API access in order to fend off his various business rivals.

(Note that Twitter is also asking API subscribers to remove any previously downloaded data, or face further legal recourse)

Though the main impetus seems to be Twitter’s need to diversify its income, with subscriptions, API access and advertising ideally settling into a more equal share of the company’s revenue pie.

Which seems unlikely to be the end result, but Elon’s trying new things – and maybe there’s enough potential indicators there to keep pushing, in order to maximize Twitter’s opportunities. Or maybe there’s not, and eventually, Twitter will have to walk these changes back. That approach is seemingly part of what’s made Musk successful, his willingness to try and fail in public, and maybe, it will present potential new opportunities for the business.

Twitter’s new API pricing system is now in effect.

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