How To Use Pinterest For Ecommerce and Why

13 min read

Have you heard of Pinterest? Probably, right? You may think that it’s not quite as popular as Facebook or Twitter, but you’d be surprised.

Pinterest is now the third-largest social network in the United States. Data shows that Pinterest users spend 50% more than competitor sites, such as Instagram or Facebook (which hold the top spots in the US). Moreover, 90% or more of Pinterest buyers are brand-new to the merchant site, making their traffic very exciting.

Truth is, many ecommerce sellers aren’t sure how to use Pinterest to sell their products. If you’re already a seasoned user of Pinterest, awesome! But if you don’t know how to use Pinterest, we’re here to help you figure it out and make the Pinterest platform your new best friend.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest says their website is for exploring new ideas, in a visual way.

Of course, you can find ideas for your next home improvement or crafting project on Pinterest. But we prefer to think of it this way: Pinterest is a social media platform for sharing images. Millions of users visit the site to search for images that speak to them.

Source: Ecwid Insights

The way you go to Instagram for pictures and Twitter for short pieces of text, people go to Pinterest for images of interest. If you see images that speak to you, users can pin (save) them on their clipboard and start looking for more images to add to their collection. The images are called pins.

So, why is Pinterest great for ecommerce?

How is Pinterest Useful for Ecommerce?

Pinterest has over 450 million active users. Pinterest users employ the platform to search for ideas, hobbies, and images of interest to them based on their hobbies, style, or other aspects of their lives. Once they see an image they like, they pin it and continue their search for more.

Pinterest also enables them to organize all their images in one place. Once they are done searching, they can go back to the images they saved to learn more about them. That’s the main point.

The platform is designed such that most images link back to the owner’s website. Hence, your image can lead Pinterest users to your site and your product page.

More importantly, many Pinterest users are not just looking for images. They are actually looking for products to buy. You may ask why then do they come to Pinterest.

Why Do People Shop on Pinterest?

Although people can buy products on Pinterest, it is not really an ecommerce platform. Instead, it links users to other ecommerce sites. Data shows that Pinterest ranks second among social media platforms that lead people to online retailing platforms. Many users prefer to use Pinterest to shop because it enables them to organize the products and then compare them.

For instance, if you are looking for winter wear, you can search for it on Pinterest instead of searching several sites. As you search, you pin all the looks you love on your clipboard. Then you can start visiting the sellers individually to compare their prices and other features.

3 Benefits of Marketing on Pinterest

1. Increase Brand Awareness

People who use Pinterest are there to discover new ideas and products and are already naturally interested in your business.

The statistics are there: 80% of weekly pinners discover a new brand or a product on Pinterest, and users are 55% more likely to purchase a brand or product after seeing a video on Pinterest compared to other platforms.

Your pins have a long lifespan, unlike messages and promotions on other social media platforms. They continuously generate engagement and a growing awareness for your brand.

Keep in mind that Pinterest has over 450 million registered users. Most of these users are searching for products to buy. Therefore, it is an excellent platform to drive traffic to your ecommerce website.

Using Pinterest is easy; more so, it is free to use. Unfortunately, many people don’t know how to use Pinterest. Some people don’t even know they can do business on Pinterest. This is partly because it is not as popular as other social media and because people think it is only for pictures.

2. You Will Get More Website Traffic

As a visual search engine, Pinterest helps increase traffic to your website and therefore more business — even more so than any other social media platform. In fact, 85% of weekly pinners have bought something based on pins they see from brands, illustrating the quality of traffic.

3. Improve Your Reach

According to Pinterest, 97% of the top searches on Pinterest are unbranded, meaning people are using Pinterest as a discovery tool. And when they find it, 98% of the people try these new things. This alone opens a huge opportunity to drive sales and conversions if you can get your products and services in front of your target audience.

So, now let’s talk about how to use Pinterest to sell your product.

11 Ways to Use Pinterest for Ecommerce

Want to know how to use Pinterest to grow your ecommerce business? Getting started on Pinterest is as simple as following these steps.

1. Create a Business Account

Using Pinterest is simple. The first thing to do to use Pinterest is to create an account.

But your Pinterest account must be a business account. This will enable you to place ads and track the performance of your pins. If you don’t have a business account, then it’s time to create one.

If you already have a personal Pinterest account, you can either change it to a business account or create a new account. Creating a Pinterest account is not difficult. When that’s finished, it’s time to create a board for your Pinterest account, write a compelling business profile and Pinterest profile, add a description, and link your Pinterest account with your website.

Pinterest boards are used for sharing pins, articles, and other information, and luckily, creating Pinterest boards is easy. All you have to do to create a board is to log in to your Pinterest account click on Add+ at the upper right-hand corner click “Create aboard” and customize your board. Once you create pins, you are free to share them on your board. You are also free to decide who can pin on it.

Also, make sure your profile page contains information about your brand and ideas, and it links back to your site. You can use your profile page for advertising your businesses.

2. Add Your Pinterest link to Your Webpages

Go back to your website and create a button that allows people to follow you on Pinterest on all your site pages. Everyone knows the Pinterest logo.

Put the Pinterest icon on your website’s pages, link it with your Pinterest account, and encourage your site visitors to click the icon to follow you on Pinterest and share your Pinterest products with their social network. This will help create more awareness for your product.

3. Create Beautiful Images of Your Products

Do you want to share your products on Pinterest and get people to click on them? Then be sure to make them visually appealing.

Before you start pinning, make sure the image you want to pin will attract the eye. To help with this, try to take high-quality images, and invest some time into finding the right backgrounds for your products. This might help ensure you create images that people will love, and want to pin. This will also attract Pinterest users to your pins, and encourage them to click the links that direct them back to your product page. Now you can start pinning.

4. Organize Pins Into Different Boards

Organize your Pins into different boards to make sure that your products aren’t just lumped together.

This will make navigation easy. If you want to sell cookbooks, you can divide your boards into categories such as “Keto”, “Mediterranean”, “Simple Cooking”, “Desserts”, “Vegetarian”, etc.

Simply naming your boards into easy-to-understand categories will help your audience find the exact thing they want.

5. Add Prices to Your Pins

Some people may think that including prices could turn off interest in your products, but it’s good practice to be totally transparent and upfront before potential customers make their purchase.

People like to be informed and don’t like disappointments when finding out that your product costs more than anticipated. You can also put sales or promotional prices on your pins to attract more interest.

6. Encourage Customers to Share Their Own Photos

In a world of selfies, it isn’t self-serving for you to encourage your buyers to take pictures of themselves wearing or using what you sell on your ecommerce site. For instance, if you’re a clothing retailer, ask your customers to Pin photos of themselves wearing your products.

You have to be proactive and make a request for customers to do this, but once you do, it’ll start to get easier. Add calls to action on your website, and create a special board just for happy customers to pin their images.

7. Scope Out the Competition

Sometimes, you have to channel Sherlock Holmes and do a little digging into the competition. See what your biggest competitors (you know who they are!) have on their Pinterest pages. Figure out what they’re doing better than you, and what you’re doing better than they are. This will help you determine ways to improve your strategy.

By periodically seeing what’s happening on the other side of the fence, you’ll also be less likely to experience a shock if a newcomer suddenly jumps into the fray. Being “in the know” is essential!

8. Write SEO-Optimized Content

You might already be aware of the importance of Search Engine Optimization. Since you want to market your product, you must optimize it for search engines so it will appear high on the list when people search for your products.

You can create blog posts or guest posts on other websites to promote your product. You can also share your products, articles, and ideas on your own Pinterest boards.

Be sure to include all necessary keywords that will make your content search engine-friendly and rank high in search results. Start sharing your product images, blog posts, and articles that promote your products on your Pinterest board.

9. Add Data to Your Product with Rich Pins

Pinterest has a Rich Pins feature, which allows you to add information to your product. That information includes price, availability, and product description. This feature will add more value to your pins.

10. Promote Your Products

You don’t have to wait for SEO to push your products to the top of the search query. You can pay to have them come out on top.

Create “promoted pins” so that more people have the chance to see your pins. When people go to the search bar, your pins should be the first to appear. You will also have the privilege of specifying your target audience. That is, people who will see your pins.

With promoted pins, Pinterest will show your pins to people who are actively looking for them.

11. Use “Shop the Look” Pins

Another great feature on Pinterest you can take advantage of is the “Shop the Look” Pin.

This feature enables users to click on a product on Pinterest, compare it with other products without leaving the platform, and make purchases right there on Pinterest.

This makes the whole process faster and much smoother for potential customers, encouraging them to buy your products.

Reach Out for Help from Ecwid

Now you know the basics of how to use Pinterest. But you may still be confused about certain aspects of its interface.

In that case, no worries; you are not alone.

Truly, ecommerce, and how to use social media to gain traffic to your ecommerce site can be confusing, but we are here to help. At Ecwid, we have automated marketing tools that you can use to grow your business from scratch. You don’t have to be a professional to use our tools. In fact, no experience is needed.

At Ecwid, our ultimate goal is to make marketing easy for everyone.

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Aug 19, 2024

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.