Social media: paid-for Pinterest

Whilst social media platforms are technically a free platform, they are getting more and more savvy to the need to make money, and this is where businesses have come in with paid-for advertising. Businesses can pay to get their information to targeted audiences on the channel, or in Facebook’s case where they are showing less and less information to people, to get to the fans in general. And Pinterest is no exception, read on to find out more about paid-for advertising.

In Pinterest, paid-for advertising comes in the form of promoted pins which are paid for on a cost-per-click basis. This was initially rolled out for large businesses and in the last year or so has been introduced to smaller businesses as well.

1. Decide what your aim is. As with any form of marketing, what do you want out of it? Do you want people to buy things from you, become a fan on social media, visit your website, sign up for your newsletter? You need to decide before so that you can tailor your marketing and also measure and track the results.
2. Pick your pin, or create it. If you’ve had a pin that’s naturally performed well then perhaps choose that one as it will likely create high levels of engagement. Or if you have a particularly message to get out then create one that fits that, but don’t make sales messages too direct because people don’t tend to engage very well with pushy sales messages.
3. Target the advertising. Pinterest allows you to target your advertising to specific demographics, you can either target people in your current audience demographics (low-hanging fruit) or you could try to expand your audience.

And remember, any marketing should be analysed for its effectiveness so you can find out what worked and what didn’t, and you ROI, and this will help shape and improve marketing activities in the future. Pinterest has a built-in analytics tool that will help you do this. But you also shouldn’t neglect the analytics tool before your first advertising campaign. Pinterest’s tool is particularly effective at identifying your audience so that you know who you’re advertising to and you can tailor your campaign to either target people in similar categories, or ensure that your marketing (colours, design, messaging etc.) is appropriate for the audience.

If you need any help setting up a Pinterest campaign let us know: hello@webfwd.co.uk