So, you’ve learnt that Pinterest is a top platform to market your business and you want to make sure you are doing things right.
Or maybe you are already putting in so much effort but it’s not yielding as much fruit as you know it should.
If you can relate to any of these, read follow along for the Pinterest marketing mistakes you should avoid as a small business owner.
11 Pinterest Marketing Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make
1. Using a Personal Pinterest Account
One of the common rookie Pinterest marketing mistakes I see often is using a personal account for your business. Although this might be advisable for other platforms like Instagram, it doesn’t work for Pinterest.
Businesses who are serious about marketing on Pinterest must own a business account, not if you want your efforts to yield fruit.
In the first place, a business account allows you to claim your website and also link products or post to the actual page on your website.
It also gives you access to analytics to measure the efforts of your marketing strategy, which is great for tracking your performance and reviewing your strategy.
A Pinterest business account gives you access to promoted pins to create targeted pins to the relevant audience. And not to mention, you get new features first when they roll out.
But perhaps, the biggest perk is that it is free; you don’t have to pay any extra amount to open a business account. All you have to do is register the same way you do a personal account.
Personal accounts are for playing around and getting ideas on Pinterest; when you want to do Pinterest marketing, a business account becomes vital.
2. Not Claiming Your Website
It is not enough to own a business account, you must also make sure to claim your website so Pinterest can link it to you.
Although not doing this is not one of the Pinterest mistakes that kill your growth, it is just one of those things that help your Pinterest marketing strategies.
In fact, it would be weird not to claim your website on Pinterest; it doesn’t portray you as a serious business owner.
For one, claiming your website makes you pins branded with your profile picture; they also help you get website analytics to know how much traffic you are getting from your efforts. And this data is important to know the kind of content your audience resonates with so you can create more of that.
Besides claiming a website, you can also claim an Etsy, Instagram and and YouTube account. If you have any of these accounts, you should definitely claim them all.
3. Using It as a Social Media Platform
Pinterest is called a social media platform in some quarters, but more accurately, it is a visual search engine.
Pinterest is more like Google than it is like Instagram. So, don’t treat it like the latter.
And that should inform the kind of content you post and the metrics you measure (more on that latter).
People go on Pinterest to get answers, solutions and ideas; they don’t care about your team bonding activities.
Make sure your content is more tailored towards that. Even if you are an ecommerce business and only have products, you can share your products but include other valuable content that aligns with your product.
Leave every other thing that has nothing to do with providing the Pinterest audience with what they want on other social media platforms.
Also Read: How to Determine the Best Social Media Platform to Promote Your Book
4. Interacting with Content That Don’t Fit Your Business
You can always have a personal and business account if you also want to use Pinterest for other things. But your business account must be for business and what aligns with it.
For instance, if you are a book lover and your business is about food, you have no business creating a board and saving pins that have to do with books.
What that would do is confuse the algorithm. You want Pinterest to know what your business is about so they can suggest it to users searching for your kind of business. Confusing it will not help your business.
So make sure everything you do on your business account – boards, pins you create and those you save – are all aligned with your business and niche.
5. Measuring the Wrong Metrics
Again, Pinterest is not a social media platform, so metrics that matter in the aforementioned doesn’t matter with Pinterest.
That means followers, impressions and views don’t really matter in varying proportions. For Pinterest, your followers don’t matter at all because users don’t need to follow you to see and interact with your content.
Plus, it is not a social media platform that encourages building a community. A user doesn’t need to “like” you to find your content useful, just like you don’t need to like a webmaster to click on their website on Google search results.
Viewers and impressions might count if they are leading to saves and clicks; if not, they don’t.
The metrics that are vital when it comes to Pinterest are saves and pin clicks – but more pin clicks as that’s what directly drives traffic to your website.
6. Not Being Consistent
Like all endeavours, if you want results, you need to be consistent.
You cannot afford to pin once and call it a day; you need to show up everyday. Yes, everyday or at least, every two days if you have built your account to a reasonable level.
Posting once a week doesn’t cut it, especially if you are just starting or even want to sustain your growth.
Pinterest thrives on fresh content regularly for you to gain traction and reach new audiences. And luckily, you don’t have to create new content all the time. You can create multiple pins for one content.
Some people do as much as 50 pins per content, so the sky really is the limit as long as you can find new designs.
Fortunately, you don’t have to run out of designs; that is where Canva comes in. The platform provides templates that you just need to tweak to fit your post.
However, don’t publish all the pins linking to the same content at once. Space them out and shuffle between different content because Pinterest doesn’t appreciate publishing multiple pins leading to the same URL at once.
A good rule of thumb is to give it a space of at least 7 days.
Also, to keep you consistent – especially if you can’t manage pinning manually everyday, you can use Tailwind to schedule pins ahead and make sure you can pin consistently.
7. Not Using Keywords
One of the mistakes you are making with Pinterest is not focusing on keywords. Remember where I spoke about Pinterest being a visual search engine? Yes, it is, so it requires including certain keywords to increase your visibility.
If you publish pins or create boards and don’t properly describe them, the journey towards visibility might be longer – and I know you don’t want that.
So, keyword research is essential.
Before you create your content, search for relevant keywords to guide your topic and content structure. Then include those keywords in your pin title and description.
You should also make sure your board descriptions are keyword rich with the relevant keywords that align to the particular board and your industry
For instance, if the board is titled, Small Business Tips, search for small business tips on Pinterest and include some of the other keywords that pop up in the description – those are based on the most-search terms on the platform.
Moreover, regularly look through Trends to see what’s trending in your niche so that you can create content and pins on them.
8. Using the Wrong Photo Size or Design
Pins can be created vertically or horizontally on Pinterest. However, vertical pins have been found to do better because of the structure of the platform.
Most people interact with content on their phones and horizontal pins are usually too small to stand out, which affects their performance.
Also, vertical pins give you more space for a more robust design and bolder text so users can see what your pin is about.
In addition to the size, make sure to use the right designs. Create stylish designs but don’t compromise your text for it. Ensure your texts are bold and clear enough to be seen on the smallest screen.
Plus, you need to avoid too busy designs that take away from the message.
Pro tip: Regularly review your analytics to see the best-performing pins and create pins based on those designs.
9. Using Wrong Links
Using the wrong links is one of the Pinterest mistakes that are hurting your business that many people unfortunately don’t focus on.
If you moved your blog or content to another URL or have broken links, make sure to delete those pins or edit them.
Leaving them as they are will only hurt your efforts.
Plus, it goes without saying that you should never create a pin that leads nowhere. ALWAYS add ACTIVE links to your pins.
10. Only Pinning Products
Another critical mistake to avoid when marketing on Pinterest is pinning only product pins. This is a mistake that is common among e-commerce businesses that don’t have a blog page.
If you can have a blog and create content around your products; it doesn’t hurt. In fact, it is a good idea to have one. You can reach out to me if you don’t know where to start.
If not, you can always find a way to play around with your products.
For instance, if you sell hair products, you can create a simple post of people using your products or how to use certain products.
Instead of just having products on your accounts, you can give users valuable content that would make them consider buying your products.
11. Expecting Quick Results
Pinterest does not provide quick results even though it is very effective when you have grown your account.
So, don’t give up if you have done it for a few months and not getting adequate results yet. At least, give it 6 months of consistent work.
However, you must make sure you are doing it right. Therefore, regularly research tips and learn about algorithm updates so you are not running blindly.
Also Read: 15 Common Marketing Mistakes to Avoid as a Small Business
These marketing mistakes with Pinterest are the reason why it seems like marketers are lying to you when they tell you how effective Pinterest is. When you correct all these, it is only a matter of time before you start seeing results with your marketing efforts.
What new thing did you learn here, let me know in the comment section below.
