Five Common Pinterest Misconceptions Every Marketers Need To Know

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Most new social media marketers made some mistakes when dealing with Pinterest.

The popularity of this visual media channel has risen over the last two years. Pinterest is not a new player anymore in the social media marketing battlefield. Although it has been known to provide impressive web traffic, many marketers still have no idea to its potential for their company’s benefits.

Pinterest is a unique social media channel that goes by its own rules of engagement and user dynamics. Numerous brands risk damaging their reputation through the misuse of Pinterest. In today’s post, we are going to assert five most infamous misconceptions about this increasingly popular social network.

1. “Pinterest is perfect for branded images”

Inspiration is Pinterest’s backbone, and this is often misunderstood by most publishers out there. Brands often make a fatal mistake by including a large number of branded images, making their followers tired of them. A perfect ratio is one branded image to 4-5 inspiration pictures or 20% to 80% of the page filled accordingly. Instead of creating boards filled with branded images, it would be better to keep them relevant by adding pins that don’t market their products.

2. “Board names and descriptions aren’t important”

While creating boards on Pinterest, content marketers marketers often concentrate on visuals, easily forgetting about the board name and description. The fact is, both of them are essential for users to make sense of the images featured in that space.

Marketers should go for simple board names and descriptions rich with relevant keywords to build their SEO. Creating a board with “Words to Live By” title which features a simple description: ‘Quotes from some of inspirational authors’, for instance, will allow users to immediately engage with the collection of quotes from various literature.

3. “Hashtag abusing”

Some marketers are convinced that hashtags work for every social network. However, things are a little bit different with Pinterest, as too many hashtags might actually harm a board and discourage users from clicking through the content to brand website. Try to avoid redundant and self-explanatory hashtags.

4. “Verification is unnecessary”

Most beginner social media marketers are not eager to verify their Pinterest profiles, convinced that user will not care anyway. Well, they actually do. Plus, a verified account brings lots of benefits – some smart analytics tools, a detailed coverage of top boards on the basis of unique impressions, a ranking of most repinned content and an insightful guide to the interests of brand followers. All in all, verifying a brand account is definitely worth the trouble.

5. “Pinterest is just like other social networks”

Wrong. Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest is mainly about developing interests, interacting with ideas and appreciating the beauty in various mood boards and pins.

Marketers are often confused why users aren’t interacting with their content by commenting, just like on other social media. A user repinning brand content isn’t an invitation to interaction – it simply means that they liked your pin and want to save it. Pinterest is hardly yet another platform for brand-consumer interactions and marketers will do well to remember that.

All this is not to say that Pinterest is a bad marketing option. It just that marketers shouldn’t assume that this social network works exactly like all others. Once marketers learn their ins-and-outs through Pinterest, they will be ready to leverage its potential for marketing. At least being aware of the major potential fails is the first step to starting a good beginning.