With an estimated 200 million monthly active users making pins, Pinterest has become one of the most popular social media tools to date. Pinner Joy Cho has the most number of followers at 13M and 5M monthly viewers. How does one gain so many followers? Here are the 5 of the most engaging types of Pinterest posts which may help you be the next Joy Cho.
#1 Pins maximizing Pinterest Boards
Pinterest boards are where you save your pins through various categories. You are free to group your pins according to your preference.
While you’re pinning your Pinterest posts, you can add new boards to your profile or add them to existing ones. You are also able to edit a board’s name and/or description. How do you use these to your advantage?
Make sure that you complete the board information upon making your pins. This enables your audience to learn what your board is about, consequently what your interest is. The more you learn about boards, the better your engagement rate will be.
There are 7 parts in a Pinterest board to help you group your Pinterest posts. The 3 most essential parts are the name, description, and category. Make sure your board name is catchy, but at the same time is easily understandable by your audience. Make sure that you use keywords that could appear in Pinterest’s search engine to make your board more popular. Categories are general pin classifications on Pinterest, and it is vital to have your board fall under one.
To further enhance the popularity of your Pinterest boards, placing a cover, enabling the map feature, setting privacy, and enabling collaborators will also help with your Pinterest posts. Having the Map option selected will automatically make your board a place board. You may also want to select the audience of your board via the Secret toggle. The Collaborator part will help you gain more people to engage with your pins directly.
Group boards are where you can place your Pinterest posts to increase your audience. These are shared boards where those you invite can freely pin. This is an effective tool especially for brainstorming different activities, projects, or just a venue to discuss similar interests.
Use the Collaborators box in the board’s edit page to invite people to your boards to share pins with. You may type their Pinterest username or email linked to the software, of which they will be notified of the invitation. This makes the board more intimate since you have personally chosen the people to share pins with.
Proper management of your group boards for your pins is something to be noted. Be conscious of the people who you send invitations to. Make sure that their interests are aligned with the board you are inviting them to be part of. Otherwise, you might be wasting both your time and theirs.
#2 Pinterest Posts with Calls to Action
Pinterest posts with a call to action (CTA) also get more engagement than those without. In the marketing context, this instructs the audience to provoke a response immediately. Imperative statements are commonly used in social media, such as “click this link…”, “Visit now!” or “like this post…” In Pinterest posts, you may also opt to use “repin this…”
Pinterest posts with CTA have an 80% increase in engagement than those without CTAs. This makes people more involved with what you are interested in. They perceive a sense of value to their participation by this sense of urgency you create for them to do.
Though you may want to have CTAs in most of your Pinterest posts, you ought to pace yourself when doing this. People may eventually get annoyed, and lose interest in your board (or worse in your account) altogether. You may also be perceived as desperate, which the audience does not have time for in this fast-paced social media scene.
Should you choose to have links to be clicked in your Pinterest posts, it is advisable to not use bitly. Pinterest has programmed a bit.ly link as spam. When this is used, a prompt appears indicating that the link is blocked. With this, it is important to make sure that links you post will redirect the user to the appropriate site.
#3 Rich Pins
Rich Pins are Pinterest posts that have extra information on the pin itself. Rich pins are of 6 types: app, article, movie, place, and recipe. Depending on the available content of your pin, you may choose from the aforementioned to make your post directly more informative. You may want some help to get you started, and here are descriptions on which to pick for your next post:
Article pins are Pinterest posts apt for those who would like to publicize news, results from studies, or general information one might find relevant for the public to be aware of. This is useful for pinners who would like to build their reading lists or pin more to their article board. Article pins include a catchy headline, the author of the text, and the story description.
App pins as Pinterest posts are perfect for app developers. This hits two birds with one stone: an engagement as a pin, and an opportunity to gain a client to install the featured app on their device. This rich pin includes an install button for easier access to the app without leaving Pinterest.
If you are targeting movie buffs, Movie pins as Pinterest posts are your best way to go. These include cast members, reviews, and ratings to help the audience know more about their movie. You may opt to feature new ones to help with the hype or go for popular classic titles.
Place pins are ideal for the wanderlust. Those who are planning their next trip, who have been to your featured place, or who are just curious will be drawn to your post. These pins include a map, address, and contact information.
Recipe pins are the most popular Pinterest posts. People would like to get their gastronomical fill of delicious food around the world. Ingredients, preparation and cooking times, and serving information are included in these pins.
#4 Pinterest Posts with Good Visuals
Images in Pinterest posts are one, if not the most, of the vital aspects of a pin. This is what the audience directly sees as they scroll through hundreds of pins at a sitting. Make sure that you take note of the image quality as it is your direct key to making it or breaking it in Pinterest.
Pinterest posts should feature images of high quality. Pixelated images will defeat the purpose of displaying it in the first place since it looks very unclear and unprofessional. Infographics most especially have to have the best quality since it presents facts and figures on the image itself.
Reddish-orange images on Pinterest posts receive twice as many repins as bluish ones. Those with multiple dominant colors get 3.25 more repins than those with one color. Medium-light colored images are 20 times repined than darker ones. Images with a smooth texture are repinned 17 times more than rough textured ones.
Vertical shaped images in Pinterest posts with an aspect ratio between 2:3 and 4:5 receive 60% more repins than tall images. Compared with horizontal images, vertical images will also help in easy reading of your text as well. If this shape is not what you prefer, you may opt for the standard recommended dimension of 735×1102.
#5 Pinterest Posts with a Unique Take on Popular Topics
Your unique perspective on popular topics is what will make your Pinterest posts more engaging. With over 80% of pins as repins, your creative angle on commonly engaged topics may even help you get your own following. Strategizing may be tricky, but will certainly help you in the long run.
Introducing something new excites those who come across your Pinterest post. In a sea of similar images and quotes on popular topics, your novel idea will spark the curiosity of the audience. Therefore, you should be responsible for the content that you post.
Wrapping it up
The 5 most engaging types of Pinterest posts is useful information to help you create more traffic to your account. In sum, these types made the most out of Pinterest’s features with the best input that the user can provide. You may opt to incorporate various types to a post to maximize its potential for repins, and gain of followers. It will also help you be more engaging with your followers, and consequently to help you take part in sharing your content as well.
Gilbert says
#1 is very well explained!
A catchy name ( related to your brand, that works best in my experience), a very nicely explained, SHORT attractive description with good SEO works very well. There are many tools for Pinterest keyword search. If these 3 are used in the right way, one has a pretty well-placed Pinterest strategy inbound.
Kathi says
It’s funny how many people aren’t using CTA’s. CTA’s used in Pinterest work quite well, especially if the image is of high quality and matches the CTA. There is no doubt one will see a 50% increase in their CTR.
Logan says
You are very correct!
Roberto says
I have experience with article pins. If they are pinned in the right manner, with a high-quality article, a catchy headling and of course, a high-quality picture, you are bound to get some great results for sure!
Logan says
Exactly why we mentioend it 😉
Adela says
That is some gold data you guys dropped in #4!
I never knew that mid-light color images would produce 20x pins! Thanks a lot Jarvee!
Logan says
Thanks for the compliment Adela, we’re glad you learned something new
Akbar says
i follow #5 a lot. i basically go to google trends, type out my niches topic. All the trending keywords come up. I then do some competition analysis, copy my competitors a bit and then develop my own unique content! Of course, I also then promote it on Pinterest.
Logan says
That is an excellent advice Akbar!
Heather says
I personally follow Joy Cho and he really is an amazing marketer. I think everyone whose thinking to market with Pinterest should observe his tactics.
Lura says
Visual imagery is nowadays a unique element. which is why when some brands implement it in their tactics, they see great results and build a loyal following. At least that’s what I observed.
Logan says
I agree!
Keanu says
Thank you for sharing! Call to action is very important, but as you said don’t overdo it. This should make people interested in what you are offering and not make them annoyed.
Eshan says
What drives me to click and check pinterest posts are visuals, as most of as. I love when they are clean and simple with powerful story. Our audience likes more long visuals and this is exactly what we are doing.
Guzmann says
I love all articles and all contents related to Pinterest. The most beautiful social media on the net. I love everything about it and i love this article. Although it’s pretty much old article, every single word is true and it’s applicable today.
Brax Meadows says
Running competitions is also something that can get users interested in your post. This will have a lot effect when you give something that is interesting for your audience and when you ask them to do some action in order to participate. Thanks for sharing.
Alosmann says
Pinterest, same as Facebook, use CALLS TO ACTION options. These options are “must-have” nowadays. The right use of these options can increase effects for 20 %, positive ones of course 🙂
Lallana Malouda says
Pinterest is most overlooked social platform, but it’s so powerfull and simple
Luisa says
Wow, interesting article! I’d never though that I should avoid pinning darker images since people are more interested in medium-light colored images. I will post more reddish images, and see if they will get more repins.