As hard as you may try, even the most focused of social media marketers will find themselves getting lost in the black hole that is Pinterest. The site was designed to suck you in, making it tough to feel like the time you spent pinning has resulted in anything other than carpal tunnel syndrome. While the channel itself seems like one large group art project, it is actually a well-disguised e-commerce center, with built-in analytics for quantitative analysis of your efforts. The unfortunate part is that many small business owners have no idea how to access their Pinterest Analytics, or if they do, they may as well be in another language. Yet with the right access and a deeper understanding of what they mean, your analytics will not only make sense, but allow you to improve your Pinterest marketing as a whole.
Keep An Eye on the Competition
Similar to the ‘Pages to Watch’ section of Facebook analytics, Pinterest analytics contain a section called ‘Your Audience’ with a subsection called Interests. Many of these companies are large media moguls such as PopSugar or Buzzfeed, with millions of followers. Still, while they may not be direct competitors, they can still supply you with a sense of what types of content are popular or trending. Examine the kinds of pins that garner a lot of engagement, and try to emulate them. There is a lot to be learned from discovering brands that execute their Pinterest strategies well, and deciphering how they do it.
Determine the Right Devices
In the technological age we live in, a desktop version of any platform simply isn’t enough. In the case of Pinterest, users can login on their desktop, on their smartphones, and on their tablets. However, it’s likely that your followers tend to gravitate toward one medium to surf Pinterest, which can be determined using analytics. Go to the Your Audience section of your analytics and find the option to segment the data by All Audiences or Your Followers. Then, segment your data by device to gain insight into which consumption method your audience prefers. This is valuable information in that it can help you optimize your pins for those specific devices, as pin size will vary greatly depending on where they’re shown.
Observe The Organization
Another great feature of Pinterest analytics is the ability to discover how your audience is understanding and organizing your pins. Simply go to the Interests tab under Your Audience and scroll down to the Boards section. From there, you can see which boards your followers are pinning your content to, as well as the other types of pins that live there. This is an especially useful tool when determining how to organize your own boards. You want the categories of your pins to make logical sense for your followers. If a pin doesn’t have a clear board that it belongs in, your audience likely won’t be able to understand it and therefore is unlikely to repin it.
Engage with Audience Interests
Even the most visually appealing pins are ineffective if they aren’t relevant to topics your audience cares about. To determine the types of pins your followers want to see in their feed, go to your Pinterest analytics and navigate to the Interests tab under Your Audience. You will see a tiled banner with visual representations of the topics as designated by Pinterest, such as Art, or Woodworking, or even Man Cave. Pinterest claims that these are listed in no particular order and have no weighted significance. Therefore, you should view them all as equal when creating your strategy.
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