Yesterday I attended a valuable Pinterest webinar hosted by Melanie Duncan (if you missed it, you can watch a reply of the webinar here). Pinterest is the third largest social network these days (trailing behind Facebook and Twitter, of course), and its ascent in the social media world continues. Melanie graciously offered her attendees a plethora of tips and advice for tackling Pinterest as a marketing tool, and I was pleasantly surprised that there is an art, if you will, to successfully “pinning”.
One of the key points I took away from Melanie’s webinar was to never leave pin descriptions blank. This is especially important if you are creating your own pins generated from your content. When Melanie asked if any of us evaded writing descriptions by inserting a measly period instead, I sheepishly admitted fault. Sometimes, the pins just speak for themselves right? Why would we really need to take the time to write a description?
Well, if you care about being successful on Pinterest, this little extra step can take you far. 
Why are descriptions important? Writing quality descriptions will enhance your pins’ SEO both on Pinterest. And although Google hasn’t officially indexed Pinterest pins and boards yet, I’m slowly starting to see more and more social media listings pop up in my searches. Meaning, it can’t hurt to optimize your pins now in the event that Google will one day prioritize social media in their search algorithms.
Pin descriptions have a whopping 500-character limit, so remember to take advantage of it. Don’t be shy about writing lengthy descriptions and using lots of keywords. You can also add in URLs linking back to your webpage or even other social media sites.
If you use Pinterest solely for personal leisure, then opting out of writing descriptions on things you repin won’t affect you much. But if you’re pinning your own content (your website, content from your website, your blog posts, etc), then writing descriptions is a key way to add value to your pins so you can get the most traffic out of them.
