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Are you looking to improve your Pinterest engagement?
Want to know what types of pins get attention?
Viewing what works for others on Pinterest is an excellent way to get inspired for your own pins.
In this article I'll share five types of images the Pinterest community loves and explain what makes them so popular.
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#1: Show Products in Use
Pinterest is an excellent place to show off your products. But there's a way to be even more successful in product promotion.
Target found that what's popular on Pinterest wasn't just the product itself—it was showing the product in use. Doing this gives their customers a better idea of how their products work together.
In this video Target's VP of Digital Marketing & Loyalty Bonnie Gross explains their approach to Pinterest.
Target still pins individual products.
However, the products in a setting get more engagement.
Both the pin of the individual product and the staged setting lead to the same sales page.
Creating separate images for a product gives their Pinterest followers a choice of what to pin. Some people prefer to pin images that offer inspiration for how to use the product. Others prefer to pin the image with a plain background and may have an idea for using the item in a different way.
This fun pin of ideas for a baby shower gives people inspiration, but takes things a step further. It includes instructions for how to create one of the projects. The pin links to a sales page for cellophane and other gift-wrap supplies used in the project.
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CLICK HERE TO LEARN MOREKey Takeaways: To showcase your product or products on Pinterest, employ a dual tactic. Show each product in use to inspire Pinterest users, as well as on their own so your audience members can imagine their own ways to use your products.
#2: Make Non-Visual Content More Visual
It's not surprising that the most popular topics on Pinterest are DIY, beauty and food, since these are typically fairly easy to represent visually. However, even if your business lies outside of these areas, there's still hope for you on Pinterest. You'll just have to get creative with your images.
For example, this pin from Rebekah Radice, 10 Ways to Use Facebook Marketing to Turn Up the Volume on Your Brand, is about a topic that isn't easily represented by an image, but has still found success on Pinterest.
This individual pin has received more than 1,500 repins and over 200 likes. The total number of pins for the article is more than 2,400. There are many reasons why this pin has received so much engagement.
First and foremost, the bright-blue color stands out from the light background color on Pinterest. The large, solid, black arrow in the middle of the image is an eye-catching bold shape. People love lists and the text overlay clearly lets people know what this pin links to.
Furthermore, the pin is an article-rich pin with a keyword-rich title and description, which makes it very easy for people to find through a Pinterest search. It also has had time on its side.
The article was originally written in September 2013. Perhaps through a search or being shown as a related pin in users' feeds, people have discovered this pin and have repinned it. Unlike other platforms, content on Pinterest can continue to get engagement long after it was originally created.
Alli Worthington's pin for her article, 30 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make, received over 2,200 repins and more than 306 likes. There are over 10,000 total pins from the article. One of the reasons the article has so many pins is that Alli included several similarly styled images throughout the article.
This image is a slightly different take on creating an image for a non-visual topic. Unlike the bold shapes and bright colors that Rebekah used in her image, Alli chose to use bold text in different fonts on top of a photograph. The text tells you right away what the article is about. Plus, the smaller “Learn how to avoid them” text towards the bottom of the image tells viewers that Alli will share solutions, thereby enticing them to pin and click through.
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Key Takeaways: For business (non-visual) article pins: use text in a fun way and incorporate bright colors or images in the background. For more pinning opportunities, give readers multiple choices of images to pin.
#3: Create Quotes That Reflect Your Business
People love to repin quotes. They key to pinning quotes that get engagement is to pair quotes and images that reflect the mission and tone of your brand. To make the most of quote images, they should link back to your website (at the very least, to your About page), so people can learn more about you and your company.
Lauren Conrad is known for beauty and fashion, and her quotes get a lot of engagement on Pinterest. All of these examples from Lauren's Pinterest account have over 3,000 repins and have 500 or more likes.
Her Don’t Quit Your Day Dream pin is a still photograph with the quote on white space. It's clear and easy to read, which is very important. Most people use Pinterest on their mobile device so it's crucial that the message is easy to read on a small screen.
Another quote option is to use creative typography. The message style is artistic, fun and attractive. It's also an effective way to present a longer quote, since it's also art.
This Think Happy Be Happy quote pin has a vivid color and bright, simple, easily readable text. It's very subtly branded and is easy to make on free tools like PicMonkey or Canva.
Key Takeaways: Brand and link your quotes. Then put together a board of quotes, either a collection of different topics or on a theme topic, that reflects your image and relates to your business
#4: Share Good Images
Close-ups with good lighting make for interesting pictures that the Pinterest audience loves. Although these examples are with food, you can use this technique on any type of product.
Chungah of Damn Delicious pins recipes with the image of the finished dish on top and the stacked images showing the ingredients below. She recently repinned her Quinoa Veggie Fried Rice recipe, and within a couple of days it already had over 1,400 repins. The recipe has more than 500,000 total pins on Pinterest.
This pin is also included in a group board for Better Homes & Gardens, which contributed to the repin and favorite count.
Multiple images in a tall infographic that shows the basic steps of the recipe have become Chungah's signature style; they are extremely recognizable on Pinterest.
Her beautiful photograph of the completed dish is eye-catching. Then, the steps below give a glimpse of the process for making or serving it. Seeing the steps broken down into a few images makes the recipe seem easy. And people love easy.
Key Takeaways: Close-up pictures with good lighting don't need to be limited to food images. Use this technique with any kind of product or project: start with a captivating image on top and then break up the step-by-step pictures with text and additional instructions.
#5: Create Valuable Infographics
Infographics make great pinnable content. The best infographics have a nice mix of images and text, and are easy to embed on other sites.
Constant Contact's pin, What and How Often Should You Post to Social Media?, has been repinned more than 1,900 times. One hundred of these are from the original post on the Constant Contact blog. However, the infographic was shared on a popular infographics website and that link has been pinned over 13,000 times.
Key Takeaway: Create infographics that can easily be embedded on other websites so they get more shares. Make sure the image is branded with your business so viewers can find you.
Conclusion
Attention-grabbing Pinterest posts like these are easy to create on your own. Most of the images in this article could be created with stock photography and/or a smartphone and easy-to-use image-creation tools like Canva and PicMonkey.
Put the elements together to create beautiful and informative pins your fans will love.
What do you think? What do you post on Pinterest? Which content has gotten the most engagement? Do you have favorite types of Pinterest images you like to use? Please share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments.
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