If you communicate for a brand or cause and haven’t already, it time to jump aboard the Pinterest train. The platform provides users with the ability to use creative ideas to grab the attention of people who may otherwise never hear your message. Plus, Pinterest’s audience is fast-growing. While there’s no doubt that Pinterest is useful for spreading awareness, it was previously difficult to assess how effective it really was. Was it worth the effort to create the content? Maybe. How many repins and comments mean something? Who knows. When is someone actually taking action after pinning content? Hard to say.
That all changed when Pinterest announced new web analytics capabilities. To get started all you need to do is verify your business account on http://business.pinterest.com. According to an Avalaunch infographic on Mashable, once you it set up, you will be able to see:
- How many pins come from your own site
- Repins, impressions, reach and clicks for your pins
- Which of your pins have been pinned or clicked the most as well as most current pins
- Number of pins over time and how many individual people are creating pins
- Number of repins and the larger reach each pin has
- Number of clicks on pins over time by individual users
Why Does This Matter?
From strategizing to writing to creating, developing any kind of meaningful content is time-consuming. Sometimes data is needed to prove the effort is worth your while and should be continued over time. Pinterest analytics now allows accounts to evaluate their content to see what is most popular and what has the most reach. This can help improve strategy based on annual content, timely content, used images, links and how “pinnable” your own website currently is. A piece of content that you thought may be extremely popular may not end up being so and this data will help you understand why and what to do differently next time.
Other Updates
Pinterest also updated its design to make visual content even more important that it already was. When you click a pin, the image will now show up larger. It is important to note the following changes, as they may update your strategy and you want to make sure you show your followers that you know the current trends.
- Hashtags no longer make a term searchable so don’t spend your characters on them.
- You can no longer put links in your pin descriptions. The only links allowed in your profile are for your home website or your other social network presences so keep them updated.
- You can no longer automatically post a tweet when you pin something. If you want this content to show up on Twitter, you will have to tweet it yourself.
- Your profile description can now only be 160 characters instead of 200. Update now to make sure your profile fits.
- You can no longer like a board on Facebook.
- You have to use the Pinterest embed link option to link to directly to pins.
Just Keep Pinning!
Changes can be intimidating and difficult to adjust to when following a larger campaign strategy. Remember that these changes on Pinterest can only help your messaging improve. Just keep pinning and remember that your creativity is will shine through when you are trying to capture audiences and share your story.