To the uninterested, Pinterest has seemed like the domain of single girls curating their future weddings, and Instagram the result of a smartphone-generation with too much time on their hands. Neither is quite true, of course, and RepricerExpress takes a look at these two sites from a different perspective: how you can boost online sales with the two.
Start Off with Rich Pins for a Great First Impression
Just about anyone with the vaguest notion of what Pinterest is knows what pins are, but rich pins take it several steps further. Instead of just having a picture of something on your wall, a rich pin adds in a lot more detail about that object. Pinterest has five different kinds of rich pins, each with its own subsection of extra information.
- Article pins: Under the picture, pinners can see the article headline, author and brief description of your story. This is excellent if you want to share relevant information with your buyers, especially if you’ve written your own post.
- Movie pins: You can show off some of your favourite movies here, with rich pin info including actors, ratings and reviews. This is especially useful if you sell entertainment-related items, most notably movies and/or TV shows.
- Place pins: With this pin, you can ‘pin’-point (sorry for the pun!) a location with a map, address and phone number. Good if you want to highlight your own adjunct shop, work with other merchants in terms of providing a fleshed-out inventory, or simply highlight areas of importance related to your product line.
- Recipe pins: Exactly as it sounds — you’ll be listing the ingredients and directions needed to make certain dishes, and is handy if you’re selling items like cookware or baking tools.
- Product pins: We saved this one for last because it’s by far the most important on the list. This is where Pinterest really blurs the boundaries between what it usually does and what online stores do, with pictures of your product displaying real time pricing, availability and where to buy. Plus, because we know you faithfully reprice your merchandise with RepricerExpress, the product pin will also alert pinners when your items have decreased in cost so they can jump on it right away. Just make sure you link to the product page so people can actually buy it.
Trend with the Best Hashtags
Like it or not, Instagram has followed in Twitter’s footsteps by using hashtags. They’re a quick and easy way to centralise posts and photos — but only if you do it right. No doubt you’ve come across tweets that #have #hashtags #after #every #word or more hashtagged words/phrases than are in the actual tweet. It’s annoying and shows the person tweeting doesn’t have a good grasp on the subtleties of Twitter.
Sites like Websta or Populgram will tell you what the most popular hashtags are right now, but you’ll still have to add on your own knowledge and experience to make it work. This is when your own keyword research, combined with a hashtag relevance site like IconoSquare, can help you come up with a list of hashtags that are both relevant to your business and will help connect you with like-minded shoppers.
Pin Quality Over Quantity
Sure, we know that the more pins you put up, the likelier your business is of getting noticed. But just because you throw a bunch of pins out there doesn’t necessarily they’ll be landing with the right audiences. If you ignore these tips, your pins could very well be disappearing into the ether.
- Keep faces out of images and watch your posts get repinned 23% more
- Try to keep your background (whitespace) to under 30%
- Stay away from very dark or very light colours, choosing instead to go with bright dominant colours so you can get repinned at 3.25 times the normal rate
- If stuck on choosing a colour, opt for red over blue. And if you can toss a bit of orange and brown in there as well, go for it.
- Choose taller pictures (i.e. 800 vertical and up) for best results and don’t skimp on the width either (600-736 horizontal)
Keep Track of Your Results
Now that you’ve read this far and implemented these practices, you’ll have to see which ones work best and which ones need a bit more time. We’ve tried to include fairly universal tips on how to increase ecommerce sales with Pinterest and Instagram, but they’ll work a little differently on each seller. This is when you should be looking closely at your metrics and analysing the stats to see just where you’ve struck gold. And don’t be too hasty! Give each new move a month before deciding it’s just not working out.
Final Thoughts
One thing you never have to worry about not working out — and something you’ll see results within far less than a month — is RepricerExpress. And just like we mentioned in an earlier paragraph, every time our repricing software adjusts your prices, a rich pin on Pinterest will notify buyers so they can scoop up your product right away. The only thing left to do is sign up now for your free 15-day trial.
