Five Tips to Increase Engagement Rates on Pinterest

Key takeaways

• The engagement rate on Pinterest is important to increase the interaction of the audience with your brand in the long term through strategic and creative content. For this, the following KPIs are relevant:
• It is recommended to use Pinterest Analytics, which counts saved pins, clicks on pins and outbound clicks to help you with your marketing strategy.
• The five tips to increase engagement rates are: Quality content with, for example, rich pins (and more), creating Pinterest boards, communicating personally with users, Pinterest Analytics, and optimal scheduling.

Pinterest is no longer just the social network for DIY projects and recipe suggestions. Especially since the introduction of Idea Pins, a video-first feature, the platform is increasingly attracting creatives. In Idea Pins, creators can tell the story of their content through music and creative, interactive editing tools – the Pinterest version of TikTok and Instagram Stories rolled into one, so to speak.

Pinterest is also becoming increasingly attractive for brands in every industry. Whereas a few years ago it was mainly female users who were active on the social network, men are the fastest-growing demographic on the platform, according to Pinterest itself in a blog post in 2021. In terms of advertising audience, however, female dominance remains: From January 2021 to January 2022, the share of female audiences (76.7%) versus male audiences (15.3%) in Pinterest’s self-service advertising tools shifted by only about 1%.

But now let’s take a look at how they can increase engagement rates on Pinterest for your brand. Of course, some tips overlap with those for other social networks, but before you plan your influencer marketing campaign, read about how engagement rates on Pinterest are calculated and how you can increase engagement rates using the following five Kolsquare tips.

Engagement rate is relevant to your brand as it allows you to increase awareness in the long run. In fact, when it comes to social media, engagement means using content strategically and imaginatively to encourage and establish meaningful interaction.

How To Calculate Your Engagement Rate on Pinterest

The engagement rate shows how high and how often users take action with your content on Pinterest. Accordingly, you can find out how successfully your content performs.

Each social network calculates the engagement rate differently, taking into account different factors. These factors for Pinterest are:

• Saved Pins: the total number of saved pins or saved ads is divided by the time the pins have been viewed
• Clicks on Pins: the total number of clicks is divided by the time the pins or ads were viewed
• Outbound clicks: the total number of clicks on the destination URL is divided by the number of times the pins or ads were viewed

In addition, Pinterest also considers the following factors for engagement rates: carousel map swipes of pins, clicks on secondary creative elements (collections), and forward/backward swipes of idea pins.

1. Content is Key: Rich Pins and Promoted Ads

As with any marketing strategy, quality content is key. On Pinterest, there are several ways to create the best content possible. First, we recommend Rich Pins. These types of pins give users additional information, for example about an app, movie, recipe, article, product or location. Of course, these take more time, but more on time management later.

Even though creating Rich Pins is free, you need to get validated for it, which does not happen automatically. Simply request this from Pinterest after verifying that the Pinterest code works on your site. On WordPress, for example, this works easily with the Yoast SEO plugin that allows you to add Pinterest meta tags.

Of course, you can also increase your engagement rate on Pinterest with ads. After you decide on one or more pins, you set up targeting. After that, you pay for the results by deciding whether you want to increase your engagement or outbound clicks, for example.

On the blog, Pinterest tells success stories, including that of French liquor brand Lillet, for example, increased awareness by 8.7% and purchase intent by 4.6% among 18-24 year olds during the pre-Christmas period.

A call-to-action (CTA) is also a quick and easy way to increase interaction. Engagement on Pings that include a CTA increases by 80%, according to Quicksprout. Embed the CTA in either the pins or the (relevant!) description and use it to ask for clicks, repins or comments.

Kolsquare Pro tips for pins on Instagram:

• Images with multiple dominant colors are shared 3.25 times more often than those with only one color.
• Images with less than 30% background are pinned most often.
• Images in red, orange or brown are shared twice as often as blue images.
• Images without a face perform 23% better.
• Images with an aspect ratio of 2:3 or 1:3.5 with a minimum width of 600 pixels and vertical are recommended.

2. Increasing Engagement Rates Through Pinterest boards

On Pinterest profiles, users can distinguish between created and saved pins. Hence, pins should be grouped into meaningful and unique boards and characterized at the same time. It is also particularly interesting for your brand to create group boards with influencers or possibly even other brands. Through partnerships, you expand your (potential) target group and reach. The group’s analytics are then also available to you.

Note that the cover images of the pin boards also match your branding. This way, you can also establish your brand recognition by increasing brand awareness at the same time. Pay attention to colors, logo and style and communicate with a clear visual message. Board names, like descriptions, should be short and snappy. Also, cover images for Pinterest boards should be 217 x 147 pixels.

3. Engagement Through Engagement on Pinterest

On Pinterest, you can comment and send messages. Is that news for you? Direct communication is always good because it makes users feel seen and valued. When followers share your pins, why not thank them with a personal message, offer your information and help, send personalized coupons to frequent pinners and get them to buy more on your website.

Successful, friendly and interesting conversation is just as important on Pinterest as on any other platform.

You can also score points by optimizing the description of your pins and boards. As Social Marketing Writing reports, pins with a description between 100 and 200 characters are shared most often, but the description can be up to 500 characters long, which is then displayed to users when they click on the pins. Use keywords for the description and include the most important details. However, on Pinterest, stay away from hashtags!

4. Use Pinterest Analytics to Your Advantage

Pinterest’s built-in analytics feature helps you measure and analyze the activity, hence impressions, clicks and repins, of your boards and pins. Only if you know what your followers like and what they don’t like, you can increase your engagement in the long run. The following video provides even more information about Pinterest Analytics.

Kolsquare Pro Tip: For the engagement rate, especially the reach is a very important metric. Accordingly, pay attention to the purple graphs and data as they symbolize the very reach.

5. Optimize your Pinterest Posting schedule for Maximum Engagement

Finally, it is important to pin often and regularly. As research from Buffer shows, a schedule between five and 30 pins per day is best. Keep in mind, however, that early planning is essential. On Pinterest, they can schedule pins over several days to avoid a clustering of the same content.

CoSchedule researched the best times and this is their rule of thumb for maximizing engagement rates on Pinterest. It is best to post on Saturdays in the late evening between 8pm and 11pm and on Fridays at 3pm. Generally, the recommendation for Instagram is:

• Between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., peaking at 9 p.m.
• Between 1 and 3 p.m.
• Between 2 and 4 a.m.