Recently, I received an email from Pinterest informing me that I had created over 1,770 pins in 2014. I’m a middle-aged man, so I was amazed (and maybe a bit embarrassed) at just how much time I had spent there. My daughter, who introduced me to Pinterest back in 2012, is laughing out loud at the fact that I have created so many pins.
I have found that Pinterest is a great tool to raise awareness about who I am and what I do. Since I was also notified by Pinterest that I should consider creating a Business account, I decided to find out what the advantages would be. What I discovered is that a Business account comes with some pretty nice analytics and features to promote your products and even services. So, if you have a business and want to use Pinterest, it is important to make sure that you do sign up specifically for a business account. Here is the link to sign up.
The analytics available in the business account allows you to see all the activity that originates from the boards and pins you share (whether or not the pins are from your own website). This data allows you to see the bigger picture and determine where to spend your time and effort to maximize your presence on Pinterest.
The Pinterest Analytics dashboard shows an overview of the three main categories:
- Your Pinterest profile
- Your audience
- Activity from your website (note that you must verify your website, using a snippet of code provided by Pinterest, to see this data)
Let’s take a look at each category.
#1: Your Pinterest Profile
The Your Pinterest Profile category has four sections:
- Impressions: This section shows your top 50 pin impressions and your top 20 boards with top pin impressions.
- Repins: Here can see your 50 most repinned items and which of your boards have the most repins.
- Clicks: This gives detail on your 50 most-clicked pins as well as your 20 boards with the most-clicked pins. You can also see the number of impressions, repins, clicks, likes and # of pins.
- All-Time: In this section you’ll see your 50 most repinned pins, your pins with the highest search rank and power pins (pins with a high mix of clicks, repins and more). This allows you to see which topics people are searching for so that you can provide more of that content.
#2: Your audience
In this section, Pinterest shares details, such as Country, Language and Gender, about the users who interact with your pins.You can also filter the data by either All Audiences or Your Followers.
The audience Interests data should be very “interesting” to you. It’s actually quite amazing how much they share with you for free, in my opinion. As you look at the data, ask yourself if the content you’re sharing matches the interests of your typical pinners. If it doesn’t, it’s time to adjust your pins.
You can also see the other brands your audience is following. Keeping an eye on the competition is always a good idea, and you may get some great ideas from them.
#3: Activity From (Your Website)
As I mentioned before, you will need to verify your website with Pinterest in order to see this data.
If you want to use Pinterest to promote your products, it’s important to encourage people to pin articles and images directly from your website. This section shows your website’s 50 top pins and 20 top boards.
You also have access to three other important pieces of data: Original Pins, All-Time and Pin It button.
Original Pins is very interesting because it shows you the 50 newest pins shared directly from your website. This helps you figure out what your audience seems to like the most. The All-Time option gives you the top 50 pins that are the most repinned and rank well in search.
If you have a “Pin It” feature installed on your website, you can use the Pin It link to see how many times your website’s Pin It button has been seen on your site’s pages, how many times it’s been clicked and how many times someone has pinned from your website.
You can also see how people are accessing Pinterest (such as via the web or a mobile device) and filter your data based on that information.
If you are planning to use Pinterest to promote your business, the advantages of a Business account are easy to see due to the wealth of information you can access from its Analytics. The data that you can access about your pins and your followers can help you adjust your content going forward.