Welcome to the most inspiring niche of the internet… the world of DIY-ers, fashionistas, home décor specialists, dinner recipe connoisseurs, and so much more: Pinterest.
The social media platform was first launched in January 2010 (woah, happy 10.5-year birthday 😳🥳) and has evolved over the years to create curated, highly personalized experiences for pinners and brands alike. I’ll get into that a little more later.
Now, if you’re already a Pinterest user, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend starting at the beginning of Pinterest Academy. If you know the difference between a ‘pin’ and a ‘board’, you’re probably good to pass go, collect $200, and hand-select which topics you’d like to learn more about. Or better yet, keep reading this blog post.
Here are the cliff notes on what I learned from going through the Pinterest Academy courses:
Four reasons to be active on Pinterest:
- Hyper engaged audiences: those who pin, pin often.
- Ideas live on and on (and on…): Literally, for years. Content never goes away and if your uploaded pin or board includes a lot of evergreen content, you can expect trend waves of engagement and clicks.
- Reach beyond your followers: Pinterest algorithms compile lists of suggested users, pins, and boards for pinners to follow. Plus, six ways that users find your content is coming up next.
- Freedom to play: For both users and brands, Pinterest favors unique, original content that helps keep the platform engaging, interesting, and constantly new.
How users discover content on Pinterest:
- The home feed
- Search tab
- Related pins
- Following tab
- The today tab
- This last one wasn’t included in Pinterest’s official list, but I think it’s important to mention: ads.
Five dimensions of pins to get your brand noticed:
- Visually appealing
- Original
- Relevant
- Positive
- Actionable
Four different pin formats
- Standard pin: static photo, caption, link
- Video pin: motion graphic, slideshow, or video with a caption, and link
- Shopping pins: a ‘click to shop’ kind of experience
- App installs: Call’s to action to install an app
- Carousel pins: multiple photos or videos in one pin that scroll like a carousel ad
Okay, one really cool thing I did not know about on Pinterest is this thing called Pinterest Lens.
BRB as I open my phone and test this out…
Gone are the days of trying to bookmark, screenshot, or take photos of inspiration and never re-visiting the idea ever again. Now, this seems like a pretty dang cool feature from a user standpoint. As a brand? Your product, service and boards, pins, profile better be extremely optimized in order to be the first one that pops up!
How to use Pinterest for your apartment marketing strategy
As I mentioned earlier, Pinterest creates highly personalized experiences for users. Based on past searches, pins, and who you follow, Pinterest serves up the best of the best content to match your ‘like’ history. It can somewhat feel like a ‘right time, right place’ kind of game for brands, but even with it being such a highly targeted platform, there are still a few ways you can use Pinterest for your apartment marketing.
Rich Pins
These aren’t just for retailers and blogs anymore! Rich pins allow you to include extra data and content in your pin, such as pricing, amenities, location, and more. Probably best to keep these as price ranges in case of any rent changes, but they are a great way to show off your floor plans and property!
Boards that match your ideal residents’ persona
Pin content to corresponding boards that would match the persona of your ideal resident. Are your apartment residents students? Young professionals? Older demographic? What would that user be searching for and pinning on Pinterest? Start pinning that. You’ll never know when someone may discover you in the 5/6 tabs discussed earlier.
Group boards
Spread the word to your residents that you’re on Pinterest and invite them to your community, resident board! This is just another subtle way to connect with your current residents.
Apartment marketing events and ideas
If you find yourself searching for ‘apartment marketing ideas’ or ‘apartment community events,’ being the one who pops up wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Share the apartment marketing love and create pins for past or current resident events and marketing ideas that were successful.
Optimize your Pinterest profile and pins
Optimize, optimize, optimize. Include a great description, confirm your website with Pinterest, write a killer bio, include CTA’s, do Pinterest hashtag research, and include links to your website with every pin. The better optimized your pins, boards, and profile are, the more likely you are to be noticed by the algorithms.
Retargeting
*Disclaimer: this category does require some ad budget. You are able to setup retargeting campaigns within Pinterest to users who have previously been on your website. It’ll be up to you to determine if Pinterest is driving a true ROI. Or, we can take a look at it for you, too.
Now, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that every apartment community have a business profile on Pinterest. Other social media platforms have better targeting options, are broader focused, act more real-time, and just have more uses in general. But, I wouldn’t necessarily ‘pass’ at the idea of Pinterest right away, either. Like any apartment marketing tactic, take a look at your current demographic, ideal demographic, platform analytics, etc. before deciding if Pinterest may be right for you.
Have you tested Pinterest as a platform for your apartment marketing? I want to hear about how it went. Drop your advice below. 👇