The Pinterest chapter, Part Two:Engaging with Brands on Pinterest and Sponsored Pins

Disclosure: I am Vice President, Influencer Marketing at BlogHer. Advertising and social media marketing programs are a significant source of revenue for my company and for the bloggers in our advertising network.

And, now the conclusion of my multi-part “chapter” on using Pinterest as a promotional tool.

As you grow your influence within the Pinterest ecosystem, you may get offers for sponsored opportunities. I am not talking about “Pin It To Win It” sweepstakes. I covered why I don’t recommend them to influencers or brands in my previous post.

So what does make sense for influencers to engage with brands on Pinterest? I break it down into four basic opportunities:

1. Creating a board for a brand on its Pinterest account. You are essentially acting as a freelancer, curating pins to align with a brand message or theme. Some brands may wish to leverage your reputation as the content curator, and others may just want your expertise. You might be curating from deep archives of brand content to create a compelling re-pinworthy board or sourcing material from the Internet, always taking care to respect copyrights. With regard to FTC disclosure, it is a board on the brand account so it is assumed to be commercial activity. The brand will likely have a branding message it wants included on or in each pin.
2. If you are writing a sponsored post for a brand, including compelling and pinworthy images to encourage readers to pin.  These can be branded or unbranded. If you do sponsored posts, you are likely already asked to include compelling and pinworthy images to encourage readers to pin. And if you haven’t been, you will be, as it is becoming a standard ask. When your users pin images from your sponsored posts, they are not required to disclose, as they are not compensated for their action. If you pin images from your sponsored posts, you should include a disclosure statement on the pin.
3. Creating a board for a brand on YOUR Pinterest account. If you are approached to create a board for a brand on your account, carefully evaluate the ask. Will the resulting board be interesting to your followers?  Is the brand asking you to pin all branded content or is the assignment broader, curating a board aligned with the brand message but not necessarily brand content? Both of these scenarios can be effective but it depends on the brand. The board and all the sponsored pins must include a disclosure statement, such as “Sponsored by”  on the board description and #sponsored on the pins.
4. Pinning brand content to your boards, but not to a specific board. This is a very effective way to distribute brand content without fatiguing your Pinterest followers. It works best when the brand has a deep archive of branded content from which you can curate. A good rule of thumb: the pool of content you are curating from should be between 2 to 4 times larger than the total number of pins you have been asked to add to your Pinterest boards. In other words, if you are asked to curate 10 pins, an ideal pool should be between 20-40 pieces of content. All the pins must include a disclosure such as #sponsored. Including just the hashtag of the brand is NOT sufficient.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Pins are entities in and of themselves, and are most often viewed independently from the boards of which they are a part. Boards are useful organizing constructs but pins are the principal discovery mechanism. Make sure each and every pin is a useful piece of discrete content, with proper attribution and disclosure.
• Your followers do not have to retain the disclosure if they repin a sponsored pin. You were compensated and must disclose. They were not.
• Follow the 80/20 rule here as well: 80% non promotional pins, 20% promotional, whether for your own content or sponsored.

And there you have it, in two-and-a-half parts, the Pinterest chapter that would have been. What are your tips and thoughts on the best ways to use this platform?

Related articles

• The Pinterest Chapter: A Sidebar on Pin It To Win It (getgood.com)
• The Pinterest Chapter, Part One: Using Pinterest To Promote Your Blog (getgood.com)