We haven’t talked about Pinterest on the blog for awhile, so we wanted to revisit the budding social network. Recently they’ve made some pretty major moves by cutting out fake users and allowing business accounts to authenticate themselves, and they just keep progressing into “necessary for Automotive Marketing” territory.

No one outside of Google is sure exactly how much weight the search engine is giving pins and boards, but we do know that it’s the third largest social network, and that it’s uniquely suited for marketing with visual content. You can set up an effective Pinterest page in just a few hours, and we strongly recommend that you do. Here are a few things to consider while you’re getting set up.

-Make sure you have a business page and verify your website. This ensures other users that you are authentic, and will give you access to other business-only features as Pinterest releases them.

-Create new boards. Everyone starts with the same boring few, and that will never get you noticed. Instead, try and create boards based on your business, but with the most unique name you can think of. “Chevy Cars” won’t make you stand out, but “2014 Chevrolet Corvette” currently has no existing boards.

-Edit your image descriptions to include links. Content may be the new SEO, but links will always have a place in your marketing strategy. Even if Google eventually doesn’t count them at all, other Pinterest users can still find the links. You get 500 characters total, so be sure to include some relevant keywords in your description, just don’t make them too spammy.

-Add your Pinterest buttons to all your other sites. Just like you have sharing buttons for Facebook and Twitter, it’s really time to add Pinterest into the mix if you haven’t already. Enabling people to easily share your content is a big part of what social media is all about!

Original blog about Pinterest Marketing can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled, "Pinterest Rudiments" by Andrew Martin.