The Pinterest Smart Feed And What It Means For Your Business

You've probably noticed over the last few months that there have been some noticeable changes to Pinterest, especially in the feed of pins you get on your home screen. As with most websites and social media, Pinterest wanted to give the user a better experience and deliver the most relevant content to them at all times. To ensure their users are receiving personalized and content rich pins in their feed, Pinterest adjusted their smart feed to enhance certain elements. What does this mean for your pins and how does it affect your exposure? We'll outline this, as well as how to use these changes to your advantage when using Pinterest for your business.

What's Pinterest's Smart Feed?

Pinterest's smart feed is a new algorithm based on these elements:

1. Pinterest Rating

Pinterest rates pins by putting them through a range of criteria called the "smart feed content generator." The generator picks which pins they think are best for the smart feed based on the current pin, as well as the source for that pin, and the performance of other pins from the same source.

2. Pin Quality

The highest-quality pins are moved to the top of the queue and stay there depending on its engagement levels. If it receives quality interaction (repins), then it is more likely to stay at the top. This is similar to what Facebook does with popular posts in the newsfeed.

3. Source Quality

The quality of a pin's source is decided by how often users pin or repin content from a blog or website. This is important because you'll need to make sure your pins have a destination when you click on them. They should lead to reputable site with good content. Spammers are known to change links in the source to something other than what is indicated in the pin image.

It's beneficial to pin your best content. According to Pinterest, the best pins have high-quality images that are relevant and clear, with minimal text and no borders, and include helpful pin descriptions.

Pinterest no longer places pins in your feed based on when you pin. In the smart feed, pins are placed best first, not newest first. This is why you no longer see 10 pins on how to plant cilantro in a row if someone you follow is on a gardening pin binge.

What You Need To Do To Help Your Pins Stand Out in the Smart Feed

1. Use beautiful photos

Pinterest is a visual social network and people are attracted to the things they like and want. Think of Pinterest boards as visual portfolios and make your pins as appealing as possible. To help with this, you should optimize your image sizes for pinning on Pinterest. Create tall, vertical images without distracting text, and use high resolution, professional-quality images. You can even create a branded image for pins that work in line with your website and blog. This way your images will be recognizable and have your URL on them.

2. Make sure your pins are helpful

Like mentioned earlier, your pins need to link to useful and relevant websites and content. At a glance, your pins should be simple and useful. Remember: the smart feed relies on quality of a pin, so be sure your pins and destinations are helpful and add user value.

3. Write thoughtful descriptions

Compose descriptions with user-friendly language and include keywords in this text. This information should still be minimal and of value to the user; no keyword stuffing allowed. As with many web surfers, Pinterest users are there to learn and get inspired. By providing ideas and answers in the text of your pin, you'll encourage users to repin or click through to your website.

4. Repin high-quality pins

Discover quality pins to repin and analyze your own pins using analytics. Pinterest now offers business accounts where you can track and analyze your impact. It's important to use Pinterest consistently and find pins that add value in order to stay on top of the smart feed.

5. Optimize your blog for Pinterest

If you haven't already, add the Pin It button and widgets to your blog to make it easier for your readers to pin your content. The more times your blog content is repinned, the better your pins will perform in the smart feed. Besides installing the Pin It button, you can optimize your blog for Pinterest by making all images pinnable, adding the Pinterest follow button, using rich pins, and using the Pinterest Pin Widget to embed pins into your blog content to further engage your blog with your Pinterest content.

Now that you know what the Pinterest smart feed changes mean to you and your business, you can start pinning away once again. This time your feed won't be bombarded by one pinner who is on a binge and your business's thoughtful and helpful pins will make it to the top of the feed. As seems to be the trend with social media, we're happy to see Pinterest improving user experience and making pins more valuable for businesses.