Pinterest Academy Helps Small Business Users Pin Better

In an effort to help its legions of users become better Pinners, Pinterest is launching its very first e-learning program, and has dubbed it the Pinterest Academy. Businesses all around the globe can have access to this free tool, and any device whatsoever can be used to log onto the site. There are a number of online courses offered in the Pinterest Academy, and all of them will help business users learn how to better connect with the specific group of users they have on Pinterest.There are also courses available which will describe the best practices to use on the platform in order to achieve the maximum success with whatever your business goals are. As of September 2018, Pinterest had 250 million active users on the platform every month, including roughly 78 million Americans. This represents an increase of 5 million over the prior year, and makes Pinterest one of the hottest platforms online. During the past couple years, Pinterest has surged past WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, and LinkedIn with its online popularity, to the point where it has now become the fourth most popular platform for social media in this country.

Business user should take note of this fact, because it means that you really can't afford to ignore the vast numbers of people making use of the platform, since all these people represent potential customers ready to listen to your message. That also makes it very important that you use Pinterest in a manner where you can derive maximum benefits from it, so you'll have a better chance of achieving your business objectives.

What you'll find on Pinterest Academy

One of the most important concepts you'll learn from the courses available on Pinterest Academy is how to connect most effectively with your target audience on the platform. Along these lines, you'll learn how to create really interesting advertisements, you'll learn how to design some compelling Pins, and you'll also learn how to use metrics to measure the success of your efforts. In short, Pinterest Academy will provide a number of classes that will help small businesses increase their skill at using Pinterest, so as to gain a competitive advantage over rivals.The courses themselves tend to be fun-filled, intelligent courses which are available to global users regardless of what kind of device they're using to access the site. Users will be able to go through these courses at their own pace of learning, figuring out the best ways to connect with a target audience, how to design better Pins, how to encourage visual discovery among your followers, and how to incorporate best practices on the platform to your advantage.At present, the series of courses consists of nine individual lessons which business users can use to improve their usage of the platform and all available tools on it. The first five of these courses provide a high level overview of the entire platform, starting with its creative inspiration, and moving on to the platform strategy, campaign objectives, targeting, and purchasing.

In the final four lessons, business users will be encouraged to take a more hands-on role in their e-learning. One example is how a business user might be walk through the entire process involved with setting up a normal Pinterest business account, and then how to launch campaigns on the platform. The lessons will also include instruction for using specific metrics to measure the success of any campaign which has been initiated.When you have this kind of information at your fingertips, it means you will be able to tweak your campaigns to make them more effective, or if they have been low-performing campaigns, you may need to drop them entirely. At any rate, you'll quickly discover which are your high-performing campaigns and which ones are less effective, and you will have the information you need to make better decisions on what to do about both of them.

The Pinterest Academy courses

The first five Pinterest Academy courses are already available to users everywhere, and as mentioned previously, they provide a high-level overview of the entire platform. Here are the specific courses which you will find online when you access the Academy:

• Pinterest Narrative
• Creative Inspiration
• Creative Strategy
• Campaign Objectives
• Targeting and Buying.

The remaining four courses are scheduled to be made available to users everywhere late in October 2019. As mentioned, these four courses are more hands-on in nature, and they will guide you through the steps necessary for setting up a business account, and then managing your campaigns. These are the four courses currently comprising the hands-on part of Pinterest Academy:

• Setting up a Pinterest Business Account
• Planning and Strategizing a Campaign
• Building and Launching a Campaign
• Managing and Measuring a Campaign.

Intent of Pinterest Academy

Pinterest officials have made it clear that the intent of providing Pinterest Academy is that it will help business users to appreciate the unique opportunity provided by the platform, as well as how it can be used to best advantage to grow your business. Most Pinterest users have a specific reason for their interest in the platform, whether that might be searching for everyday meal ideas, or recommendations on home renovations.That means they are very open to learning about new brands and new products they've never used before. When business users are able to make best use of the platform to get information out to Pinterest users which can be useful in answering a question or resolving an issue, it can only result in a positive impact on that business.In fact, this is how new customers are often acquired, or it's how existing customers can be encouraged to become more loyal customers. The whole point is that the more effective use you make of the Pinterest platform, the better it is for your business, and the better it is for Pinterest itself. It's also highly beneficial to the users who are provided with more choices and better information, which will help them to satisfy a need or desire.The bottom line is that this is a benefit for all parties concerned, and the Pinterest Academy can have a tremendous impact on business users, so that everyone involved with the platform comes out ahead.