Pinterest Pincodes: Can They Help Your Online Business?

Have you heard about the cool new feature from Pinterest? They’re called Pincodes, and they connect your customers directly to your Pinterest profile or a specific board on your profile.

Pincodes are Pinterest’s take on QR codes.

To use the Pincodes, users take a picture of the Pincode with their Pinterest camera and are directed to whatever profile or board you attached to that code.

See that circle with the colorful dots around it? That’s how a Pincode looks.

It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

Pinterest gives examples of brands who are already using it:

Nordstrom is putting Pincodes in their stores where customers might have some extra time to be on their phones. Like while waiting in line, for example.

While they’re waiting, they can open their Pinterest app, scan the Pincode and be directed to curated gift boards. Shopping online while standing in line at the same store.

If you’re a retail store owner, that is brilliant!

Food companies are placing Pincodes on their packaging to direct purchasers to recipes using their products.

Magazines are using Pincodes to send readers to exclusive digital content from their Pinterest boards.

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But what if you’re not one of those major brands. What if you’re just a small online business?

If you’re a business, then you have products to sell. Pinterest Pincodes can be added to your packaging, printed receipts, and even downloadable digital products.

For example, say you sell handmade accessories on your Etsy store. You probably already have a Pinterest board where you share all of your products. Maybe you have a board of brides who used and recommended your products.

People who have bought from you before are very likely to buy from you again.

So print the Pincode on your business card, packaging, or receipt that comes in the mail with their product. Encourage them to scan your Pincode to see other items they might like.

Maybe you have a gardening blog and sell seeds on Pinterest. You could print the Pincode on your seed packet and have it lead to your seed starting board for direction and advice on starting seeds.

If you have a digital product, remember that many people will print out your digital product, and you can have a Pincode in your bio to encourage followers to your account or direct them to additional products they might like or even a board with all your affiliate pins.

Can bloggers take advantage of Pinterest Pincodes, too?

It might make sense to add Pincodes to your blog posts or newsletters.

To make full use of the feature, your reader would first have to know what it is, then take a screenshot of the Pincode and open it in their Pinterest camera. And depending on how the image is cropped, it might not work.

It’s much simpler to insert a regular link to your profile or board.

Except that Pincodes are visually striking. So I don’t see why you couldn’t try adding them as an image in your post and link the image to your board or profile.

You could test and see if it helps you get clicks by using the Pincode image. I think this method will be more useful when people are used to seeing Pincodes and know what they do. 

To create a Pincode, you simply need a Pinterest business account.

On desktop and mobile, click on your profile image to create a Pincode to your profile.

To create a Pincode for a specific board, first you need to open your board.  On mobile, click the share icon and look for Pincode at the bottom of the screen. On desktop, click the three dots at the top of the screen and then click create Pincode.

On desktop, you do have the option to change the picture in the code, but I did not find that option on mobile.

Here’s the word on using Pincodes for your business from the Pinterest Help Center.

So what do you think? Will you be using Pincodes for your blog?