Pinterest launches ‘Pinterest Academy’ for marketers

Pinterest Academy has just launched courses for users located in the US, UK, Australia, Germany, and France. Another slate of course content will roll out later this month. Pinterest Academy is completely free and accessible to all.

This is the first time Pinterest has offered online courses specifically geared toward business marketing teams. The platform is putting its own spin on a familiar format that we've seen from Facebook Blueprint, which offers short e-courses for businesses that want to learn how to leverage their profiles on both Facebook and Instagram. 

With more than 300 million users on the platform, Pinterest is becoming a major player for marketers, especially considering that 90 percent of people who pin weekly use the platform to make buying decisions.

Now, marketers from all industries can leverage the knowledge Pinterest has gained over the years to dig deeper into understanding how their business can get the best ROI from the platform. 

How Pinterest Academy can help businesses

The academy is specifically designed for busy marketers who want to learn more about how to use Pinterest but don't have a ton of time. Each course only takes about a few minutes to complete, and you can go through the entire Pinterest Academy in about an hour. 

You can also pick and choose which courses to take. So, if you already have some experience, you can skip over the introductory courses and dive into ones that will give you the most value for your time. 

The courses are designed for mobile use (which is understandable, given that 85 percent of all Pinterest users access the platform through their mobile devices), so you'll encounter some white space if you access them on a desktop. 

You can access the courses on your desktop or on any mobile device, though they aren't available on the Pinterest app. You'll have to follow the link and sign in to your Pinterest account.

The courses feature text that you scroll through, so be prepared to do some reading, as well as images, but no video. 

Employers who want to make sure every member of their marketing teams are fully versed in how to use Pinterest for Business can easily track their employees' progress as they move through the academy, thanks to the convenient planner that users can utilize to plan and schedule their courses.

What you'll learn

While most of the courses seem aimed toward businesses that are new to Pinterest, there's a lot to learn for everyone, including businesses that are already established on the platform.

Pinterest Academy is designed to answer all of your questions about how to set up a Pinterest account, create engaging pins, run ad campaigns, and track ROI in one convenient spot.

There are nine courses currently scheduled for Pinterest Academy, with the first five now available:

• About Pinterest: A brief overview of how the platform works and why businesses use it for marketing
• Creative inspiration: Explore the different pin formats available to understand how to create pins that will engage your audience
• Creative strategy: Learn about the different pin formats and how they benefit various types of customers so you can develop the best creative strategy for your business
• Campaign objectives: Learn about the different ad formats on Pinterest to understand which ones might work best for your business depending on your audience and strategy
• Targeting and buying: Learn about Pinterest's targeting options so you can market your pins to your target audience

Later this month, look for these four courses to complete the academy. 

• Setting up a Pinterest business account
• Planning and strategizing a campaign
• Building and launching a campaign
• Managing and measuring a campaign

Pinterest Academy provides targeted e-courses that tackle the most important elements for any marketing campaign. For more, you can read success stories and inspiration on Pinterest's business page.

Consumers use Pinterest for everything from figuring out what to make for dinner to finding a new home. With this new learning tool, Pinterest aims to help businesses of all types get in front of their customers so they can find exactly what they need when they need it.