If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past few months, then you’ve probably heard of the latest social media craze called Pinterest. Pinterest is an online pin board created for the purpose of photo sharing via social media. Pinterest users can create pin boards based on unique themes related to their interests.
Pinterest is most predominantly used by women with popular pin boards related to crafts, fashion, travel, food, and interior design.
As a business owner, you may be asking yourself if Pinterest is a social media channel worth exploring as a part of your overall social media marketing plan. Great question! Check out the following tips to find out if you can use Pinterest to boost your business’s presence online:
- Pinterest on your website. You can integrate Pinterest into your existing website or blog by adding a “Pin It” or “Follow” button for users to follow your profile on Pinterest. This will encourage visitors to your website to pin pictures on their own virtual pin boards to spread the word about your business niche – especially if it’s related to hot Pinterest topics like recipes, crafts, and beauty.
- Create your own brand page. Unlike Facebook, Pinterest has not yet drawn the line between creating a personal profile or a fan page for a business. As a brand, you can take advantage of Pinterest early on by creating a business profile with pin boards that relate to your niche.
For the best results, login to Pinterest from your existing Twitter account to draw from your Twitter photo and username that are already associated with your business in social media.
- Don’t promote products directly. The attraction with Pinterest is all about creating interesting themes centered on user interest. Once again, this could include almost any interest under the sun, such as home décor, event planning, and gifts. You can establish a brand presence by creating your own themed boards related to your niche and style.
However, these boards should not simply be an advertisement of your products; make sure that you mix in other related images that will complement the board theme to showcase some of your products.
- Don’t forget product prices. When you do integrate some products into your Pinterest pin board, customers may be willing to buy if the price is displayed. Gap has a profile on Pinterest and has created a price banner for products by inputting the price into the description of the pin. This way, when a pinned image is liked and re-pinned by other Pinterest users, the price of the product will display in case the customer wants to buy.
Bethany Ramos is a full-time freelance writer that specializes in Internet marketing and SEO. For the best selection of seminar tables and folding tables, please visit Best-folding-tables-and-chairs.com.
It seems like I am seeing Pinterest posts on all the blogs that I visit. I checked it out and I have zero interest in this site. As a man and tech blogger I do not see the point for me. It is great for mommy bloggers.
It is the good medium for brand awareness with the price of brand’s products.
Nice post on Pinterest with some great tips. In our view, Pinterest is a great social platform for fashion, food, fitness and other lifestyle businesses like those in the travel industry. With record growth (quickest site to reach 10 million users), high engagement (more than LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ combined) and attractive demographics, all marketing executives and Internet markers owe it to themselves to take a look and see what Pinterest can do to promote their brand, drive engagement and targeted traffic, both directly and through enhanced search engine rankings.
A very interesting and informative post. As a newbie to Pinterest, you have totally convinced me that it has a lot of benefits.
I like the focus on not allowing it to be used as a marketing tool. Lets let the people decide what is interesting, not companies!
Awesome post, i think Pinterest boost our companies basiness if we use in right way.
I think that Pinterest is a sort of “well designed” review site. People shares what they like,it’s not only about pictures but products matters.
I believe that it can be very useful for a brand reputation management