Is Pinterest the Missing Link in Your Social Media Strategy

If you haven’t been living in a cave, you are probably already using Facebook and/or Twitter for marketing your business. Does it make sense to add another social media channel, when you have behemoths like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to feed? Read on, as you might find out that Pinterest is just the missing link in your social media strategy.

What is Pinterest and how does it Work

According to the latest available stats, Pinterest has 11 some million active users. That number might have swelled as the slick new social media platform is growing phenomenally fast. Pinterest achieved 145% growth in 2012, according to some estimates.

In the simplest terms, Pinterest is an online Pinboard where you can create and share “boards”, containing “pins” from your website, uploads, or from anywhere on the Internet. The content shared on Pinterest is mostly pictures. Even the quotes and texts are in pictorial form. Just like in Facebook or Twitter, you can follow people on Pinterest and their pins will start appearing in your feed. When you like a picture, you can “repin” it to any of the boards that you have created, and share it with your followers. You can also share the pins on Facebook, Twitter, email, and can also imbed them in your website.

Why Pinterest is Vital for Your Business

Pinterest beats Facebook and Twitter because Pinterest creates referral links with the speed of light. If you have used Facebook or Twitter, you might have an idea how hard it can be to get followers, and then to get your followers to share your content. The primary social behavior on both Facebook and Twitter is not to create referral links or share content. Facebook users login to read stories from their friends and comment on posts. Pages are of secondary importance to them, and the sharing rates for business posts are negligible for most industries. Twitter users are there to read tweets from the people they are following, and to get their own tweets across. They do click on links and like to see pictures with tweets, but that is not the primary social behavior on Twitter.

Pinterest is different. The primary reason why a user logs into Pinterest is to repin and share interesting content. When anyone repins or shares your picture, a referral link is created. If you are posting great content (read pictures), you might be pleasantly surprised to see thousands of people repining your pictures within the first couple of months. It might be hard to achieve a compatible number of shares or retweets on Facebook and Twitter, even in a couple of years.

Some of the people who will share your content will have thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of followers. What it basically means that they are referring your business to a huge number of potential customers.

How to Go About Marketing on Pinterest

I would suggest proper planning before you start posting on Pinterest. Of course, you can make a free Pinterest account just by logging in with your Twitter or Facebook account. You can uncheck the “post your activity to Timeline” option from the settings menu if you don’t want everything you do on Pinterest to be automatically published to your Facebook timeline. Start following people, and some of them will follow you back. Do not post anything unless you are fully prepared. The quickest way to learn is by observing others.

Meanwhile, make your Pinterest plan. Collect your content and tools, which might comprise of a good quality camera, an Instagram account (for revving up images), and that’s about it. Pinterest works best for food, clothing, fashion, cosmetics, and all other businesses that can produce visually attractive content.

Guest article written by: Kapil Jekishan is a huge social media advocate who runs his own blog [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]Latestcrunchs[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]Latestcrunchs.com[/tp], which is a technology portal for both aspiring and established bloggers to contribute their ideas. Why not write for Latestcrunchs today by contacting Kapil.