It’s fun, it’s interactive, it’s easy, and it’s free. What more could you ask for when trying to market your brand? Pinterest categorizes themselves as a “virtual pinboard” or a place to “organize and share beautiful things you find on the web” . To me Pinterest is an online window shopping experience, a photo gallery, a place to find delicious recipes, a way to find your inspiration for that next project or the drive to fulfill your resolutions or, put simply, a marketer’s dream. Over the next month, SocialNicole will be exploring Pinterest and the various ways it can help your business. Furthermore, we will discuss if it’s right for you business and how to create a plan to execute your new venture. First, let’s get down to the basics. Pinterest is basically your own virtual bookmarking site that allows you to create different “boards” with a certain theme (like “For the Home” or “Must Read Books”) and “pin” pictures, videos, articles, etc. of things you like to save or look at later. These pictures, once clicked, all link to their website of origin. Like Twitter or Facebook, you can gain followers and they can ‘pin’ or ‘repin’ your posts (similar to a ‘like’ or ‘retweet’).
Why Should you care?
1. Pinterest Gets Major Traffic
The site first started getting a ton of hits in December 2011 and as an invitation ONLY site it still has over 10 million users! With major traffic, this creates the perfect opportunity for your business or organization to create your own profile. This creates the perfect chance for you to connect with your audience. Loyal customers can pin your products, potential customers can repin your products, you can interact with other brands – the possibilities are practically endless. You can even connect your Twitter and Facebook to your Pinterest so that your followers from all corners of the Internet are exposed to your page. Also, you page is open to all so even people who aren’t followers are exposed to your pins! The traffic potential is absolutely crazy with Pinterest and it’s all free.
2. Appealing Visual Aspect
Pinterest is is not the first site to use the visual aspect, but it’s certainly becoming one of the most successful. The site is unique in that they use simple, clean layouts and practically no words. It’s a place for beautiful pictures and visuals and, let’s be honest, people love a good visual. Would you be more inclined to read a massive description of a product or click on an awesome picture? Exactly. The layout is set up almost like a massive board to sticky notes that are constantly changing – and constantly keeping your audiences interest.
3. Building Your Online Community With Minimal Effort
Brands like New Moon Girls, Whole Foods and even sports teams like the Minnesota Vikings have all flocked to Pinterest. They now have hundreds and thousands of followers seeing the potential for fan interaction and brand building. It’s all about interaction with your online community and there are some hidden benefits behind Pinterest you make not even think about, but you should take advantage of. Hold a contest, create an exclusive coupon only available on your profile, give a face to your company, share photos from an event, or create recipe board. Anything to get your fans to see a whole new side to your brand.
4. SEO Value
We could go really in depth with this topic, but we will stick to the basics and some easy things you can do. Using Pinterest has the potential to also help you out in the SEO department. As I said early, every time a picture in Pinterest is click, it links the user to the site of origin. Therefore when creating a pin from your website make sure you’re linking the URL to reap the benefits. Furthermore you can do simple things like linking your Twitter and Facebook to your Pinterest, using the goodies like the “pin it” buttons that Pinterest provides, and using keyword heavy words in your picture descriptions. The idea behind Pinterest is appealing to the ‘fun’ side of us all. It’s easy, simple and requires little effort for upkeep and as you can see, you can do practically anything! So start thinking up some ideas, what could your brand do with Pinterest? What could you pin, what kind of new audience could you attract and furthermore, what are you waiting for?! Check back next week as we dive into your brand and the market potential with Pinterest. Don’t miss a post in this series – sign up here to get updates in your email box! Photo Credit