In my last post, Pinning Down the Basics of Pinterest, we skimmed the surface on Pinterest and discussed the basics and the value for your business. This week, let’s take it a bit further and figure out if it’s the right move for your business to invest time in Pinterest. Pinterest seems like a great platform to grow a community in a fun and interactive way. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely is the perfect place to do this, but at the same time Pinterest also isn’t for every business. With heavy visuals, little text usage and a basic layout your business must have the content for it and a creative mindset going in.
Here Are 3 Simple Ways to Decide if Pinterest is Right For Your Business:
1. Do You Have the Right Audience?
Most social networks are fairly balanced in terms of gender. Pinterest, though, has a heavy female user rate (almost 87% of users are female). This doesn’t mean it won’t work for you if you have a male audience, it’s just something to keep in mind when deciding. Age is also something to keep in mind when joining any social media site. About 80% of the users are between the ages of 25-54 so if you business is targeting the elderly, Pinterest may not be for you. Finally, although people flock to Pinterest for everything from finding new recipes to figuring out a new workout plan, shopping dominates about 29% of Pinterest traffic. That still leaves a huge market for everything else, but it’s something to think about.
2. Do You Have the Content?
Pinterest is a completely visual experience. People will click on picture they like or that appeals to them. In the last post, we discussed ‘pins’ which is the content you’re posting and sharing. Pins are an image – not like Twitter or Facebook where you rely heavily on text, but merely an image (If you rely on text descriptions, links, etc. you may be better off on Twitter or Facebook). This means you must have eye catching visuals to gain interest. This is easy to do if you have a product for sale, but it can still work for a blog article, pictures from an event or whatever you want to share. The image can come directly from your website or simply be an uploaded image that links to a URL. Either way, it needs to be eye catching.
3. Why Are You Interested in the First Place?
Make sure you’re heading to Pinterest for the right reasons, not just for the hype. As we’ve seen, Pinterest has heavy traffic, great community building potential and numerous other values. Yet, this doesn’t mean that it’s worth the time to get your company on board. It can be easy to get distracted and caught up in a huge, new site and market potential but sometimes it’s best to take a step back. Are you there because you have a Pinterest profile and love it? Because you see that 10 million plus user number and start to drool? Or is it because you honestly think you could make this work for your business? Make sure to ask yourself questions like this and understand why you’re interested. Pinterest is an awesome way to showcase your business while interacting with your loyal and potential customers. As we’ve seen, Pinterest has heavy traffic, great community building potential and numerous other values. Yet, this doesn’t mean that it’s worth the time to get your company on board. It can be easy to get distracted and caught up in a huge, new site and market potential but sometimes it’s best to take a step back. Pinterest has amazing potential and, if done right, can grow your business and community. Make sure to take time and evaluate your business with some of these tips and decide from there if Pinterest is right for you. Next time, we’ll get down to creating a Pinterest plan for business so don’t miss a post in this series! – sign up here to get updates in your email box! Photo Credit