Pinterest is the latest social media giant with over 10.4 million registered users. The important thing here is that you can use it to market your company. If you play your cards right, your material could be shared and viewed by any of those 10.4 million people.
WHAT IS PINTEREST
First, let’s talk about what Pinterest is. Maybe you’ve only heard of Pinterest in passing. Maybe you’re addicted to it like me. Or maybe you’ve have no idea what it is. If you’re that last person, this next part is for you.
Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. It allows you create pins of anything you like or find interesting. These pins consist of an image, description, and a link back to the original source. You can organize these pins by creating boards with names like “Design” or “Recipes to Try”. You can also browse what other people have pinned and follow people or boards that you’re interested in. Finally, you re-pin anything anyone else has pinned to your own boards.
Here’s an example. One thing I like to spend my time doing when I’m not designing is baking. Say I see this really delicious-looking recipe for soft pretzels on allrecipes.com and I want to pin it to my recipes board.
I’ve already added the “Pin It” button to my bookmarks (You can get it here), so I click that.
It shows me all the images on the pages, so I can choose one to display with my pin.
I choose which board I want to add this pin to, and write a description.
And now the pin is added to my board!
HOW TO USE PINTEREST FOR MARKETING
You can probably guess how Pinterest can be great for marketing your company just from knowing how it works. Someone pins something from your website, other users repin it, people follow the link back to your site, and you’ve got a boost in traffic. One important thing to remember is that about 90% of Pinterest users are female, so Pinterest marketing will work best for companies that women are interested in. With that, here are some ways to move that process along and use Pinterest to connect with your customers.
CREATE A PINTEREST PROFILE FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Get right to the heart of it. Set up a Pinterest account for your business. Pinterest allows you to link your Pinterest profile to your Facebook and Twitter accounts and enter information about your company, your company’s name location, website address, and an image. The image and name will show up along anything you pin and the rest of the information is viewable on your Pinterest profile.
BE ACTIVE ON PINTEREST
Pin often and consistently. Keep your business in your customer’s mind by providing great, new pins for them to view on a regular basis. Don’t just pin from your own company’s content, but pin things that will be interesting and useful to your target audience. Pin content from your site. If you have products, pin those. Pin articles that relate to your business. Just avoid spamming your followers. Make sure anything you pin will be interesting and useful to your customers.
ADD A "PIN IT" BUTTON TO YOUR WEBSITE
Having a “Pin It” button on your web pages makes it simple and easy for any visitor who uses Pinterest to pin from your site, even if they don’t have the “Pin It” button on their bookmarks bar. It can act as a friendly reminder that your content is pin-able to your visitors, even if they do have the “Pin It” button installed. Make sure to place the button somewhere that is easily viewable and just makes sense. For example, you could place it right under an image or at the end of a blog post.
ALWAYS ADD IMAGES TO CONTENT POSTS ON YOUR SITE
You can’t create a pin without a good-sized image. Make sure to images that support your written content visually. This will help you catch attention on Pinterest, as well as draw in visitors already on your site.
LINK YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
Link to your company’s Pinterest account from your company’s website, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Make it easy for your customers to find your Pinterest account. Did you just pin something great? Tweet or post on Facebook about it. Let it be known.
CONNECT TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
Pinterest allows users to comment on pins. You could comment on your customers’ pins. Customers can comment on your pins. You can use these comments to create a dialogue between you and your customer to answer their questions, address their concerns, or merely provide your company with a friendly face.
Pinterest also allows you to create a board which other Pinterest members can pin to. You could create one of these boards to allow customers to feel a part of the brand and valued.
LEARN FROM OTHER COMPANIES
These five companies have Pinterest accounts with loads of followers. See what they’re doing.
Pinterest is still young, so you have the opportunity to be one of the first companies marketing through this new social media community. Get out there and try it out. Let us know how it works out for you!