For those who write computer code for constructing websites, and anyone with a spark of imagination and creativity, can come up with a concept and a site such as Pinterest. It’s relatively inexpensive to do.
But a simple idea like Pinterest, which caught absolute lightening in a bottle and went wildly viral is the magic elixir. Such as what happened to this site.
But the last thing that anyone needs is another social media networking platform right? Well, Pinterest is different, it’s more of a search engine.
So before you say pina what, Pinterest is a social networking site which emulates a popular activity much like scrap booking online.
Pinterest’s concept is simple. It involves saving, sharing and collecting online images. After all, looking at a single image is capable of telling a complete story.
So surrender your will and allow Pinterest to engulf your time online, and more than likely, you’ll be glad you did.
A Few Facts On Pinterest
• Pinterest, originally launched March 2010. The site has experienced exponential growth, and now has over 320 million monthly active users worldwide
• It is one of the most visited social media sites on the Internet. There’s no point listing how many millions of “Pinners” there are, as it grows daily
• Pinterest is now currently driving more referral traffic than some of the other social sites including LinkedIn and Twitter
• Pinterest is the fastest growing website on the Internet by overall member growth
• 79% of members on Pinterest are women, Pinterest reaches 83 percent of US women aged 25-54
• 88% purchase a product they pinned or repinned
• 49% purchased 5 or more products they pinned
• Pinterest drives consumer buying behavior
• Pins aren’t seen as ads even if they are
Pinterest Is One Gigantic Ad Site
What Pinterest does is it expresses who you are, what your lifestyle is in images, as you create your own online visual pinboard to share with others.
These pins are organized in boards, based on specific topics strictly by category.
For instance, say you consider yourself as a connoisseur on fine red wines.
You can then start a Pinterest board on your favorite Pinot’s that you love.
You can feature photos accompanied with mouth tingling descriptions. You can market your favorite wines.
I’m Busy… I’m On Pinterest
The average Pinterest member now spends over 14 minutes on average, just looking around at the different images and repinning them to their boards.
So if you’re an online marketer or a small business owner, the time is now to take notice and begin participating.
So how can businesses, online marketers, authors, or brands take advantage of this established online buyer sensation.
Here are a few methods on how you can use Pinterest immediately for marketing, to promote yourself by using your images.
This completely on a “peer to peer” non-threatening basis, which has no hype and is extremely user friendly.
Sign Up For A Pinterest Business Account
There is no cost to sign up, and what you’ll get is access to advanced tools such as Analytics and your own Business Profile.
You’ll also get more control over your pinning, such as branding and content attribution.
You can sign up for a new account or just upgrade your existing personal account, so you can take advantage of the business features.
Do You Need A Pinterest Business Account?
It depends on how you’re planning on using Pinterest.
If you are using Pinterest for a business (commercial use), such as to display your products or if you’re an affiliate marketer, you can benefit from having a business account.
All you need is to just convert your existing personal account, or create a new account for business-use only.
What Are Rich Pins?
One advantage of having a business account, is you can post Rich Pins.
Rich Pins are capable of providing more context about your image, by displaying additional information directly on the Pin.
Rich Pins are available for anyone on Pinterest.
You can easily identify Rich Pins by the additional information above and below the image, along with the bold title in the grid.
Advertising Your Business Using Pinterest Promoted Pins
Promoted pins is a paid advertising option that Pinterest offers.
It offers you the opportunity to promote your most popular pins to at targeted audience, based on keywords.
You can promote your brand, service or product to an audience that’s interested in all things visual.
Pinterest’s paid advertising platform runs on an CPC (cost per click) model, that allows you to pay only when someone clicks a pin.
9 Ways To Use Pinterest For Your Business
1.) – Turning Your Product Content Into A Single Image
You can become a fellow Pinner, by visually showcasing your information such as your products and services, and making them useful to your audience to see.
In this case, indeed a picture is worth a 1000 words. So make sure that the images are unique, and will stand out within your business segment or industry.
Make sure that the images are vertical. What Pinterest suggests is a 2:3 ratio, such as 1000 X 1500 pixels.
2.) – Pin Images As Well As Videos
To add variety, you can also add videos based on your product offering, service or industry segment.
This could include news clips, interviews or product descriptions from YouTube, which can be highly useful and sharable on your Pinterest boards.
3.) – Promote Content Contributed By Guest Pinners
Allow your visitors to add images and videos themselves, which will fit in with your business, product or niche.
You can also have some type of a contest for instance, for whomever submits the most unique or interesting photo to draw further attention.
4.) – Use Unique Eye Catching Images On Your Blog Posts
The more captivating and unique that your images are, the more likely that they’ll be repinned, similar to someone “Sharing” your images or your videos on Facebook.
Also make sure that you add an image to every one of your blog posts, which gives you or anyone else the opportunity to repin it. What this does is it will drive traffic to your blog article.
5.) – If You’re An Author – Pin Your Book Covers
If you’ve written e-books, or just want to promote your favorite ones through an Amazon link, you can make a board featuring all of your favorite cookbooks for example.
You can then offer a few free chapters of your book on your blog, for your users to download.
6.) Placing Your “Banners” On Pinterest
Are you having a sale, hosting a webinar, making a speech, or conducting some type of an online video class?
If you are, you can create a Pinterest board featuring a specific event which you can share, as well as making it as supplemental material once the event is over.
Or you can direct those who missed the opportunity or presentation, to view the video or webinar that’s on your site.
7.) – Introduce Your Co-Workers, Employees Or Partners
Although Pinterest is designed to visually showcase your hobbies and lifestyle, you can also draw customers to your company or site by featuring your staff members on a Pinterest board.
Also, look for unique and creative methods of pinning photos of your business, such as a “behind-the-scenes” images from your latest company event, conferences, seminars, product development processes etc.
8.) – Create Testimonial Boards Of Your Customers
Similar to introducing your staff members, you can offer a board featuring customer testimonials.
You can highlight your most loyal customers for the world to see. You can use Pinterest to display your clients’ stories as well as displaying successful case studies.
9.) – Offer A Pinterest Coupon Board
To reward your most dedicated Pinterest followers, offer them a promotional discount just for your Pinterest customers.
This can be a coupon graphic you can pin on the appropriate board.
Use the description field which describes the offer in better detail, including an exclusive Pinterest follower price discount.
Add A Pinterest Icon To Your Site
Make sure you add the Pinterest icon plugin to your site or blog.
This will allow all of your visitors to share and showcase what they happen to find on your site, on their Pinterest boards.
This should drive additional traffic to your webpage or offer.
Pinterest Is An Extremely Simple Concept
It’s just a matter of signing up, and then creating boards using captivating images, allowing you to repin and share other images as well.
It’s completely intuitive, fun and easy to do.
You can take a picture using your smartphone of that pair of shoes you just bought, or what you ate at your favorite restaurant, and then pin it immediately.
It’s scrap booking gone wild.