What’s the Big Deal with Pinterest? Over 200 Billion Pins on Pinterest

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few years, you must have heard of the rise of Pinterest. How is Pinterest different from other social networks? It allows users to create visual boards full of the things that they love most.

If your target market is women, 72 % of the Pinterest audience are Women.

Are you planning your wedding? You can create a wedding board and add “pins” of all of your favourite ideas. Want to store your favourite recipes in one place? Create a vision board for that and pin away!

More than 1.3 million users visit Pinterest every day, and they stay on the site for an average of about 16 minutes – second only behind YouTube. However, the most compelling statistic for business owners is that Pinterest sends more referral traffic to websites than YouTube or LinkedIn “77% of Pinners that have discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest.”

Suppose you conduct business online and are looking for other avenues to reach a primarily women-based target market. In that case, you will likely want to direct some of your marketing efforts to Pinterest. This site works by allowing you to either upload or links a pin from a webpage. It must be an image (as this is a visual network), and you can link it to any webpage you desire. Then, when someone clicks on your pin and wants to learn more about that idea or product, they are directed to your chosen webpage.

So, how can your business get started on this social network?

1. Represent your brand visually. Even if your business is primarily B2B, you can still present your brand and ideas through Pinterest boards. Perhaps you can create a board full of infographics and articles regarding your industry.

2. Cater to your market’s lifestyle, not just your products. It can be tempting to create boards on Pinterest only filled with your products or blog posts. However, just like any social network – it’s not just about business. It’s more about being social and appealing to your customers on a more personal level. So, if you sell beauty products, don’t just pin your products – create boards that appeal to your market, such as “Life is Beautiful” (with pins of beauty all around us) and perhaps a board filled with quotes about feeling and looking beautiful.

3. Be social! Just like every other social network, it is imperative to seek out and connect with other Pinterest users. Find customers who are interested in your offering by searching Pinterest for your industry keywords. Once you find new connections, like, repin, and comment on items from their boards to begin meaningful relationships. Then, you can expect to gain more followers who will repin items from your boards, as well.

How do users use Pinterest?

• They use the app to make purchase decisions.
• Research on future purchases

How brands can use Pinterest

• Market research 
• Driving traffic to your eCommerce site, blog etc
• SEO 

Pinterest has proved it has a place on the social media platform space and is certainly exciting. 

If you feel that your business could benefit from being present in this social network and need some more help getting started, please reach out to My Biz Marketer!