‘I don’t get Pinterest’ or ‘what is Pinterest? – Just two comments I’ve heard from trainees this week. It made my decision on what to blog on that much easier. So before I give you some tips on how to get the best out of this Social Media Platform let me address those two questions.
The best way to describe Pinterest (a reference to the US ‘pins’ and interest) is a virtual scrapbook where people can share imagery.
Recently, companies have started to explore the benefits of Pinterest. Can you blame them? Just recently Pinterest reported having over 10 million unique visitors. In the past six months alone Pinterest has grown over 4000%. There is marketing potential with Pinterest, but it’s really all in how you approach it. Just like any social networking, if you are only joining to promote rather than be beneficial to users you will only rack it up as another social media failure.
Small businesses have started to see the value in Pinterest. Take for example graphic artists, photographers, and interior designers, they are able to create storyboards showcasing their work. They have the opportunity to display their work using their creativity, personal style and personality creating fantastic portfolios that can be seen and shared by other Pinterest users. This allows consumers to check out their work, prior to contacting them. I mention share because one of the advantages of using Pinterest is the ability for users to ‘re-pin’ or effectively copy images to their pin-boards, thus sharing the work with their followers.
Whilst the usage by the businesses above is self-evident usage by other business has also grown for instance it can be a great tool for their market research, what colours people are drawn too and what products are being re-pinned. This information can create inspiration for additional product development. While there are no hardcore metrics within Pinterest, a small business owner can keep track of interests by seeing how many of their “pins” are “re-pinned” by other users. This can help in determining interests, marketability and popularity.
Another popular way of using Pinterest is to develop ‘info-graphics’ I will discuss this in a future blog for those of you unsure of what they are!
No doubt there are other absolute benefits with this very visual tool and if you may well be thinking of them right now feel free to follow me on Pinterest here and get some ideas.
Traffic generated through the ‘new kid’ on the block is on the increase make sure you are not left behind. If you would like to know more contact me and I’ll be happy to help with training strategy and even management