Pinterest surges ahead

 

Once viewed as a niche player in the social space, Pinterest has become one of the fastest growing social networks ever and a considerable force in marketing.

Stats released February this year, show Pinterest is close to outstripping Twitter in user numbers and that 47% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from Pinterest – that’s huge!. And it sends more traffic to other sites than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined.

We like to try everything that might be useful to us and our customers – that’s why we first tried Pinterest. However it soon became obvious as to how we could use Pinterest – we could pin a portfolio of websites, create a board featuring tips and hints, create a board of things we like and places we like and so on. So imagine what a designer or retailer could do..... The only challenge we've found is sometimes the images don't always upload correctly - but maybe that's just us as a newbie user!

There are several great things about Pinterest and ways you can maximise your marketing with it.

• There’s an about section where you can include up to 200 characters (at present) to give an overview of your company. Remember the importance of keywords.

• You can make the names of your boards highly specific and relevant to your customers – again keeping keywords in mind. Try and keep them as unique as possible.

• Every image can include a link back to the site the image came from. So, if you have an image on your site of a piece of furniture you want to include on Pinterest, just fill in the link back to the image on your site. It’d be silly not to! An interior architect could link back to a fabulous kitchen they’ve designed, a retailer to the shoes they have online and so on. Every time someone else pins one of your images to their board the link goes with it.

• Gives you the opportunities to include descriptions of each image – so if it’s a product, include the price if appropriate and if a pair of shoes, the sizes available as well. You can include up to 500 characters but try and keep it down to 200 – 300 – tailored and specific work best! You could include care instructions and of course keywords.

• It gives you another opportunity to relate directly to your customers by using terms you know they’ll understand in a fun environment – who doesn’t love looking at images!

From a business perspective, it’s becoming a great way to get additional exposure especially if your products are visually appealing or interesting. With the predicted increase in focus on visual and images, maybe it’s a good time to get more pictures of what you do out there.....but don’t lose sight of other social media such as Facebook and Linkedin.

If you would like to talk about setting up Pinterest here's our email.