Pinterest for businesses

Pinterest is the new social network that is sweeping the nation. Everyone seems to be talking about how addictive ‘pinning’ is, and people’s pinterest habits are flooding facebook feeds. As cool as it is to share recipes, patterns and fashion with your friends, how can businesses use this new service to their advantage?

First, we must understand what pinterest is. The pinterest team describes their service as a network of interests, saying, “Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” So Pinterest is a place for people to bookmark or ‘pin’ interesting things they find on the internet. These things can be blog articles, comics, recipes and more. The only requirement for pinning is that the bookmark must have a picture to go with it.

Like other social networking sites, pinners share their pins by following, liking and commenting on different users’ content. This interaction is key for businesses looking to get their foot in the door of this new network. But is Pinterest really worth the effort of managing yet another social account?

 In October, Real Simple magazine received more traffic from Pinterest than Facebook

Research shows that Pinterest is better at driving traffic than other social media sites. In October, Real Simple magazine received more traffic from Pinterest than Facebook. Other sites such as HubSpot also report receiving more traffic from Pinterest than other websites. So it seems like Pinterest is indeed worth the time and effort.

How should businesses use Pinterest for marketing? This is a tough question. Pinterest is focused on lifestyle interests and visually astounding pictures. For some industries, this can be a challenge to work around, but definitely not impossible. The key is to keep the self-promotion to a minimum.  People are unlikely to re-pin blatant marketing ads and campaigns.  What works better is displaying your portfolio, blog articles, and other things that are in the same genre as your business.

For TILPRO’s pinterest, we are focusing on tech articles, blogs, our portfolio, desktop wallpapers, the best of Kansas City and design inspirations.  These are all things that strike a chord with many people, but are still related to our business and what we do as a company.

So get your business on Pinterest and inspire others with your pins. And don’t forget to follow us! pinterest.com/tilpro/

in Article
Tags: marketing, pinterest, social media