Tips to Boost your Business with Pinterest

Novelty comes in diverse forms and to utilize the novel idea is another innovation. The launch of Pinterest in 2010 (in closed beta) has brought diverse opportunities to improve business, when adopted in an appropriate way. Pinterest, photo sharing website, is unique owing to its pin board style. If you have a theme-based image collection on your mind, Pinterest can aptly serve you. It is aimed to bond individuals or organizations, coming from different platforms, having common interests.

Pinterest has been listed in the “50 Best Websites of 2011” by Time magazine. It has potentially more than images to work providing a strong platform connecting individuals and groups across the world. Incorporating Pinterest as an able business boosting strategy can deliver favorable results, utilizing the resources optimally.

Find below some useful tips which can be implemented in a business policy.

Simplicity is the tool

The success story behind Pinterest points to its simplicity and easy applicability. Users have a board to pin images of their interest. Clean, clutter-free and elegant appearance can attract the attention of visitors without doing much. Pinterest can potentially enhance the traffic of your business by implementing its simple and uncomplicated appeal.

business with pinterestAdaptability to business

Possibilities for utilizing Pinterest are numerous. Some of these are recipes, do-it-yourself crafts, décor, apparel, wedding theme, health care and travel. It is potentially helpful for brands having excellent imagery and unique products.

However, even the best of the applications may prove unyielding to your particular business. It is best to examine this tool before implementing it.

Going beyond the products

Promoting the product is an essential component of any business, but not the only component of the business. With Pinterest, you can provide interesting tips, tit-bits, etc. suited to your customers. It can demarcate your business as customer oriented, rather than being an extremely self-centered one.

You can use a daily pin theme for promoting your brand. In order that the images get re-pinned, get a captivating and memorable slogan. Anything tinkling the grey matter is easily reproduced. Besides, this also keeps the interest of the customers (particularly the regular ones), who would want to re-visit the website for more tinkles.

Focusing on target group

With so many forums and websites, it is easy to get lost in the virtual world. You need not engage in too many tools to get desired results. Even if you are using one (or few tools), stay focused.

Pinterest makes it easy to view the likes and interests of users. The likes, loves, food, places of interest, etc. are hints to help you concentrate on a focus group. Observe the pinners of your brand (and what else they follow), to get a precise picture of their interests. Pinterest can reveal the inspiration of users in a more comprehensive manner than other forums (like a survey which can be maneuvered easily).

Extending applicability

It is essential to use the tools at Pinterest judiciously. Use the keywords and hash tags to your best advantage. Use words which are more likely to be type, when searching for specific content. While too many hash tags may look like spam, multiple keywords give the advantage of your content being picked more than often.

Keep a watch for the popular pins to get the current trend and flavor. Add links to your website to increase the possibility of being found by more people. Images play crucial role (but Flash photos do not get pinned) and should be of superior quality.

How to Use Pinterest for Business

Let’s say you’re in the business of selling shoes. How would you use Pinterest? Well, the conventional – read: Facebook! – approach would be to simply post photos of your shoes, with a link to your website, where your followers can buy them. But is that enough? Will that suffice to make it on Pinterest?

The answer is: ‘No.’ Instead, you have to focus on what people can do with your shoes. That means: make photos and post them of people wearing your shoes on the beach, in the Sahara, on top of a mountain, or at a cocktail party (depending on the kind of shoe you’re trying to sell).

Additionally, you can organize contests: let your customers pin photos of themselves wearing your shoes. The best photos will be put on your company’s Pinterest page, and the winner can win a free pair of shoes.

It’s an incredibly effective and fun way to interact with your customers, and to make them an active part, rather than a passive one, of your business. And that, of course, is the key to success – both offline and online.

Conclusion

There are many other ways to implement Pinterest for your business. Give it your unique touch to get the right response and just remember that there is always the possibility of copyright issues, so make sure that you have the rights to the images, to avid problems. You can always find some of the most popular stock images, and use those instead.

Claudia Somerfield

Claudia Somerfield is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on luxury and technology. She recently read an article on iPhone accessories that attracted her attention. These days she's been busy writing review articles about Wireless Outdoor Speakers.

14 thoughts on “Tips to Boost your Business with Pinterest

  • I totally agree with you. Regarding Social Media Strategy, each platform needs a different approach to offer differing experiences and engage with the users in different ways.

    We just can not push people with the same content and updates everywhere, so Pinterest activity needs to be planned and unique.

  • Great post, Pinterest does have a lot of potential for marketing a business. I requested an invite a few weeks back but haven’t set up an account yet, so I don’t know the ins and outs first hand, but based on what what I have read and seen coming from the site on blogs and social networks, there are a lot of ways to use it. I look forward to getting my hands dirty sometime here soon.

  • Hi again Mr. DiTesco,

    the founder of college of content is just learning like a newborn baby how to use Pinterest for business. It was clearly explained upon signing up that it’s not a good practice “as you mention in this blog post” to overly promote your own business on Pinterest, but yet, post photos of other people’s sites and blogs to your Pinterest pin board, as you’ll still build up your business simultaneously by supporting others. college of content is learning from people like you and others, such as ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse, on how to use Pinterest for business. Thank you for keeping this blog post down-to-earth and simple. God bless you and thank you 🙂

  • I have never really ventured out into pinterest before but I have been wanting since I read so much about it, albeit, passively. So I never really understood how to use it and didn’t think it would be beneficial to me. But now, I just requested an invitation from Pinterest, my curiosity is getting the best of me.

  • I’m interested in using Pinterest, but have only visited there twice. I just logged in after reading this post. So now I’m pinning some of my latest blog posts and wondering what now? But after reading, I know now that I should post other’s material and not just my own. Seems similar to StumbleUpon in that way.

  • After a long time enjoy so much reading any article. I will definitely going to share it with my friends on facebook and twitter. This article shows that you have a strong command on the topic.

  • Pinterest ,I have not used it more but I am thinking to using it …I think it will be a great for business ..Thanks for the great post o it

  • It seems like Pinterest is the next hottest thing on the web.
    I’m exploring Pinterest for about a month now, and it’s quite obviece that the security level is not so tight as Facebook use to have, even on its first days, so it’s time for us black hats to charge in.
    Because I dag a lot in pinterest marketing I found here at BHW
    fatboy’s bot and it’s working great for me, so I decided to give away this new bot that we created, that we all know what’s the importance of comments and the amount of traffic that can be brought because of comments, so all you have to do is to enter your user name and password, keyword and number of comments.
    In the comments area you need to upload a text file, each comment in a different line. and hit the PLAY BUTTON

    I think that this bot can realy helps, and I’ll be happy to find out if indeed it helped you guys, and please post a reply this bot has helped you with your Pinterest marketing.

  • Very good article Claudia! I am using pinterest for few months now and I already love it! I like the fact that it’s so personal, and differs from person to person. Although I knew it, I had not thought to use to support my blog!
    It’s very smart what you said, about not pin only images but tips too.
    Thank you for the advices!

  • Strategizing social media is the need of the hour. Social media is a new tool that has helped in generating virality amongst the masses. This is a hit among the people/segment because it is just the opposite of traditional advertisement where the marketers forces their products onto the customers. Social media is ‘permission marketing’ the word coined by Seth Godin and pinterest of course is the new and most efficient tool for that 🙂

  • Are you on Pinterest for your business yet? If not, you should be! http://t.co/l8UOUXjE

  • Pinterest is very simple in understanding and easily applicable. It gathers more audience and market products easily. All points above are very helpful.

  • Pinterest seems to be growing like hell and users are really impressed with its content and social networking aspects. Would love to get an invite to see if it bypasses the waiting list process.

    I believe it also helps you for better search engine ranking and Google traffic.

  • Recently Pinterest has gained a good momentum, Pinterest has a great marketing potential for your business and that is the reason it has become the newest big thing in social networks. But getting the full attention and exposure from audience totally depends upon how appealing your image is. Thanks Claudia for bringing such a new interesting topic in light.

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