Pinterest is an online platform where people collate ideas and interests into personalised ‘pin-boards’, just like a digital version of the classic pin-board you see on the wall of homes and offices.
While Pinterest is a social media platform, as you can follow other people or businesses, form groups and send messages, it actually functions more like a visual search engine. This means it gives small businesses the double opportunity of creating a community around their brand, and for their posts (pins) to show up in search results within the platform.
Sounds interesting? There’s more! Here are the top ten reasons why small businesses should be using Pinterest:
1. Reach a Desirable Audience
Pinterest has a wide variety of users, but the majority are women up to the age of 55. Older users are often more affluent, and ready to spend money on something they want. If your pins are getting seen by the right audience, you can expect them to click through to your website, and this will increase your sales.
2. Powerful Shopping Platform
Along with the spending power of Pinterest users comes the impressive statistic that 88% of them have made a purchase after finding something of interest. Unlike other social media platforms, the visual nature of Pinterest and the way that ideas can be pinned to a user’s board encourages a ‘browsing and shopping’ frame of mind. This means that Pinterest users are more likely to buy from you than users scrolling through posts on other platforms.
3. Targeted Marketing
In Pinterest, content is categorised and segmented. This means that people who choose to follow your boards are already interested in the content they contain. This allows you to reach your target market much more easily than other social media platforms.
4. Referral Traffic
Pinterest is a great platform for driving traffic to your website. With high user engagement, businesses that use Pinterest often see a higher volume of referrals than from Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
5. More ways to attract people to your brand
You can use Pinterest boards in different ways to attract more people to your brand. For example, you might create a board that showcases your products or services, another board with helpful tips and advice, and another that you could use for fun or to inspire. Using boards in this way widens your reach and increases the chances of people finding your business.
6. Spot Emerging Trends
By following your business niche on Pinterest, you will be able to see what topics are most popular right now, and what areas are growing in interest. Being able to see emerging trends allows your business to get ahead of the game, and to create services or products that will not only benefit your audience, but will help you maximise profits.
7. Get more Shares
Adding a Pinterest button to your website content, such as product pages or blog posts, will make it easy for visitors to share and pin images from your webpages to their own Pinterest boards. Some keen Pinterest users have an extension on their browser so they can pin whatever piques their interest while on the internet. So, not only can you use Pinterest directly to spread your brand message, other people can do if for you!
8. Make use of Analytics
Pinterest has its own analytic dashboard so you can see what your top pins are, and what does not perform as well. By monitoring how your posts are doing, you can create more of the content that your audience/market are looking for.
9. Backlinks
Each pin you publish, or that others pin from your website if you have a share button, provides a link back to your website. All backlinks are helpful for SEO and for building page authority. While Pinterest backlinks are classes as ‘nofollow’, they are still beneficial in increasing your dominance online.
10. It’s Fun!
Creating pins is more than just posting a picture from your webpage and hoping for the best. Have fun using your creative skills to make pins that pop! You don’t need extensive design skills, and can use platforms like Canva to quickly make stunning pins that people will want to click.
Pinterest itself is also user friendly, easy to navigate and bursting with potential ideas, so if you are using it for market research, it’s hard not to feel inspired!
Pinterest is a great tool to help get your business in front of your dream customers or clients, and provides a fun, visual way to get your message out there. For small businesses, it can be particularly effective at growing your ‘fan-base’, with a highly engaged community that may go on to purchase your products or services.
If you are ready to dive into the world of Pinterest, a virtual assistant can manage your marketing to get you the best results. Whether you just don’t have the time, or are not confident using the platform, we’re here to help. Get in touch with our team and let’s talk Pinterest!