We know about Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and TikTok but are we missing a trick? Is Pinterest beneficial for your business?
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a visual social media platform where users can create and share pins, create boards, and shop. It started as being known as a digital mood board. It is exclusively a picture-based platform with the tiniest bit of text at the bottom of each post. It really took off in the Tumblr days, as it was perfect for new fashion bloggers. It grew in popularity as it was a great way for people to create ‘boards’ and ideas and share them with people to visualise ideas. After the initial blow-up of bloggers and teenagers using it to show their friends and followers their ideas, businesses started to catch on to the potential of Pintrest.
Some Key Facts
Let’s start with some of the facts. Pinterest is the 14th largest social network in the world. Many people may have forgotten about Pinterest but with around 445 million users on the platform it might be worth using it for your business. Pinterest really took off in 2016 and very rapidly gained a million users, over the last 7 years it has doubled in size and users. It has gone from being a pretty platform for people to share there style and ideas, to a huge opportunity for small business to promote and sell products. More than 87% of Pinterest users have bought a product because of the site. This might be because it’s completely free to use and makes linking products on Pinterest incredibly easy. There’s no bio you have to go to or page you have to find, the product is always linked directly on the image.
Using it for your Business:
If you think Pinterest might work for your business, then it’s important to make sure you are utilising every aspect of it.
Set up a business page:
Make sure you use a business page as it will allow you to have access to a lot more analytical features. To do this you need to go to pinterest.com/business/create.
Pins:
Pins are essentially ‘posts’. When you share a pin that people like, they will often ‘pin’ it to a board they have created.
Pincodes:
Sort of like QR codes, Pincodes are special codes you can create to unlock your business’s curated boards and profile on Pinterest. Users can enter the code to be taken directly to your suggested boards.
Boards:
Sort of like visual bookmarks, boards are how you organise your pins.
Hashtags:
Hashtags are used the same on Pinterest as they are on any other social media platform.
Linking:
A great feature of Pinterest is you can link your other social media pages to it. So you can post on Pinterest and have a direct link back to Instagram or Facebook.
Pinterest is like a Search Engine
Unlike other social media platforms that are based on looking through a feed that is programmed for you, Pinterest is actually used a lot for specific searches. Most people who have a Pinterest account will often search for what they want to see. This can be something like “vegan recipes” or “Spring Outfits 2023′ ‘. Pinterest will correlate pins that relate to those search engine topics and find what they are looking for.
Then the chances are, the next time they open up Pinterest, similar searches will be there, like a ‘for you’ page. With the knowledge of Pinterest being like a search engine, it’s the perfect opportunity to use Search Engine Optimisation. So, make sure you optimise your posts and then you’ll come up when people search for related things.
The Pros
Once you have got your head around the general rhythm and routine of Pinterest, you’ll start to notice some of the benefits. These include things like more brand exposure, commercial activity, website visits, new audiences, a great way to drive traffic and other business communities that will support you. There’s a thing called “long pin time” which essentially means, no matter how old a post is, it will still circulate around Pinterest and continue to pop up on people’s feeds. And as mentioned previously, it’s free to use.
The Cons
Just like with all social media platforms there are great ‘pros’ and also some annoying ‘cons’. The main con with Pinterest is that it’s time consuming. In order to really succeed on the site, you need to be very active on the there. People had been known to be posting 20 – 30 pins a day to gain attention. This raised concerns for many people as they would prefer to put more time into all their social media platforms rather then spend an extended amount of time on just Pinterest. The other con is, it does have a very specific audience. Like Snapchat, Pinterest has an incredibly niche audience for a social media platform. Pinterest caters mainly to women (81%) between the ages of 25 and 50. If your audience doesn’t fit into those brackets, the site may not be worth the time. On the other hand, if your audience perfectly fits into those statistics, it might be perfect for you.
Get in touch!
We have discussed the stats and the pros and cons, now its up to you to see if Pinterest is a great way to boost sales or maybe its not the ideal platform for you. Pinterest has been around for a fair few years and is still very popular, if you think it could benefit your business, it’s free and fairly easy to use so why not give it a go. We hope we have answered some questions regarding Pinterest and hopefully helped you decide if its the right platform for your business. If you have any questions that we haven’t answered, please don’t hesitate to ask us!