Move Over Facebook, Twitter and Google+ As Pinterest has Arrived!
Facebook, Twitter and the newly launched Google+ need to move out the way because coming through is another social media site which is proving to be a valuable marketing tool for businesses. Pinterest is an online bulletin board for all your favourite images and it was launched in 2010 but since then it has grown so much and it is hopefully going to be another valuable tool for use with internet marketing.
Already the site has managed to register more than 7 million unique visitors in December and this was up 1.6 million than that recorded in September. More and more traffic is being driven to company websites than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined.
Why would a business care about this?
You need to realise as a business that consumers using Pinterest are given the ability to organise images into boards for specific image categories and when you “pin” something new all your followers see it.
If they want then they can comment or re-pin it onto their boards. It’s a bit like Facebook content in that items which you “pin” can go viral within minutes. Right now companies are using Pinterest to post images of their products and services and then linking these images to the relevant page on their website.
Think of this as almost like a virtual store catalogue. But just as with other social networks Facebook and Twitter it is important to note that people don’t want products and services rammed down their throat – it is social and so you need to remember this and intersperse it with other social imagery.
Already it has been proven to drive sales and buyers to a company website but it does have some drawbacks to it. Businesses with products that aren’t all that visual will struggle to gain interest on here. The only way to test whether or not it will work for you and your business is to trial it and start out by pinning things which are relevant to your business but not overly promotional otherwise people will simply turn off.
Give Pinterest a try and see what it can do for your business today; remember it is social for business and personal use and the idea is to make your images the best! Whether they are funny, stunning or provide a user with inspiration you need to pin images which attract the most attention and followers.