Pinterest: The New Social Media Site Brands Must Join
Posted by
Ron Medlin on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 @ 11:31 AM
A cool, new photo sharing/social media site has emerged on the scene and is starting to generate some SEO buzz. Pinterest is growing in popularity among users, causing some marketers to predict it will soon give Flickr a run for its money. To make a long story short, Pinterest is a social bookmarking tool that allows users to “pin” content (images or videos) into themed collections called Boards (we’ll get back to this later).
Marketers and SEO consultants should make immediate plans to request a membership with Pinterest, due to both its growing popularity and lack of a “nofollow” link attribute tied to the site. Nofollow means that backlinks from a site won’t count for search ranking purposes, but thankfully Pinterest doesn’t adhere to this attribute…at least for now. Marketers have a clear window of opportunity to capitalize on here.
The lack of advertising opportunities force users to cultivate content creatively to really get mileage out of this site. The general rule of etiquette here is to not get caught up in shameless self-promotion. Leave that for Facebook and Twitter. Don’t fret, there are steps you can take to engage consumers without breaking the community rules.
Before you jump on the Pinterest bandwagon, lets discuss what the site involves and where the benefit lies for business owners and marketers.
What’s the Big Deal?
The big deal about Pinterest is that it has combined two of the most compelling aspects of social media: striking and likeable visual content and a share-happy community. Think about everything we are told about sharing and engagement on Facebook – you should share VISUAL content because people love it. Pinterest has applied that same philosophy to their entire site and it WORKS.
What’s a Pin?
Pinterest users share images or video uploaded from a user’s computer or from a website. The images or videos they share are called Pins.
What are Boards?
Pins live on Boards, which are organized by topic. Pinterest will give you a few boards to start out with, but you can modify the name or delete them altogether. Warning to business owners and marketers: do not create pins ONLY related to your business and business name. You have the ability to create numerous boards, so mix it up. Try to organize boards with pins that will be of interest to your target demographic.
Other Social Media Rules Still Apply.
Similar to Twitter, Pinterest allows you to follow your friends and customers and they have the option of not following you back. You don’t have to follow all of their boards, only those you select.
Repins = Retweets
Repins are the equalivanet of retweets in the Twitter world. When you “repin” content from someone else’s boards, you add it to your own boards.
Likes = Likes
As we said before, many of the same social media rules transfer to Pinterest. Facebook’s “Like” concept is another thing that Pinterest adopted. When you like a pin, it is then added to your profile as a “like” and not to your boards.
Where Do I Sign-Up?
Currently, the only way to sign-up for membership is to request an invitation from the folks behind Pinterest. It is relatively simple. Just go to their website and follow the instructions.
2 Undeniable Benefits for Businesses and Marketers
Pinterest is a great way to reach out to customers and show another layer of your brands interests and personality. Additionally, there is SEO value that can attract consumers to your business site in an untraditional way.
1. Brand Awareness
If customers love your products and they can be visually represented, there is a great chance they will pin it. More pins mean more awareness about your brand, but the awareness is more authentic than advertising or social media marketing. Customers are not clicking on a paid ad or going directly to your site to find your products. Instead they unexpectedly stumble upon them on a cool site. This type of natural, organic, almost passive engagement can go a long way with consumers.
2. Link Building
The great thing about pinning and getting repinned is that whenever someone does so, it creates a link to your website. Pinterest backlinks are valuable, and are a definite way to increase your SEO rankings and get your content seen by more people. There is no limit to the number of times someone can repin your content, so imagine what 100 or more repins would mean for your SEO ranking over time.
Our next blog will give marketers and business owners specific tactics to get started on Pinterst. Stay tuned.
Pinterest is just one example of how you can leverage social media as a marketing channel. Download our "Social Media Tune-Up" eBook to get the skinny on other ways to utilize social media to your advantage.
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