Create, Capture, Convert

5 Ways for Businesses to Get Started on Pinterest

The latest social media trend to emerge on the scene, Pinterest, already has millions of active users. 

The obvious dominant demographic using Pinterest is women. These recipe collecting, scrapbooking, fashion forward woman have lots to say and share. Slowly but surely, guys are growing in numbers, but after looking through a few boards it's crystal clear who the primary users are. Whether male or female, Pinterest users are collecting images to find inspiration to create, style, build, etc. This self-proclaimed "virtual pinboard" has opened the door for businesses to drive purchase decisions organically by capitalizing on consumer and brand loyalty that already exists to generate more. All business owners need to do is join the party and make it easier for consumers to pin their content.

5 Ways for Businesses to Get Started on Pinterest:

1. Request an Invitation, Wait and Research

It'll take a few days for Pinterest to get back with you, so take a minute right now to request an invitation. This doesn't mean make a sticky note with "Join Pinterest" on it and get back to this later. You can still search pins and boards, so start researching pins  related to your business products, services, locations and keywords to see what is already out there. Make note of the pins with the most likes and repins. Follow the popular users and wait for an opening to interact with them.

2. Build Good Will

Spend some time pinning and repining content, as well as commenting and liking others pins and boards. Do not expect people to automatically flock to your content unless you are a major corporation with a strong consumer base already. It will take some interacting and initiation on your part to get the ball rolling, so work the room. Scope out the heavy hitters (users with lots of repins and likes) and make nice. 

I love Ray Bans. In fact, that was my first search on Pinterest. What came up in the search results shocked me a little bit. I actually searched "Ray Bans" and everything from Ray Charles and Ray Lewis to Ray of Honey Cable Stitch and Parmesan-Crusted Chicken, Rachael Ray came up. I was shocked to not find myself overwhelmed by this very diverse array of options from such a limited keyword search. The first few results were only of Ray Bans and got more random as the list grew. Use long-tail keywords and more descriptive to make sure you show up in the top results.   

Adding "Pin It" buttons to your Internet browser is a great way to help remind yourself to pin cool things you find online. Remember what we said in the first blog about Pinterest, you should not only create boards and pins about things related to your business. 

5. Drive Traffic from Other Social Media Sites

You can login from Facebook or Twitter, which will make it easier to drive friends and followers to your Pinterest page. But you should also use these and other sites like Tumblr and  your company blog to drive traffic to your pin boards. From now on, when you have a picture of a product to share, you should always make it shareable on Pinterest.  

These are just a few of the ways businesses can lay some solid ground work for their Pinterest account. As with any other social media venture, you should reserve time for monitoring and environmental scanning. Do not jump into engagement haphazardly and except success. If you're interested in more tips and best practices for social media marketing in general, we've got you covered there too.