In Literature they say “a picture is worth a thousand words”. As for SEO, we could say “a picture is worth a thousand leads”. It might sound funny, but somehow true.
The age of social media has given the world numerous platforms for individuals to share parts or glimpses of their everyday lives thru pictures. And one of the most popular tools for that is what we call Pinterest.
Pinterest is a young social networking site that allows creating virtual theme boards to pin visual contents to. Aside from images, one can also pin cash gifts, videos or join discussion groups. These pinned contents provides comment section that lets users start discussion, they can also like it or re-pin it to a board and share with the people.
This kind of capability can spark ideas among online marketers and business experts to try as part of their promotional strategy. Then again, as an expert, one should decide if this is the right tool to fit their business needs as not all social networking sites work best with all business types.
However, for argument’s sake and to cut to the chase, let us say you have realized that Pinterest is your perfect fit. Now, how do you begin to use it for business?
Let me share some things with you…
Pinterest for Business: 9 Tips to Put It to Use!
- Setting Up Your Profile – be sure to setup your account properly, make sure not to hide it from search engines. Create good description texts about your business, set your business location along with URLs connecting to your other social media sites or integrate the Pinterest share button with those sites.
- Be Strategic – you need to organize your pinned items by categorizing them into different virtual boards. It can give your potential customers the chance to focus on their particular interest. This strategy brings over clients directly to the things they want rather than waste their time over useless ones. One can also add a price banner to their description if they are a product-selling business, and strategically schedule their pin across boards (never spam or dump everything in!).
- Crowdsourcing – it basically means making an open call to people to get involve in your site or page activity thru collaboration or contest. You can ask your followers about their favorite products from your business and ask them to tag you with a photo of it, you can then re-pin it to your board. This will serve as gratitude to your fans as well as to show future customers how likeable your products or services are.
- Be “Pinteresting” – be creative in each of your board theme. Tell a story about the character and mood of your product; however, make sure it does not sound like it is all about selling. Vibrant and beautiful images and interesting compositions catch the eyes and create a strong impression with future clients.
- Re-pin – Pinterest is not all about pinning your own stuff, but you must also learn to share other people’s content. This will help you reach out to your followers as well as your potential customers. Search for other people’s pictures relating to your product niche, and create specific topics or categories to pin onto your virtual boards.
- Observe Competitors – you can use http://pinterest.com/source/URL to find out what are pinning from your competitor’s website. You can use the information from there to make your own content based on what you see works for them. Also use this to know what is being pinned from your own site, so you can comment or “Like” the pins to show your gratitude.
- Get Twitter and Facebook Involved – directing traffic from your social networking site is important, so let your Twitter followers and Facebook fans know you are also on Pinterest. Creating this kind of circle can be a good idea to make it easier to share contents in social media.
- Make Catalogs – this is a great way to display your product in Pinterest and bring in sales. Pin pictures according to your collections and add a price to them. Prices are displayed on your virtual board by adding the $ and value to the description.
- Add Hashtags and Keywords – much like twitter, you can add #hashtags in your description to create a unique tag to identify and categorized pins that have been shared. Adding keywords is also a way to optimize your pin which people can use in searching contents in Pinterest and in search engines.
Pinterest may provide the opportunities and advantages in showcasing your company or brand’s value, nevertheless, keep in mind copyright concerns: make sure to create your original content and give due credit to other contents you choose to pin on the board. Be vigilant in reporting violated intellectual properties both your own and others, and use the copyright page of Pinterest to report the problem.
It may not have user genres as broad as Facebook or Twitter, but it is certainly a platform to look out for with much potential both on the personal and business side of things. With its simple user interface and the fact that it has a higher revenue per click basis compared to Facebook and Twitter, who knows how great the possibilities it can achieve?
Online businesses continue to find ways in marketing globally thru social networking sites, and platforms like Pinterest, which has the capability as simple as sharing pictures, have been proven useful in this field. Things will keep on changing as years go by, but business rules such as “supply and demand” shall remain.
Jollibee, content writer of Agents of Value, lists down some tips on how Pinterest can be used to market a business.