What Can I Do With Pinterest? — Part 1

Published in

Inside Revenue

7 min readNov 24, 2017

The Beginner’s Guide

Pinterest is a social media platform that has been vastly under used by marketers. It has been seen more as a place that people go to for ideas for DIY or recipes. We have looked into Pinterest as a marketing platform and have found that it can be very beneficial for companies.

For this reason we created this set of articles to go through Pinterest for business and show you how it can be used to influence people to buy your products and use your services, helping you to hit your revenue targets.

In this article I will cover:

#1 What Is Pinterest?

#2 Why Should You Care About Pinterest?

#3 How Can I Use Pinterest To Increase My Company Revenue Targets?

#4 What Should I Look Out For When Using Pinterest?

So lets get started…

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#1 What Is Pinterest?

Pinterest, as a social media platform, is focused on the concept of a person’s lifestyle — allowing users to share their tastes and interests with others while discovering like minded people. While traditionally being thought of as a platform to share decorating and recipe ideas, Pinterest has developed into a powerful marketing tool for businesses of all kinds.

As with most other social networks, Pinterest has standard social networking functions, but adds to the social networking world by having one key distinction from the rest — visual communication. The platform allows users to visually share new interests by posting images or videos, discovering new trends by browsing the interests of others, of getting their point of view across thorough raising awareness on a particular subject or topic in a creative and visually striking way.

“Your products, services or solution are secondary to your knowledge, expertise and the difference you make for your customers.” — Jill Konrath (Recognized Sales Acceleration Strategist) @jillkonrath

#2 Why Should I Care About Pinterest?

With so many businesses focusing on traditional social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, new data offers a reminder to businesses that they should be using innovative and more creative methods to launch their marketing success into the digital age.

The more effectively companies can understand how consumers are using social media channels, beyond just Facebook and Twitter, the better they will be able to leverage social channels to augment and improve marketing campaigns. Businesses of any size and industry can capitalize on the Pinterest surge to market their products, increase their brand’s awareness, and grow their customer bases. With being a highly visual medium, Pinterest gives businesses a chance to engage with consumers through more creative means, not only allowing companies to better use their creativity, but to help personalize their brand in a more humanistic manner.

When used properly, Pinterest provides massive opportunities for both consumer-focused and business-focused companies. The data never lies, and the data that Pinterest has provided businesses with is undeniable to those looking to explore new and exciting marketing opportunities.

Video taken from Pinterest for Business’ official YouTube channel

We will briefly take you through a few of the platform’s benefits to your marketing efforts:

Demographics
Proven Marketing Success
Driving Traffic
Increasing Brand Authority
Expanding Business Reach

Demographics

With over 150 million users, Pinterest’s site’s demographics are key to businesses that are looking at making the most of the platform’s capabilities.

Proven Marketing Success

According to Pinterest, when users were asked if they would rather follow their favorite brand or store when compared to following celebrities, 83% of them stated their preferences in following the former. This insight can be used to a brand’s advantage as Pinterest has influence on what users are purchasing by providing them with vast options during the consideration phase. According to Pinterest, 87% of Pinners have purchased products because of the platform, and 93% of users have used the channel to plan for future purchases. These numbers alone indicate Pinterest’s capabilities that brands can leverage on.

Driving Traffic

Ben Hayden, author of Pinfluence has revealed that Pinterest drives more referral traffic than LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ combined. This can be attributed to the attractive manner in which pin are posted. The combination of great images, content, problem solving options, inspirations and desirable offers allow brands to appeal to user’s interests in a personalized, valuable manner, which piques the user’s interests, resulting in increased traffic to your site.

Increasing Brand Authority

A common goal for many businesses on Pinterest is to establish their brand as an authority in their field. With Pinterest’s ability to allow brands to provide their users with useful and educational information while promoting their products and services, businesses can leverage the platform to their advantage by becoming the go-to-brand for reliable information on key topics in the field. This not only builds brand trust, but increases your brand’s authority in order to drive customer loyalty and referrals from brand advocates.

Expanding Business Reach

Pinterest allows brands to leverage the platform’s online community in a way that typical social platforms do not, as Pinterest does not require users to be connected to brands, accept friend invitations, or jump through hoops in order to be exposed to their products and services. Group boards for example, allow brands to collaborate with popular pinners who have larger followings, which enable our brand and content to be exposed to larger groups of people.

Pinterest is a social network that is constantly increasing its capabilities and features, and is steadily moving more towards a brand and company friendly platform on which companies are able to harness the power of visual communication in order to meet their marketing goals.

Webinar video taken from Pinterest for Business’ official YouTube channel

“When people come to you online, they are not looking for TV commercials. They are looking for information to help them make a decision.” — David Meerman Scott (Online Marketing Strategist) @dmscott

#3 How Can Pinterest Help Me Hit My Company’s Revenue Targets?

Pinterest has traditionally been considered a social media outlet for girls looking to share the latest recipes and fashion trends. Recently however, the platform has increased its capabilities to extend its demographics beyond the previously predominant female market, providing brands in other areas of interest to be able to maximize, and profit from the platform’s reach.

This social media platform has fast become an excellent tool which brands are using to maximize their web page conversions by offering businesses a more unique way to share bits of their website and online activities through easy-to share graphics and links.

Leading potential customers back to your website is an ideal method to introduce them to your business and it’s offerings. This can be achieved by creating pins featuring your brand, products or services and linking them to your website or e-commerce pages. By using Pinterest to share your products or valuable content related to your business, in an excellent way to showcase all you have to offer potential customers.

Polard G., in Social Media Today said that it was not surprising that Pinterest generates more revenue per click than both Twitter and Facebook, which is especially important given the prominence of cost-per-click campaigns in the paid digital advertising world. This information shows the power of the Pinterest platform and provides a sound insight that brands can use to start developing their marketing strategies moving forward.

In our article “What Can I Do With Pinterest? — Part 2 (The Intermediate Guide)” , we will cover strategies that you can use to help you hit your revenue targets.

4# What Should I Watch Out For When Using Pinterest?

In this section we will give you a brief overview of Best Practices as well as Common Mistakes made when using Pinterest

Best Practices For Using Pinterest For Business
A couple that we think are the most important to remember are:
- Make Your Offerings More Visible
- Make your Website Pinterest Friendly
These two will ensure that your offering is the first thing a customer sees as well making sure that if a customer sees something they like on your website they can repin it quickly and easily. This will ensure that your reach on Pinterest grows quickly
Common Mistakes Made
A couple that we think are the most important to remember are:
- Not Pinning Engaging Content
- Abandoning Your Profile
Both of these can lead to you very quickly losing the audience that you are trying to attract and grow. Ensure that the content you post is relevant and not just content to fill space.

For more on what you should look out for when using Pinterest take a look at our article “What Can I Do With Pinterest — Part 3 (The Advanced Guide)”.

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This article will have shown you why it is important for you to pay attention to Pinterest as a marketing tool. Read our next guide for a more complex look into Pinterest, titled “What Can I Do With Pinterest — Part 2 (The Intermediate Guide)”, where we will cover how you can increase your chances of hitting revenue targets using Pinterest by: