Why Every Business Needs to be on Pinterest
It’s all about your imagination
One of the aspects of marketing that bugs me the most, is when an individual marketer says, “you have to be on social media.”
What a load of crock. That’s like saying everybody needs to get a university degree to be successful. While social media enhances the marketing of a business, it’s necessary to assess which ones are going to be effective.
After all, you have to consider the amount of time spent, and what the long term gains are from being on social media. But now I’m going to be that same jerk and tell you that there is one social media channel that every business should be on, and that’s Pinterest.
Having Pictures as Part of Your Marketing Strategy? That’s Crazy Talk!
Now, maybe it’s just me, but I've never heard of any business that told me that having pictures in their marketing material was a bad move for their marketing strategy. That having pictures of people using their products was such a terrible return on investment, that they didn’t have time to bother with it. “Don’t bother with pictures, it’s a waste of time!” said nobody.
Imagine a world with with no pictures, just words. We wouldn’t be able to sell 90% of our products and services if we relied on words. And copywriters would be hallelujah rich if that happened.
But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world filled with colourful pictures. Pictures of people. Pictures of mascots. Pictures of pictures. We are visual people. And to say that somehow a social network that is based primarily on photos is not applicable to your business is the same as saying photos just don’t matter.
Pinterest is More than Pictures
What can be hard for businesses to understand is that Pinterest is not just about pictures. To sound cliche, it’s whatever your business wants it to be. Just like a picture itself, there is no limit on how you want to use this beautiful and elegant social network.
It can be used as a way to collaborate on projects that require visuals. Using a secret board, a company can take a screen shot of a project they’re working on and then have employees comment on the project. Imagine Yammer, but with pictures.
Pinterest can be used to offer a nice and easy place where customers can see some of your best selling products from your retail or e-commerce site.
The visual network can help show the history of the company and the many different milestones that customers may not be familiar with but makes them feel a great sense of nostalgia.
It can be used to show off pictures of your executive team members assisting in charity work or giving advice to young business leaders as a way of boosting the company’s public relations image.
Pinterest can even be used to track competitor’s pins to find out what’s going viral and what’s not, so that you’re able to either copy some of their strategy or find a way to differentiate yourself from them.
Lastly it can be a great resource where you pin videos of the most FAQ’s. This way instead of customers trolling through a bunch of videos, your clients can look through quickly to find a video that’s for right for them.
The Only Limit is Your Imagination
Like a website, the only true limit is your imagination. If you think that a picture is just a picture, then you shouldn’t be in business. But if you think a picture is a way to tell a story, make someone cry, or encourage someone to think twice about buying your product, then use Pinterest.
Great visuals can only enhance a business, it can never hurt it.
Vincent Ng is the president and chief blogger at MCNG Marketing, and the authour of “How to Search Optimize Your Pins and Boards for Pinterest and Search Engines”.
He is a fanatic about social media and digital marketing, and can often be found pinning creative ads on his Pinterest account. You can follow him on Twitter @VincentNg.
