Justathought

Days of yore, we had a funny yet interesting game – pin the donkey’s tail! I remember to have never gotten it right – what fun it used to be! Now literally the world plays 'Pin it'... but of a different type. Yes, we are talking about the fastest growing social media ever, Pinterest.

Well, I think now you must all be social media pros – you know what each site is and what it does and the frills. But as always I am here to point out the nitty-gritty details that takes social media presence to a different enhanced level – by that I mean maximizing the site to benefit you and your business in the long run.

I pondered a lot over how this particular site commanded so much user-time and 'interest' among individuals and companies alike, read through a lot of reports and blogs to understand the implication of this largest (and still growing) site. Here are my takeaways from all that research:

A) Awareness and more power to buyers: The site allows one to put up business ads that can be pinned, re-pinned, shared with a whole lot others. Pinned 'posts' garner much attention from followers, groups and ultimately generating a set of loyal peers who eventually end up as your clients/customers. People on Pinterest generally come from a higher-income category which automatically places your product on a standard that you will have to fulfill responsibly. Customers also compare their 'pins' to the actual retail so you must be careful of what and how you package your product here!

B) Traffic: I can’t seem to stop talking about this! This site alone constitutes to almost 5% of referral traffic to your website/page!!! (that is if you are actively involved in putting up seemingly good and literally awesome stuff out there) – which is just second to FB. Whew! If this doesn’t pique your interest to advert here, then... Nah! I know you will get more active now that you know this!

Pinterest also guarantees more inbound links – this means once you pin an interesting content, it can get re-pinned by followers and their followers, keeping the content alive for a long time. Re-pins also link back the content to your page/site thereby, getting you the much needed traffic for your site. It also saves you the hassle of going back again and again to repost your content to catch attention. The only thing – the content has to be reallllly catchy and interesting!

C) Make a mark: People here tend to follow a brand rather than a store or a celebrity. Now this gives you a huge advantage to up your game and be ahead of competitors by providing something that is irresistible to the viewer/customer and thereby climbing the ladder of success rate. Also it is proven that Pinterest has the highest viewer retention – the sites demographics are stupendous allowing you to firstly make an impression and secondly cater to a variety of age groups and thirdly be assured that your price will have the best buyers.

D) Small investment big/long-term returns: There is a feature of promoted ads to boost up your ad campaign. What’s more, you pay only per 1000 impressions (do the math, it is fairly cheaper than investing in other mediums-though I wouldn't ignore them, this is a worthwhile investment, I would say) so you will break-even and even reap benefit even before you know it!

E) Integration: This site is very 'social'! What I mean is; Pinterest integrates your important online mediums – Website, Twitter and Facebook (though there are some limitations for companies to directly post a pin, but if on the same email id used for individual account, this can easily be taken care!) Talk about hitting 'many' birds with one stone?

 F) Discover: I can go on and on about this – the platform is an excellent way to discover your customers interests – by what pin is getting re-pinned and how it is shared. It also give you heads-up on the latest trends, access to similar stories to get inspired from and last but not the least, give your creative instinct a rhythm to manifest each time you add a content to pin!

Just to get the above stamped listing two links – as in hear from the horse’s mouth! Pinterest themselves tell you why businesses need to be out there... plus sharing their privacy policy (which I think you should read before you actually start pinning...) I mean start marketing there.

I am sure while you are on Pinterest, you may discover many more 'interesting' stuff that will help your business. Do you mind sharing some which I have not mentioned here?