5 Reasons Pinterest Is Great For Business

By Joe Cunningham, Internet Marketing Manager
03/15/2013

Four years ago, there was no such thing as Pinterest.  Facebook was on the rise pre-The Social Network, people were still learning how to retweet, and many businesses had little to no idea about the power of social media.

Last year, Pinterest users rose by 430%, making it the 26th most visited site on the web (“Great.”), driving more traffic to websites than YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+ combined.  Combined!  (“Wow!”)  It was obviously a phenomenon not ignored by savvy marketers.

It’s no secret: social media is one of the driving forces of business online (read my blog about it) and Pinterest is a leading contender.  Here are my top 5 reasons Pinterest is awesome for business.

 

5 Reasons Pinterest Is Great For Business

A Pinterest Board#1 It’s Easy

Pinterest is organized by pins, boards, and pinners.  It’s simple: pinners pin pins on boards.  Every pinner has a profile, and he or she (usually she) either re-pins pins from other pinners’ boards or surfs the web and pins pictures from there.  Imagine a cork board collection, but online – giving it immediate exposure to the whole world.

“A picture says a thousand words.”  Facebook is cool because you can do a lot with it and everybody’s there.  Twitter cuts to the chase.  Google+ is pretty lame, but Google loves it and thanks to SEO we need to care about Google.  Pinterest, on the other hand, tells a story with photographs.  And the nicer, cooler, more beautiful they are, the more viral they become.  Good stuff gets shared.  No biggie.

The most popular posts on Facebook are always pictures (not video, not the latest update on your health) because they say what they have to say immediately, and for as long as the viewer wants.

This is the essence of Pinterest.  With an easy-to-install “Pin It” button, within an instant of finding a cool picture online you can pin it to your Pinterest board with one click on your browser.  Though Pinterest is just getting out of its beta diapers, it’s safe to say it’s already an Einstein of a social prodigy.  And it’s simple: most internet users were not born with a smartphone in their hands or even a game system in their living room.  The most successful online ventures are simple and free.  That’s sounds like a song.

#2 It’s Fun

I saw a picture recently that made me laugh a little and I re-pinned onto Cowley’s Funny Stuff board.  It reads: "Pinterest: When Your Husband Is Watching Something Dumb.”  The reason I laughed at that is I found myself pinning to our business boards while my wife was watching “Holmes on Homes.”

Pinterest is that easy hobby that works both for the hoarder and the “I only save photos online to avoid clutter” in all of us.  Having always avoided the tediousness of scrapbooking, I found pinning stuff for my job to be a little fun, and seeing how fast so many people followed our business and re-pinned our stuff was definitely cool too.  I realized, “Hey, we can really make waves with this.”  (The dream of every social media marketer.)

There are literally millions of pictures in every category online; something for everyone.  And it doesn’t stop there!  Pictures link users to blog posts, videos, and web pages, making Pinterest pins not just stagnant polaroids on a cork board, they are windows into new information.

#3 SEO

Remember how I just said the word “link”?  That’s the buzz word for any SEO geek out there.  If you need a crash course on SEO, read my blogs (what, why & how).  But to put it simply, the more links you have to your website from other websites, the more Google thinks you are legit.  That’s oversimplification, but it’s the main idea.  Link popularity.

Now the way I just said the work “link” was in the context of Pinterest.  Pinterest offers this magic wand, if you will, to web users everywhere, including social media marketers.  Whenever I pin something from a website, I create a link back to that website from Pinterest.  If you click a pin, you go to the website from which it was pinned.

Jedi LinkingThere’s a reason why the “Pin-It” button can be installed on websites like the Facebook “share” button can be also.  Same reason: back links.  SEO.

#4 Pinterest Is Business Friendly

Pinterest has become extremely business friendly, not only because of the reasons above, but several particular to business users.

Pinterest makes it easy to setup a company page as such.  They let you verify your association with your business website practically from the get-go, as opposed to Twitter, which will approach you maybe 1,000 years after you start tweeting and/or after you get half the world to follow you.

Pinterest just came out with its analytics page: easy to use stats on how your company is doing there (always good to know).

Not so long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Google used to offer the best and almost only good free shopping engine online.  Not anymore.  If you sell stuff online (a.k.a. ecommerce) and you want your products to show up when someone clicks Google “Shopping,” you have to pay for that.  Not on Pinterest.  Simply add a dollar amount to any pin’s description and it automatically gets searched as a product for sale.

And it works: Pinterest users found it assists in 10% sales, compared to Facebook’s 7%; 86% new visits compared to Facebook’s 56%; and Pinterest users spent more than twice as much as the Facebook users: $180 to $85!

There are lots of businesses on Pinterest now for all of the above reasons.  And there’s another reason: social networking.  I’ve connected with most of the major players around town and hey, it works.  I’ve gotten messages from some of those people that found us on Pinterest.

#5 It’s Beautiful!

You might still be wondering why I – Internet Marketing Manager man – am writing this.  It’s true that Pinterest is made up of mainly women trying to take over the world by planning weddings (okay, that was a joke), but really, Pinterest is what my job is all about – getting people business online.

The heart of that matter is creating a great professional image on the internet for our clients – and not only on a website alone.  Today, businesses need to meet and greet where people are: social media.  And Pinterest is like the iPhone of social media: it’s fast, efficient, and it’s beautiful.  It makes looking your best easy by putting a great and true face forward for your company: your people, products, likes, articles, videos, stats, and updates – all with literally one or two clicks.

And it’s free: no subscription or listing fees.  Those are so annoying and usually not worth it.  I guess that’s #6.

Swing Away Merrill, Swing Away“Pin Away Merrill, Pin Away.”

So what are you waiting for?  Check out our Pinterest page and start your own – for you and your business.  You’ll be surprised how fast and easy it is to use and get a following.  Let us know if you need help – we do do (I just said “do do”) SMO (social media optimization) for a living.

Enjoy it!


Information taken from Forbes.com, eConsultancy.com, and SEOmoz.com.

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