Recently, Pinterest claimed the spot as the world’s third most popular social media site. Pinterest is an online visual bulletin board, where you can “pin” up pictures of just about anything. You can categorize your pins into different boards, and “repin” other people’s material (much like the reblogging feature from Tumblr). Pinterest is a great visual bookmarking tool; many people use it to collect pictures of things they covet, recipes they intend to make, ideas for events, etc. Pinterest ’s allure is that it is simple—with a click of your mouse, you can easily post up something to your board, and browse millions of other visual collections.
So great, Pinterest is an awesome personal tool, but what about for brands and businesses? Here are some tips on how to utilize Pinterest to its fullest advantage for your company.
- Categorize Your Boards: You can categorize any of your boards into one of 32 existing categories on Pinterest. This will make your boards easier to navigate and also easier to find by Pinterest users.
- Think of Pinterest Like Twitter: Like Twitter, you can #hashtag your pins to optimize their SEO power, and @username to ping someone. Hashtagging your pins will increase the chances of your pins being found through the search feature, and the @username feature gives you the power to engage with other Pinterest users to facilitate conversation and interaction and build a fan base.
- Follow Other Boards: You don’t have to follow all of a user’s boards; You can choose which boards you want to follow, so irrelevant pins don’t pop up on your stream.
- Watermark Your Pins: If you’re displaying your own products on Pinterest, watermark the images with your address. That way, people will always know where to track your product back to and where to find your site.
- Add Prices: Again, if you’re promoting your own products, you have the option to include pricing in the description, which will link users back to your site so they can find and, hopefully, buy your product. Adding a price onto your pins will also categorize them into a special Pinterest, where other users can browse for gifts.
- Be Descriptive: Pinterest’s search feature is still very basic, so all search terms will yield very literal search results. Help out other users to find your products by being very specific and descriptive in your descriptions.
And last of all: have fun! Like any other social media site, Pinterest requires work and time if you are looking to brand your company. Once you get the hang of it though, working on your Pinterest hardly feels like work, and you’ll find yourself getting sucked into all of cool things other users out there are pinning (be sure not to let this cut into your productivity though!).
