A Pinteresting Marketing Tool?

Pinterest (Photo credit: stevegarfield)

Have you come across www.pinterest.com yet?   

This is a social network and social publishing site based on photos which allows you to create an "online collage" or "digital pinboard" or "virtual corkboard". 

Using this you can gather together inspirational images to do things like plan a wedding, decorate your home, plan your summer wardrobe or share the beauty of your surrounding area or your passion for pugs.

Believe it or not, it is already the third most popular social network in the US - although this still seems a little under the radar for most small UK businesses. Certainly at the time of writing in April 2012 I failed to find a Hampshire based business using this so would love to hear of one. In the meantime, for more detailed stats on the site I would thoroughly recommend you looking at Modea's infographic 

In order to populate the themed boards users either re-pin images from other Pinterest users (in fact over 80% of Pinners do this) or use a “Pin It Button” to capture web images or upload from their own computer library.  In fact you are not restricted to images; you can also upload a video.   

But what has this to do with marketing?  Well first of all you can add “pin it buttons” to your blog pages which will encourage Pinterest users to upload your images. This then provides a direct link back to your blog (which might be shared over and over again depending on how attractive/cute the image is) To do this you simply have to go to www.pinterest.com/about/goodies/

Secondly, if your target audience is females aged between 25 and 44 the site may be of interest to you since  US stats show that the highest number of users  are within this age band.  In some instances this will mean that  they are working towards purchasing decisions based on their Pinterest  boards portfolio. This is a dream for product-driven or aesthetic–centred businesses like photographers, interior designers, artists, stylists, image consultants and so forth. 

Take a look at online style magazine Casa Sugar's Home Decor pinboard

When you start on Pinterest the main thing to remember is to include your business name on your profile and add a paragraph about who you are and what interests you in the "About Us" section. Coming up with an interesting and innovative board name will also help to raise your profile.

Most pins are about design, fashion and home décor - but should you ignore Pinterest if you are a B2B business without products?  Not necessarily - people are creating pinboards based on visual content like infographics, e-book covers and business graphs. 

Indeed,  I was initially prompted to look into Pinterest having spotted a tweet which talked about the SEO benefits of Pinterest.  If you would like to find out more about this I suggest you pop onto where Cendrine Marrout's blog post where she talks about the way in which Pinterest boosted interest during the pre-launch phase of her e-book.

I would love to hear if you have used Pinterest for your business…please get in touch and share your experiences - and your pinboards!

P.S. If you are interested in all things social networking you might enjoy:

How to write a blog post that engages
How to blog successfully - 23 key things to remember
6 ways to decide who to follow on Twitter
Blogging basics - make the most of what's available
That LinkedIn Business