Pinterest for Business

Images and videos are the hottest content online. They are engaging and shareable and should take top priority for content and social media strategies. With this in mind, Pinterest is certainly not a platform for businesses to ignore.
The content-sharing site is in fact a dream for marketers, generating 400% more revenue per click than Twitter and 27% more than Facebook. This is besides the fact that 80% of all pins on the site are repins, so there’s a pretty brilliant chance that your content will get out there and go far.
That is of course if it is good content and if you use the site to its full advantage. Here are 6 key things you need to be doing on Pinterest to get the most out of the network and ensure that it will make a difference for your business:
1.    You Must Give to Receive
Many companies will get on Pinterest, upload pictures of their products to one board then wait in the hope that someone will re-pin or engage. Sure, your products might be great and people might love to re-pin them but this doesn’t complete the ingredients of a successful Pinterest business presence.
Businesses need to do so much more than simply advertise on their boards. Get your thinking cap on and create some new board ideas that relate to your products, services or brand but aren’t about the sale. If you’re a food brand, you could have boards dedicated to recipe tips and fun food art or, if you’re an oak furniture store, you could pin decorating ideas and furniture care tips.
Just remember the golden rule of content marketing that everybody keeps banging on about: create content that is useful and entertaining for your audience. Give to your audience to encourage them to give back to you. In the meantime, your Pinterest account will appear useful, fun and interesting – all making for a great reflection of your brand.
2.    Mix Things up With a Competition
Don’t ignore the social component of Pinterest. Your content can do so much more than just sit there – it can inspire action and encourage sharing. Ask your audience to pin your images to their personal boards for entry into a competition. This will help you boost your reach across the channel, gain more followers and create a buzz around your brand.
3.    Stay Active
Content marketing doesn’t start and finish at the upload of an image or video. You need to add more content regularly, think up new boards and try to engage with other users wherever relevant. Leave comments on other people’s posts and reply to users who have engaged with you. And this doesn’t mean pinning, commenting or following users for the sake of it. Focus on building a targeted audience base and always drive to share more useful content that will add value to your brand.
4.    Get More Personal
Add a little more human to your business’ Pinterest by encouraging your employees to contribute to their own individual boards. Consider asking your team to post and re-pin their favourite content and to offer ideas and tips related to their role or speciality. This way, your audience can explore the personalities of your staff and get to know your business for who you are rather than just what you are.
5.    Encourage Customer Interaction
Remember that your Pinterest efforts are for your audience. You are providing them with the content that they enjoy but why not give them the chance to contribute too? Opening up boards for your followers to post content is a great way to stimulate interaction with your brand and show others that you are respected by your audience and customers. Ask customers to post images of how they’ve used your product or service or set up a competition, asking users to post an answer, an idea or an image to win a prize.
6.    Drive Traffic to your Site
Think of your pins as the starting point for your audience’s journey to your website. For every new blog post, post a pin offering an intriguing image and summary and then direct users to your blog with a link. Yet, make sure the pin still stands as a valuable piece of content on its own and use this method sparsely – nobody likes a board littered with self-promotional links.
With the right amount of thought, creativity and effort, Pinterest can drive some real results for businesses. If you’ve already given it a go, we’d love to hear how you’ve got on…please drop us a comment below.
Or, read more about Pinterest’s new Place Pins feature.