Using Pinterest to reach Customers, Build Business, and increase Revenues

Posted by Unlimited Exposure Online on May 29th, 2018

It’s easy to dismiss Pinterest as a social media channel that you don’t need to tap into as a small business. After all, it’s not Facebook, it’s not Instagram, and it’s not Snapchat. Pinterest is a collection of photos and photo albums created by users, sharing things ranging from recipes to DIY projects, rock stars from yesteryear, and wedding décor and wedding gowns. At least from a basic understanding, that’s what most people probably see Pinterest as.

The reality of Pinterest is that though it might not be one of the hotter social media platforms, it still boasts millions of monthly active users and is a unique way to target specific categories of the marketplace. There are opportunities here to acquire high-volume traffic and qualified sales leads. There’s even some research that shows Pinterest to be better at attracting traffic to small business websites than any other social media channel, including Facebook. That said, a brand needs to know how to use Pinterest in less sales-y ways to increase revenues. In most cases, this involves some creativity, and non-sales related marketing that focus less on the products and more on the lifestyle.

Where any small business should begin with Pinterest is in realizing that this is a visual platform. Therefore, it requires visual content that is beautiful, fun, and real. Show how your brand makes people feel and incorporate products or services into that however do so in a way that is not overly sales-esque. Small businesses such as wedding décor companies, clothing eCommerce retailers, or design firms have the advantage in a visual medium because it’s easy to express what they’re about. Also, users are accustomed to seeing these types of businesses promote through photos. If your small business is in a less visual medium, Pinterest photos can still work however you need to find what works for you and your audience.

At every opportunity, instead of using direct text to link a user back to your website, link images and small parts of the image description to your site. Though Pinterest links are ‘nofollow’, they still can help drive traffic which is the key thing of what you should be trying to accomplish. By employing analytics software, it’s possible to see how many people have clicked on links and what photos are resonating enough with your Pinterest audience to make a click. This type of data mining can help determine what items or services are more visually inclined as well.

Be sure to link your Pinterest account with other social media accounts as well, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and/or whatever else you may have on the go. This way, you can interconnect the photos you post on one platform and share them across multiple channels.

Just in the same way you might research SEO keywords, make a list of relevant social media hashtags to pin with your photos on Pinterest. This will help keep the content easy to find and search-friendly. To this point, many small businesses take the time to hold a contest on a hashtag, spurring engagement and helping to promote a specific category of branding, product, or services.

Throughout the past decade, numerous companies have used Pinterest, Instagram, and similar photo-sharing image-friendly social media platforms with great success. For more information on how to increase revenues via social media like Pinterest, speak with a representative at Unlimited Exposure today.