Read on and learn more about Pinterest and how it can help your business grow.
2012 marked the meteoric rise of a player in the social media arena. Today, Pinterest is one of the most widely used social media platforms along with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a social media community that utilizes virtual pin boards to allow users to share things they like using images from the web. It’s a more attractive way of bookmarking, allowing you to hoard any digital image with “free” license. This is because every time you pin an image to your board, it will always link back to the original website where you got the image from.
Initially, it attracted hobbyists; allowing people who love to cook, plan events, collect inspirations, showcase designs and styles, etc. to organize and share their great finds on their virtual boards. Planning to redecorate your kitchen? Scour the web and save the best kitchen counters, bar stools, paint colors and china that you see to your board. Looking for event inspirations? Share images of party favours, costumes, themes, flowers and balloons and ask your friends what they think. You can even search the site for pin boards of your interests and repin what you think is awesome.
More than just a community for hobbyists, Pinterest has gotten so popular that today; it has evolved into a platform for supporting online marketing strategies.
Outline of History and Facts
Pinterest took shape out of the vision of Ben Silbermann, who was born and raised in Iowa and loved to collect stuff such as stamps and insects. Together with co-founder Paul Sciarra, they started development in December 2009 and launched Pinterest in March 2010. Today, Pinterest’s estimated net worth is $58.8 million USD.
History
- December 2010 – less than 10,000 unique visitors
- September 2011 – 1.68 million unique visitors
- October 2011 – 2.97 million unique visitors
- November 2011 – 4.45 million unique visitors
- December 2011 – 7.28 million unique visitors
- January 2012 – 11.14 million unique visitors
Facts
- It crossed the 10 million mark for unique visits faster than any other independent American website.
- Users spend an average of 98 minutes every month on the site.
- According to Mashable, it is currently the third most popular social network in the USA.
- Pinterest users spend more money and less time on Pinterest, according to Washington Post.
- The pins found on the website are 80% repins.
- Users aging from 25 to 54 years old make up the majority of users.
- Female users 60%, male users 40%.
- 37% of users’ income bracket range from $25,000 to $49,999 USD while 33% range from $50,000 to $74,999 USD.
- It generates more referral traffic than Google+, Linkedin and YouTube combined
Using Pinterest for Your Business
Keep in mind that Pinterest is neither a marketing tool nor an SEO God. You can’t just join, pin, pin and then pin some more, do nothing and expect traffic to flock to your website. Anyway, as of March 2012, Pinterest went “nofollow” so you can’t look forward to any probable link juice just by posting your content on Pinterest. What it can do is drive an insane amount of traffic to your website if you pin some of your favourite images from your website to it.
What Pinterest is another community, like Tumblr and Facebook, and in order to have your presence felt, you have to be constantly around and be engaging: in short you have to add value to the community to hit your targets. You are expected to pin, repin, comment and share to be known. This is social media so you got to be a social media butterfly if you want to succeed.
Benefits of Pinterest
- Generate traffic by adding a link to your website in your profile.
- Generate traffic through referrals.
- Get potential link juice through the pin’s description where you can add dofollow links to your website.
- Easy and targeted link building.
- Convenient advertising because you can easily build a visual representation of your brand.
- Cost-effective advertising because your followers are usually those who are interested in what you offer.
Pinterest Tips for Business:
- Make sure that your target audience is interested in or better yet, using Pinterest.
- Add a Pin It button.
- Make sure that you have catchy and great quality images on your website.
- Aside from promoting your products or services, pin interesting news and useful tips to keep your audience engaged.
- Make constant efforts of getting links from other members of Pinterest.
- Focus on generating followers who are interested in what you have to showcase.
- Post relevant images – if your business is clothing, don’t pin a photo of a cat playing the piano even if you know it will get a lot of repins.
- Do your research and learn a thing or two from businesses who are flourishing because of Pinterest.
*In the 2nd part of this post, we will discuss in detail how to enhance your SEO campaign by being on Pinterest