17 Tips For How To Use Pinterest For Business

One social site have captured the attention of masses recently. Sure it does not have have a large numbers of users like the the two behemoths, Facebook and Twitter, but Pinterest is gaining traction especially brands with female demographic.
Pinterest wasn't designed to be a business tool (with Pinterest stating the site should not be used for self-promotion), but that hasn't stopped retailers and businesses with a visual bent from using the platform.

We have surveyed Pinterest pros and came up 17 best tips on how to create an awareness for your business using pinterest as a stepping stone.

1. Determine if Pinterest is suitable for your business

 It is important that you determine your brand compatibility with pinterest. if you don't have a visually appealing product you'll have a challenging time and may find it hard to gain traction. businesses were advised to take a hard look at their marketing resources, "since building and maintaining a new social presence takes time and manpower. If your resources are already stretched to capacity, it might not be worth the effort or right time to start a Pinterest campaign," says Heather Sundell, marketing manager at The Search Agency.

2. Add a Pinterest "Follow" and/or "Pin It" Button

One important way to let your clients or customers know about your existence on Pinterest is to add the pinterest button or add any other social widget that consist of pinterest button on your brand or company pages. You can find any pinterest button that best suit your brand page at the pinterest goodies page.

3. Create a Pinnable Content

Creating a pinnable content may sound like a difficult task, but this can be achieved depending on your business and considering the options below.

• If you’re an e-commerce retailer, focus on the imagery and photos of your product. Pinterest are mostly suitable for brands with eye-catching imagery content especially female or fashion demographic.
• Pinterest can also be considered as a useful platform for lead generation focused businesses, if you have a lot of content or write a blog post, incorporate a photo and encourage readers to pin it.

4. Pin Etiquette

Be mindful of Pin Etiquette as outlined by Pinterest: be respectful, be authentic, credit your sources, report objectionable content and tell us how to make pinterest better.

Brain Honigman also point-out regarding the pin etiquette for brands:
Sharing images and videos from other industry-related user’s boards, you will "keep your profile community-based and not just a promotion center for your assets and products. Repin and like other content that suits your community, which will help strengthen your reach in the long-term."

5. Consider your customers

By creating boards that are about the lifestyle or interests of those using your brand, as opposed to just your products, "your customers will see that you understand (them)."
Amanda cook also point-out that: "Create boards that fit with the lifestyle that your customer wants, and pin lots of images that fit that lifestyle, not just your own products/images."
Ask fans of your brand to pin pictures of themselves with their favorite product of yours and tag you, then you can repin those photos onto a VIP board. It’ll give a shout-out to these fans and show potential customers that your current users really like using your product.

6. Categorize your boards

Categorizing your page or pins will make it easier for your customers to navigate through your product, and if more people become interested in your pins, you will get more followers, and they will come back more and more to check your new products.

7. Promote more than products or boards

Pinterest users are savvy in spotting a board that is too self-serving and only posts product photos, pin and maintain your boards regularly to keep your pinterest presence alive and well. You need to give users why you need to be followed.
Presenza, a custom clothing designer, finds unique products beyond their own offering and pins them. The company also uses key phrases on their board like "made in the USA" and "defining confidence" to help define the brand.

8. Focus Group

Lauren Drell point out that with millions of people using pinterest to keep track of objects "they love, places they enjoy, foods they devour and things that inspire them" that marketers can use pinterest as a focus group.
She also suggests you look at the pinners who follow your brand and see what they're pinning and who else they're following. "They're volunteering a lot of information about their interests, passions, dreams and sense of humor in a more natural way on pinterest than they would say, or even on facebook, where they have to manually enter 'sarcasm' or 'travel' as an interest. Use this information to your advantage to glean insights about your target consumers."

9. Follow big brands with higher hit's

One of the best way to create an awareness for your business is to follow big brands on pinterest related to your company. it's also important that you find out who is "pinning" your products, and follow them to see if they follow you back.

10. Use keywords and hashtags

When you are creating a description for a new pin, make sure you include keywords that user may likely use in searching for a specific content.
Use multiple hashtags at the end of your description depending on your brands and type of pin you want to share, you may include hashtags like: #fashion, #shoes, #cloths, #sunshades e.t.c, if your brands is related to fashion stuff, as it helps to optimize your pins.

11. Include the link of the pin you are sharing

In other to redirect users to your brand or business website, make sure you include the link of your company or business website.

12. Image quality

Interesting compositions and vibrant imagery is sure to catch the eye. "I think photography is the number one thing to get noticed and get your items pinned and repined on Pinterest," agrees Beth Quinn, owner Beth Quinn Designs, LLC . "Eye-popping photos will spark more interest and by using props and making sure that the photos are very pretty and aesthetically pleasing, people are more likely to repin your items."

Angie Pascale also also gives three tips regarding photos quality:

• Since Pinterest emphasizes pictures over text, having high quality photos is important.
• Make sure your photos can be pinned; sites in Flash do not allow photos to be pinned.
• Ensure that photos are tagged correctly on your site, so that they index properly within Pinterest.

13. Finds out what your competitors and their customers are pinning

It is important that you find out who is pinning your image and what your competitors and their customers are pinning.
"All businesses should be using Pinterest for competitive intelligence, to see not only what their competitors are pinning but what users are pinning from their competitors sites," argues Tricia Meyer. To find out who's pinning who, simply type "http://pinterest.com/source/WEBSITEURL/" (insert the URL of the website you want to investigate where it says "WEBSITEURL") into your browser. You can check this site pinned posts by visiting http://pinterest.com/source/realcombiz.com.

14. Don't be all business

"Like in the case of Oreck, this is not about the products you sell, it’s about the mindset of the person who might be interested in it and also to show a bit of the human side of the company. Be funny. Be inspirational. Whatever suits your corporate culture. Whole Foods has boards about food, strength, recycling, gadgets and even buildings. It’s about the culture around what they sell" says Jane Fouts.

15. Welcome and encourage comments

It is also important that you encourage users to comments, likes and even repins your product rather than leaving them to decide on their own whether to comment or not. Here is a hint, you can leave a question for them at the end of each posts (e.g Tell us what you think about our new products.)

16. Usefull

Don't only encourage others to be usefull to you, also be a good member too. be sure to like, comments and repins other users products that fit in with your brand.
Pinterest should not be used as simply a marketing tool where a vendor posts all their items for sale and then leaves. "The community on Pinterest is smart and savvy. They know marketing when they see it, and if it doesn't otherwise add value, they will write you off," says Sherrod DeGrippo. That's why you have to be mindful of their pin etiquette.

17. Allow Contributors

Pinterest has great collaborative functionality which allow others to contribute to your boards. You can allow as many as possible users to contribute to your boards.

Are you using Pinterest for your Business to market your products and services? What unique ways are you using Pinterest to build your brand and boost visits to your site? we will like to hear your suggestions/contributions pertaining to how to use pinterest effectively for business.

Happy Pinning!

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