You might have heard all of the fuss about Pinterest over the past couple of years but when you took a look at it all you saw were pictures of bridal gowns and memes. So what’s the big deal? This couldn’t be worth while, your business has nothing to do with those things, right?
Or, maybe you created a Pinterest account but you’re not sure how it can work for you.
If your business interested in:
- Bringing more traffic to your website
- Getting discovered through Google searches
- Increasing the longevity of your content
- Making sales
- Increasing the reach of your products or services
Pinterest can be the place for you. Though there are many more, let’s take a look at 5 reasons why Pinterest is great for business.
Bringing more traffic to your website
Pinterest’s most powerful feature is its potential for traffic generation. Nearly all of the images on Pinterest link to the original source of the image. With a couple of clicks of the mouse, viewers are taken from a sea of pictures to your website to read your content and buy your products.
It isn’t surprising that the number traffic referrals from Pinterest to websites continues to grow. It is what Pinterest is meant to do. Unlike networks such as Facebook and Twitter that are intended to connect people with other people, Pinterest is designed to connect people with the things that they are interested in online.
Chances are you’ve built a business around something people have an interest in and a need or desire for. If it can be represented visually then it can get traffic from Pinterest.
Just last week, after publishing a podcast episode titled Striking Gold with Pinterest Hashtags and Comments Q&A Part 1 of 2, I noticed a bump in traffic to my site and downloads of my podcast. when I looked into my analytics I noticed that a lot of that traffic was coming from Pinterest. I dug a bit deeper into my analytics and found that Luke Dean-Weymark, a Pinterest influencer with over 880,000 followers on Pinterest had pinned my podcast episode. Thanks Luke!
Getting discovered through Google searches
Though growing an online following on platforms such as Pinterest, Facebook or Twitter can benefit your business it isn’t all that matters. Search engine ranking is still vitally important to businesses with an online presence. But, it can be very challenging to rank well in search results on search engines such as Google. Pinterest can help.
The Santa Cruz Construction Guild, a network of contractors an builders in Santa Cruz, California has a Pinterest account with a board titled Santa Cruz Remodeling. When a Google search is done for “Santa Cruz Remodeling” this Pinterest board is the first listing on the results page just underneath the paid Google ads.
You might be thinking that a lot of time, energy and expense had to be put into getting the results that the Santa Cruz Construction Guild has with this Pinterest board, not the case. As of today, March 21, 2014 this board has 127 followers and only 108 pins. The last time a pin was added to this board was 35 weeks ago. For the past 8 months I have been keeping an eye on this board on Google and it always ranks very well on the results page. This isn’t an isolated case, I have seen this happen with several other Pinterest boards as including one of my own.
Increasing the longevity of your content
As a content creator I understand all of the time and hard work that goes into creating blog posts, videos and podcast episodes. It can be frustrating that each one of those pieces of content gets attention for a short while then fades away. Pinterest can help with the longevity of your content.
Over a year ago I published an article about how to block an account on Pinterest. At that time it was pinned to Pinterest by MindSqueezeCreative, an account with a few hundred followers. Just last week, that pin on MindSqueezeCreative’s account was repinned by Tiffany McCauley of The Gracious Pantry. She has 94,000 followers on Pinterest. When Tiffany repinned it, this article that was written Oct 26, 2012, received a whole new wave of traffic and 37 more pins on Pinterest. Thanks, Tiffany!
Making sales
As mentioned before, Pinterest is designed to connect people with the things that they are interested in. People are often interested in things to buy, right? Put Pinterest and online shopping together and you have a match made in heaven.
Venturebeat reported that for beauty retailer Sephora “Pinterest followers spend 15X more than our Facebook fans.” Which makes sense, right? Facebook is a great place to interact with your customers because that’s why people use Facebook, social interaction. Pinterest is a place to show them products as well as ways to use them. The images then take them to the site where the products can be purchased, of course they’re more likely to buy. They were already in the in the let’s see what’s cool that I like and want mindset.
Increasing the reach of your products or services
Pinterest continues to grow in popularity, not just in North America but globally as well. The last number reported in the summer of 2013 was 70 million people are using Pinterest world wide. That number is probably significantly larger today.
Pinterest is growing its presence globally. It is now translated into over 20 languages and they are continuing to add more. They’re even hiring for positions around the world. This expansion means that your content, products and services can reach a global audience through Pinterest.
Even though Pinterest isn’t as social as Facebook connections are made on Pinterest for buyers and sellers, friendships or even business collaborations. I have made several friends through Pinterest and it is one of the ways that Vincent and I began our partnership.
Vincent and I recently went through each one of these ways that Pinterest is great for business during a Google Hangout. You can watch it in the video below.
(Please excuse the technical difficulties during the hangout)
If you’d like to learn more about using Pinterest for your business, there are over 200 blog posts, videos and podcast episodes here on Oh So Pinteresting. To take it up a notch, Vincent and I have recently opened registration for the next session of our interactive Pinterest for Business workshop. This workshop will show you how to take advantage of the 5 reasons above and more. It is limited to just 20 people and as of the publishing of this post, there are only 6 spots left.
Click on the image below for more information about this informational and fun workshop. If you have any questions about the workshop, please feel free to drop me a line at Cynthia(at)ohsopinteresting.com or Vincent at vince(at)mcngmarketing.com.
