Pinterest for Business: 4 reasons it should be in your strategy
Posted by Mari Saona on Thu, Apr 19, 2012
Pinterest is a social media platform that is definitely creating a stir. It recently became the fastest site ever to reach 10m unique users per month as well as the subject of speculation as to its market value. For inbound marketers, the question is: does Pinterest's have a role to play in getting found?
The Strange PR free guide to Business Marketing with Pinterest is officially available to download and cover exactly what Pinterest is, the business case for using Pinterest, how to set up your business profile, and most valuable of all: how to do business marketing with Pinterest.
Usage data for the USA shows that Pinterest's user base is 80% female. However, in the UK, Pinterest's audience is 60% male but its users are skewed to early adopters and social media professionals (source: Doubleclick Ad Planner). Therefore, it's important to consider your target marketing personas when deciding how much priority to give Pinterest in your inbound marketing activities.
Top 4 Reasons to use Pinterest for Business
1. Referral Traffic
First and foremost, Pinterest does drive traffic to your website. The images you pin up should be linked to the relevant page of your website. If users are attracted by it, they may click on it to find out more about where it originates from.
Data from Shareholic found that in January 2012, Pinterest sent more referral traffic to bloggers than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined, falling just behind Twitter.
2. Lead Generation
The traffic that Pinterest brings to you website is going to increase your lead generation, although perhaps not to the same extent as other social media forms. The primary reason for this is that Pinterest does not allow advertisement or business promotion. For example Call To Action images such as “Get your free trial now” are unacceptable. In this sense, visitors that do end up on your website are likely to be general browsers rather than qualified prospects that are willing to fill out a form.
3. Social Reach
Whilst you still cannot connect your Pinterest account with your business Facebook page, there is still an element of integration between the two. Pinterest users can register and subsequently log-in to the sire by using their Twitter or Facebook profiles. This connectivity makes signing up with Pinterest fast and easy, contributing greatly to its success.
As a Pinterest user, you can adjust your settings so as to have your new pins automatically posted onto your Facebook page, saving you time. On the client side of things, Pinterest members have the ability to share your pins on their Facebook, Twitter or email.
4. Backlinks
Strange PR advises you to take full advantage of the “Pin it” button that Pinterest provides for users. Putting this button on your website’s pages will facilitate visitors to pin images from your page to their pinboard. Plus, this nifty button will remember the URL of the webpage the pin originated from, so their pin will still link to your site.
Unfortunately, these backlinks are what we term “No follow” links so they will make a limited contribution to your site's authority. However, these links are of marketing value in that they allow users to visit our website in just one click after encountering your image.
To get a step by easy guide on setting up your business account, and how to kick-start your inbound marketing with Pinterest, download the free guide now:
