The Why's and How-to's When Joining Pinterest as a Business

Pinterest is just one of the lastest and greatest social media sites, right? In a general sense, sure, but if you play the cards right, this network will help your business jump ahead of the competition.

The Facts Behind Pinterest

Pinterest is a great new social media site that has become increasingly popular for people of all kinds since its launch in March 2010. For example, in more recent months, the site’s visitors have surged past 15 million since  its beginning stages in April 2011 (www.siteanalytics.com). Along with the continuing growth in what Pinterest deems their “unique visitors,” the site is also considered one of the most engaging sites on the web per comScore.

According to the graph, the unique visitors in the U.S. are spending an average of 97.48 minutes on the site  and global visitors are spending an average of 89 minutes, making it the second most engaging site when compared to Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace, and Google+. If these stats are not compelling enough to join just for the fun of it, as a business, the site will allow you to get your brand out their to the millions of users active on the site.

 How To Get Started

In order to familiarize yourself with how Pinterest works, the beginning step is to request an invite. You can simply do so by visiting the site itself: http://pinterest.com/. Then, create an account and sign in. To get a feel for the how to’s and etiquette of Pinterest, do not hesitate to click the help button under the about tab. That will familiarize you with just about everything, but most importantly, all of Pinterest’s lingo and how to become active on pinning items to your categorized boards.

As a business, look around the site to see what kinds of pins are trending most in order to figure out what kind of angle you should work when setting up your boards and begin pinning. For starters, always try set up boards that are relevant to your brand or that truly embody what you are trying to execute as a business. For instance, if you own an eco-friendly bike company, post images that get that point across, because pictures of bike after bike aren’t differentiating you from another ordinary bike company nor show your customer how your bikes are deemed eco-friendly. Once the boards are set up and pinning has ensued, make sure all users can comment and pin things on your boards in order to gain recognition as well as get feedback from current and future customers.

Once your account has increased in followers, to further interaction with fellow pinners, you can offer various promotions such as discounts on your products via fun photo contests that involve your product or what your brand stands for.

Pinterest is an incredibly popular network that all kinds of people are using, making it compelling for anyone to join. For businesses especially, it is a great way for customers to actually see the types of products and services your business offers as well as what it stands for. As a result, if your business is questioning whether to jump into the social media trend and Pinterest especially, it’s free, and it can’t hurt, so why not try it if you and your business having nothing to lose?