Pinterest for Business: How Pinterest Can Help Your Business

Using Pinterest for business is a fairly new concept and those of you who jump on the bandwagon now will manage to be a little ahead of the social media game. In our last post we talked about using Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog or website. Start with learning the basics of Pinterest as discussed in that post and then move on to growing your following on Pinterest and beginning to drive traffic using it.

Once you have the hang of the basics then you can begin to turn your attention to using Pinterest for business. Many companies have a Pinterest account now, especially if your business is directed towards women who are the majority of Pinterest users.  If your business sells any type of product where your customer is primarily women then you definitely need to get your products on Pinterest. If your business is related to design or any kind of visual industry, get on Pinterest. Businesses that are more service related can still use Pinterest but probably not as much, depending on what the business is. For more information on if Pinterest is right for your type of business, check out the infographic below from Intuit.

via: Should Your Business Be on Pinterest? Find Out [INFOGRAPHIC]

Now that you have decided that Pinterest sounds like it will be beneficial to your business, here are some tips on how to use it for your advantage.

• Pinterest has SEO value. Unlike some other social media sites, Pinterest uses DoFollow links. Use keywords and hashtags when describing your pins and add any additional hashtags on to the end of your description to optimize. For more information on using SEO on Pinterest check out Search Engine Journal’s article. Consider adding text to the actual image as the description you choose may get changed over time by pinners.
• If your business is not related to selling products then start using charts and infographics on your site to display info that is more visually appealing and pinnable. Any info that you think others would be interested in can be assembled in to a colorful slide on your site instead of just listing info. I could turn this list of bullet points in to a slide titled “Pinterest for Business”.
• If you are a business related to products, be sure you have a good photographer and beautiful images of your products to attract customers on Pinterest.
• Videos can be pinned too, if you run a service based business use videos to demonstrate services you offer. These are also great for how-to sites.
• Start conversation with your pins- maybe pin an image along with a question to start conversation and comments on the pin.
• Don’t be spammy or self serving, be sure you are pinning more than just images from your own business. Re-pin and interact with others just like any of the other social networking sites.
• For ideas on how other small businesses are using Pinterest see this article on Open Forum, “How Pinterest Can Benefit Your Small Business”.
• Keep track of which pins are getting pinned the most and who is pinning them by checking http://pinterest.com/source/yoursitehere