No doubt you’ve heard of this new thing sweeping the digital airwaves called Pinterest. It’s basically a virtual bulletin board or vision board where users “pin” images or videos to their “collections” that they create with catchy category names or hashtags. Pinterest has barely been alive for a year and you cannot throw a rock without hitting a publication that doesn’t mention it for it’s warp-speed growth becoming the third most popular social network in the U.S.
As of this February, Pinterest had 10.4 million users and the average time a user or visitor spent on site was 97.8 minutes. It’s June now and those stats have no where to go but up. If a potential client is willing to spend that much time on one social network, it might be a good idea to see if Pinterest is right for your business.
According to our friends at Hubspot, here are some advantages of using Pinterest for marketing:
Ease of Sharing Content: “If you offer interesting visual content – infographics, cartoons, videos, etc. – Pinterest just made it easier for that content to be disseminated by your readers to a brand new audience.” Gone are the days of copy and pasting links or downloading images just to reupload them again. Pinterest gives users the option to download a toolbar bookmarklet right into most browsers so they can “pin” content directly to their boards. They can also share pins to Twitter, Facebook, and embed them on their own websites and blogs.
Highly Visual: Who doesn’t love pretty pictures? Images and videos are the most shared content on social networks. “If you’re a product-driven business, sharing beautiful images of your products on Pinterest is a simple way to leverage the tremendous power of visuals on a booming social network that is dedicated solely to sharing remarkable images.”
And then there are some disadvantages…
Industry Limitations: While visual content is certainly it’s biggest strength, it can also be considered it’s biggest weakness. Usually Pinterest is associated with fashion, food, crafts, gardening, travel, and decor. “If you’re not a B2C or product-oriented business, it seems like a stretch to find a use for Pinterest.” Unless you get really creative about your approach, of course.
Lack of Dedicated Brand Pages: Unlike the other popular social networks, Pinterest does not offer dedicated spaces for businesses. Businesses can create a user profile and boards but they are regular users just like everyone else. Not a bad thing, but the challenge is “figuring out how to market without seeming like marketing. How do you create visual content that’s so cool that people won’t care it’s also driving referral traffic and inbound links to your website?”
I guess you’ve got some homework to do, right? Well, good thing Hubspot has a great free eBook on how to use Pinterest for Business.
Are you already using the powers of Pinterest in your marketing efforts? Let us know how it’s working for you!
