13 Aug How You Can Use Pinterest to Market Your Products and Services

You may not have heard of it yet but Pinterest is one of the more popular and more powerful up-and-coming social media websites on the net today. It’s no FaceBook or Twitter yet but it’s already passed Tumblr and is grabbing a huge hold on the female demographic.
For those not in the know Pinterest is a social ‘pinboard’ where ideas, articles and all sorts of other interesting stuff can be ‘pinned’ and, like all social sites, easily shared among the masses. The main difference between Pinterest and the others is that there’s no real push to form social ‘connections’ there but mainly to pass around interesting information, and that’s why Pinterest is such a great tool to spread the word about your products or services.
Using Pinterest is exceptionally easy too and, although there’s no way to actually link directly to a sales page, any images on the site can be linked directly to the source (your website). If you post something that’s popular, say a recipe that can be made using the cookware that your company produces, every single time that info gets ‘re-pinned’ you have a new opportunity to connect with a potential buyer. Your product image could literally be re-pinned thousands of times and be seen just as many.
Consider this statistic- Pinterest saw a growth of 4377% between May 2011 and May 2012! That is a LOT of people and the numbers are steadily growing.  With all of that in mind here are a few tips for using Pinterest to promote your company using their unique pinboard website.
Tip 1- Like any marketing program, you need to spend some time getting a reputation on Pinterest. This means pinning interesting, helpful or compelling information.  Think about the product or service you produce and give people (your eventual fan base) something that they will use or enjoy reading or viewing.
Tip 2 – If you have a physical location promote your Pinterest site in everything that goes out to the public and let people know that they can pin your product to their own Pinterest sites too.
Tip 3 – Stay organized and clean.  What I mean by this is that you don’t want to just throw a bunch of pins up on your pinboard and be done with it.  Give your Pinterest site some style and keep it uncluttered and easy to browse.
Tip 3 – Keep in mind that Pinterest is mainly about things a person can create at home or use to create something. If you sell insurance services Pinterest probably isn’t going to help your promotions or clicks unless you can come up with a creative way to attract their interest.
Tip 4 – Use your other social sites to point your customers to Pinterest.  FaceBook, Twitter and Tumblr (and many others) can be used as a springboard to your Pinterest site and, even though Pinterest is getting bigger, these sites still dwarf it in terms of overall users.
Tip 5 – Take a deep breath.  There are so many social media platforms out there and it really does feel like a new one pops up every second.  Pinterest is truly a fun site but has the added bonus of helping generate interest for your business.  Carve out some time to just check out what people are pinning and re-pinning.
There you have it.  Pinterest is easy, free and gaining popularity by the minute.  If you have a product or service that lends itself to their minimalistic but popular social platform you could easily create your own Pinterest site that increases your online visibility greatly with a modicum of effort.  Keep at it and good luck.
If you need help setting up and managing your Pinterest account, please contact me at www.thesocialcalling.com or visit me on my Facebook Page.