The 4 Best Ways to Use Pinterest for Your Business

Unless you live under a rock, you've definitely heard the latest social network, Pinterest. Pinterest has become all the rage lately, and has grown at an exponential pace (145% since the start of 2012). The site has over 10 million unique monthly visitors and has generated more referral traffic than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn combined. Despite its popularity, many companies are still trying to figure out the best method to use Pinterest to drive traffic to their main website and promote their brand. Pinterest is not ideal for broadcasting advertising messages, but there are effective ways to use the site to reach new customers and nurture relationships with existing customers.



The 4 Best Ways to Use Pinterest for Your Business


1. Promote a Lifestyle A brand or company account on Pinterest should have several different boards, beyond just promoting their own products and services.  It is important to create "moodboards" organized by theme or topic of what makes the brand work, focusing on what inspires the organization & aimed at having the same mindset as their demographic.  These boards give value to followers & resonates with their lifestyles. A good example of this would be Red Bull's Pinterest boards. They don't simply promote their product, but also the wild, carefree lifestyle of those who drink their product (or the lifestyle their customers wish they had). They have a board called "Give Wiiings to Your Body" promoting working out and staying fit, and even one called "Holy Sh!t" that embodies the wild, crazy spirit that Red Bull celebrates. This board showcases motorcycle jumps, snowboarding tricks, and other extreme sports.

2. Use it like a Focus Group Brands can explore their followers to see what they love, what they hate, what products they like & what they dream of or aspire to. Pinterest is a great outlet to listen to your target demographic and see what their interests are in order to better understand and reach them.


3. Drive Sales Pinboards can be created specifically to drive sales. For example, there can be product boards with copy & links directing users back to the company's main e-commerce site, or promoting sales directly in the Pinterest gift section by placing the price of their product with a $, which denotes the pin from others with a price ribbon (see example below). Other boards could also be created to promote sales, for example, a skincare company could have a "Before & After" board illustrating the success of their product.

 

 4. Run Contests

Companies can gain more followers & become more relevant to users by running contests on Pinterest that sparks their interest.