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Pinterest: Why It’s Important for Your Business

 •  Feb 17
Pinterest.com launched in 2010 and has shown rapid growth. According to Entrepreneur.com the site registered 1.6 million in September of 2011, then obtained more than 7 million unique visitors in December. Some write Pinterest off as a passing trend, or meaningless to businesses, yet a study by Shareaholic found that Pinterest is driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined. It may not be of the Facebook and Twitter caliber quite yet, but I think it’s safe to say Pinterest is a platform on the rise.

Pinterest allows you to 'pin' images you like to boards that you create and categorize. The items you 'pin' can go viral much like on Facebook. Pinterest is already driving sales, and that in itself is a huge win for the budding social network.

As a business, you can post images of your products and link them back to your website. Think of it like a social online catalog. When people like your items it increases traffic to your website.

For many businesses Pinterest is already driving sales. For example, the retail deal site Ideeli.com has seen a 446 percent increase in web traffic from Pinterest and sales resulting from those visits have increased five-fold.

Too good to be true? Almost. There are two catches.

Catch #1: you need to throw in other content in addition to your products or people won’t take you seriously. Mix your products with other cool related or even non-related items. Most people hate ads, so the less your account feels like a blatant advertising move, the better.

Whole Foods is a great example of a company using Pinterest well. They pin pictures of culinary arts, food that looks pleasing to both the eye and stomach, and images of recycled products to promote environmental consciousness.

Use Pinterest to showcase the lifestyle of the person who uses your product, not just the product itself.

Catch #2: Pinterest doesn’t work for every business.

I guess you could say nothing works for every business, but Pinterest is definitely more limiting than Facebook or Twitter.

If your product is not visual it might be hard to establish a connection on Pinterest. Furthermore, Pinterest currently lacks business-oriented features to help you track or promote your pictures/products.

The best way to find out if Pinterest is a good fit for your business is to simply try! Create an account and try out some strategies. Evaluate the community, traffic and conversions you're able to create and make adjustments.

Kristine Colosimo
Marketing and Management Coordinator
Email me.