So you finally caved in and created a Facebook page (and not a profile page, right?) for your business. And then along came 
Pinterest and you’re probably crying tears of frustration.
“Another social network?!?!”
Yes and depending on your budget and industry this can be a plus for your business.
What is Pinterest exactly?
Pinterest is basically a collection of digital dream boards. Each board is organized by a subject like Cars, Clothing, Food, etc. You can pin pictures and even video to the boards, and repin, comment or like stuff from others’ boards.
Why should I care?
The business implications are huge especially if you have a business with visual elements like products or photography. Not convinced? Try these stats on for size.
- Pinterest is a huge traffic generator, steering more traffic to websites than LinkedIn, YouTube and Google + combined. *
- They average 1.36 million visits a day with 11.7 million unique visitors alone in January 2012. *
- According to an infographic by Buzz Referrals, “Pinterest referrals spend 70% more money than visitors referred by non-social channels”. They are also 10% more likely to make a purchase than those referred by other social network (even Facebook!) and will spend 10% more money too.
Let’s break that down for you. The viral nature of Pinterest makes it a boon as a lead generation tool for business. If you can display your product or service in a visual manner, it can be pinned (like sharing on Facebook) over and over with a link back to your site for more information, or even better, purchasing.
So should your business be on Pinterest?
Here are a couple of industries where creating a Pinterest profile is a no-brainer:
- Photography or videography
- Bakeries, restaurants and other food-related industries (i.e. personal chef maybe?)
- Clothing retailers
- Designers and other craft-makers
- Aerobics/Fitness
- Hair salons
- Graphic designers
- Housing – architecture, interior design, landscaping, home remodeling
The list is endless! While the majority of U.S. users are women, it is almost 50/50 in the UK. So if you don’t cater specifically to women, don’t be afraid to jump on the platform. We’ll tackle how-to and some tips and tricks in later posts, but in the meantime you can visit my tech infographic board to find more stats on social, email and mobile marketing.
* http://mashable.com/2012/02/25/pinterest-user-demographics/