This Blog is the first in my Pinterest content series, and provides an overview of why and how Pinterest marketing works for small business.   Many people out there have been using Pinterest for personal use for many years, but have not yet discovered that Pinterest is a great tool for small business marketing as well.

 In this article I explain:

1. What is Pinterest for Business?
2. Why Pinterest is different to Instagram and Social Media
3. How Pinterest can help grow your business

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What is Pinterest for Business?

 I LOVE Pinterest.  I literally eat, sleep and dream Pinterest – either business related, or searching for ideas, recipes, inspiration.  And that is exactly why Pinterest is the perfect marketing tool for so many businesses.

Pinterest is essentially a visual search engine.  Think of it like google with images.  Except that Pinterest is so much better than that as every image on Pinterest links back to your website.  So every time that someone clicks on one of your business pins, they are being directed to your website, where they can browse, shop and get in contact with you about your services or products.

When you or someone else is on Pinterest, they are using it to look for ideas, inspiration and information.  That is why Pinterest has been successful for many years for food bloggers, lifestyle bloggers, crafters, business coaches and the like.  Many of these bloggers and coaches have turned their side hustle into their main hustle and make money from their blogging.

What people are now starting to realise is that you don’t need to be a blogger to use Pinterest.  In fact, Pinterest as a marketing tool has become one of the biggest growth areas for small businesses because it has the power of:

           Visual images + links to your website or URL

You would have heard of the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words.  There is nothing quite like grabbing the attention of your target audience with eye catching images or pins, text overlays and links to your website.  Here is an example of the type of pin you can use.   Progammes such as Canva (https://www.canva.com/)  or Affinity Designer (Affinity – Professional Creative Software (serif.com) can be used to create graphics which are called ‘pins’.

Why Pinterest Is Different to Social Media

Like any tool, in order to grow your business with Pinterest, you need to understand the fundamental principles behind Pinterest and how they differ to other marketing platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

We have already discussed that one of the underlying principles is for attention grabbing visual images.  A key difference between Pinterest and the social media of Facebook and Instagram is that Pinterest pins have a much longer lifespan.  Social media may generate interest for 24 hours and little more before feeds are filled up with other news and images.  Pins stick around for months and years on the platform.  This gives you as a business owner much more value for your time (and any money) spent on Pinterest.

Another important difference is that Pinterest will not give you overnight success.  It can take 3 to 6 months for the Pinterest algorithm to process the data you are feeding it. 

The reward for your patience will be growth every month and every year, provided that you are consistent with your content and provide content that is relevant to your ideal customer or client.

How Pinterest Can Help Grow Your Business

The first step towards Pinterest success for your business is to set up a business account for Pinterest.  This is different to a personal account as it can track information about the number of visitors to your website, your popular pins, your audience profile, etc

Signing up for a Pinterest account is free and easy (www.pinterest.com )  Follow the steps given by Pinterest to ensure that you link your website to your Pinterest account so you can track visitor numbers.

Some tips for small business to experience growth on Pinterest:

• Be relevant – include images, words and descriptions that are relevant to your business and your client avatar
• Be consistent – pinning quality pins, regularly is more important than trying to pin a ton of pins on one day a month
• Design a variety of pins – static, video, story pins (when available in your area)
• Analyse what is working and try something different if its not
• Focus on content for your business, whilst sharing a sprinkling of other people’s content
• The number of followers you have is not really that important. To some extent it can be helpful to have followers who are sharing your content, but it is not overly important in the scheme of the things

 Conclusion

Pinterest is a great tool, and helping so many different types of business make a lot of money and driving a ton of traffic to their website.  BUT success comes with understanding how Pinterest works.  Any marketing you do for your business needs to be underpinned by a good strategy, otherwise you are wasting your time and your money.  When you only have a few seconds to convert a potential customer, the power of the visual image on Pinterest can be highly successful.

I hope you learned some great tips from this blog.  Please let me know what you found useful and what you would like to see covered in future blogs in my Pinterest series.  If you love the concept of Pinterest marketing for your business, but don’t want to do all the work yourself – check out my Pinterest Management packages and monthly pin design subscription.