What is Pinterest?
In today’s Internet world, social marketing sites have become increasingly popular. These social networking sites allow people to connect through words, images, sounds, and even videos. People can connect anytime, anywhere. Pinterest is a major player on social media with over 13 million users and has caught the attention of marketers. It is a social media photo sharing website that allows you to “pin” images on virtual bulletin boards to get your pins noticed and share them with your followers. Users organize, share and store uploaded images. Pinterest is popular with consumer marketers these days, but should B2B marketers use the platform in their social media strategies? Let’s consider the pros and cons of Pinterest marketing.
Advantages of Pinterest marketing
• Easy to use – The Pinterest site is easy to use and navigate. Pinterest’s best marketing strategy for newcomers to the site is to make files accessible with the click of a pin and allow users to share the pins they like on the seller’s business profile.
• Generate referral traffic – Pinterest generates more referral traffic than many of the major social media sites.
• The content is visual – Since Pinterest is all about sharing photos, the best Pinterest marketing strategy for marketers is to upload a featured image of your product or service. They should also add their store information to the image title and promote the pin on other boards. Tips for pinning Pinterest include the suggestion to organize with your brand by creating a layout that will categorize your products on the boards. This will eliminate the difficulty for customers to navigate what you are offering.
• Market research – Pinterest will not only provide you with market exposure opportunities, it will also provide a market research platform to improve your advertising strategies. It allows you to interact with regular members of Pinterest. By looking at their pins and comments, you will learn the kinds of things that interest them. This knowledge will help you develop a marketing campaign that will target the correct demographics.
• Ideal for artistic exhibition – If you are a business such as architecture, interior design, fashion design or other similar industries, you will find Pinterest the ideal place to showcase your work online. The best way to get your pins noticed is to keep your content and posts eye-catching, original, and high-quality.
• SEO – A pinning tip from Pinterest includes awareness that Pinterest creates a stored link for each user post. Stored links are inbound links to your site. Also, inbound links will elevate your ranking in search engines.
• Female users – It has been said that 65% of Pinterest users are women and 85% of Pinterest traffic is driven by women. So if your business customers are women, Pinterest could be a great way to reach your potential customers.
Cons of Pinterest marketing
• Copyright – There may be copyright issues caused by many users pinning and re-pinning images that belong to others. Some legal bloggers have raised concerns about these potential copyright issues.
• Large number of users – If your interests are men’s interests, like power tools or soccer, you probably won’t find many images to your liking on Pinterest. If your demographic is not women, you may not be successful with Pinterest marketing.
• Not business oriented – Being repeatedly flagged may not help your business marketing, even if the pin goes viral. The link to your site can be lost through the repeated process of re-pinning and no more traffic will be brought to your business site. Additionally, Pinterest often focuses on lifestyle content with items like recipes, home decor, and fashion.
What is your opinion? Do the pros outweigh the cons of Pinterest business marketing?