8 Tips for Using Pinterest for Business

Wondering how to use Pinterest for your business?
Social media’s new sweetheart, Pinterest, has proven pictures really are worth a thousand words. Many businesses are finding new ways to reach a broader audience through sharing image and video content on the new social network.

Here are 8 tips on how to use Pinterest for your business.

Your Profile

In the profile section, make sure to add links to your website  and Twitter account.  There is no option to connect your Facebook business page to your Pinterest account but check back for updates.  Also, make sure to add a description to tell people what your business is all about.

Along with new social networks come new buttons. Just like the Facebook share button, Pinterest’s “Pin It” button allows visitors to your website or blog to “pin” your products & other content to their boards on Pinterest.

Do Follow Links

Many social networks, like Facebook and Twitter automatically apply a “No Follow” tag to links posted on their respective sites to deter spammers. Pinterest currently has a “Do Follow” set-up within the image description that provides SEO value for your website. This will most likely change in the near future as it attracts the wrong kind of attention to the site. As a good rule of thumb, post things that provide value to your audience, whether or not a link is attached.

Be Social

Comment, like, follow and repin others, it’s likely they will return the favor.  Being social is an important factor in building relationships through any social network.  With Pinterest, developing relationships with other “pinners” that share common interests can improve your visibility driving more traffic and leads to your website.

Pin & Board Maintenance

Like any online presence, it’s important to have an active presence and in the case of Pinterest, keep pinning! Needs ideas on what to post? Pinterest’s search feature is a great place to start. There are tons of great images, posts and videos to re-pin to your boards. Another fun idea (that can get rather addicting), is to use Stumbleupon. It’s really an amazing tool to use with Pinterest and you can get some great content ideas for your website or blog.

Content Marketing

Content Marketing is becoming a major buzz word for internet marketers.  Pinterest makes it easy with the ability to share content other than photos and video by using images in your blog posts and web pages that allow you to share them on Pinterest.

Content Curation

As mentioned earlier, Pinterest’s search feature can help you find tons of great stuff to share, however, you may want to apply some minor editing or curating to make sure the description and link does not contain things like bad URLs, competitor information, etc.

Product Promotion

One cool feature is the ability to post product images and tag them with a price by posting it in the image description, which will add a pricing banner in the upper left corner of your image.

Contests

Contests are always a great way to generate excitement with social media. There have been many successes with contests on Pinterest resulting in thousands of repins, follows, tweets and shares. It also has a major impact on branding. What’s better than a few thousand people promoting your business?

For more information on how we can help you engage your audience on Pinterest, contact us at (800) 695-3170.

Related posts from additional sources:
5 Interesting Pinterest Marketing Campaigns - Mashable
Why Your Pinterest Boards Have More Followers Than Your Account – Social Media Today