I am sure you have recently heard of the new social media platform that has sprung up, Pinterest. Its identity has come on leaps and bounds with over 11 million unique visits last month alone. Infact, it’s growth has been “faster then any standalone site - ever“ (Hubspot). But have you considered what Pinterest means to your business and how it could affect your social media and marketing activities? No? Then read on…

Firstly, to explain what Pinterest is and how it works, I have included a slideshow by Mike Litman, which so far is the most comprehensive thing I have seen written.

It has been reported that in January 2012, Pinterest “referred more traffic than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn combined”. This has impacted businesses that rely on large numbers of website visitors by providing an incredible opportunity to dramatically increase their sales volume with little effort. In fact from what I have seen so far, just about any business that currently uses social media to complement or enhance their business, could benefit in some way from this new social network.

There has, however, been some negative press. The Metro reports that “like Facebook, Pinterest has attracted concern over the question of ownership.” If a user owns a picture and ‘pins it’ on Pinterest, they are effectively handing over ownership to the site. Andrew Murray, professor of law at the London School of Economics, has also stated that “Pinterest is acting at the margins of copyright legality’. Even with these concerns, I personally think that Pinterest will continue with the rapid growth is has shown and provide another platform for businesses to enhance and complement their services.

So… how can businesses effectively use this new social media platform? Here are some basic guidelines to get you started:

Audience Building

Pinterest works a little differently from the typical follower functionality of other social networks. There are two ‘follower options’ a user can take when someone likes their content: a user can follow a specific board or an account.

The difference is when a user follows a board, they will only be notified of new content to that board, whereas if they follow an account, they will be notified any time the user pins any content to any board.

Marketing

Pinterest offers a range of activities to market your business to a new audience. Some of the main features it showcases includes: featuring visual contents, creating user-generated pinboards, creating video galleries, hosting a contest, featuring offline events, gathering business/brand insight, ability to add the pin-it button to your website and links in the descriptions of your pins and using hashtags.

Final Thoughts

If your company is serious about using social media to complement and enhance its business activities, then Pinterest can be a viable business option.

Integration of another social media platform into your social media campaigns has business implications that require considering, but all the signs so far point towards an enhanced campaign if it is successfully understood and implemented. Are you using Pinterest to enhance your social media campaigns yet?