Background to Pinterest
Launched in March 2010 Pinterest is unlike the other social networks. It's a visual social network where people share images and or videos by creating pinboards, either with their own images and or with images from others users. Users get inspiration from other people who share their interests.
In Dec 2011 it was reported by Experian Hitwise that Pinterest was receiving 11 million total visits a week and in January 2012 it was responsible for sending more referral traffic than LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube.
83% of Pinterest users are women (though many people have the impression it is even higher than that)
A large number of pins are about design, fashion and home decor (although there are plenty of other areas of interest as well.
Advantages of Pinterest for Marketing
Rapid Growth
Although some people thought that Pinterest was just a passing fad, it has experienced such rapid growth industry analysts believe it is here to stay.
Sharing content is easy
Pinterest is a very easy platform to use and providing you are offering interesting content it is very easy to have this information disseminated to a brand new audience. Loading the Pin It button onto your Bookmarks bar means that you can share information from anywhere on the internet.
People's love of browsing
Different studies have shown that people love looking at images on the internet. Although it would seem that businesses that are product driven have an advantage over others in gaining easy leverage by pinning images of their products,
Pinterest can work for anyone as long as you have the ability to think creatively and outside the box to promote your brand, lifestyle and company image.
Disadvantges of Pinterest for Marketing
No dedicated brand pages
Unlike all the other major social media brans (Twitter, You Tube, Facebook, LinkedIn - Pinterst has no specific area for businesses. (Personally I like that because I think businesses have to work a little bit harder to get noticed - but it means for an ordinary user it feels live a level playing field).
How to market without appearing to do so
It is quite a challenge to create content that interests, inspires, amuses, entices ... users in a way that they are unaware of being part of a drive to refer trffic to your blog or website.
Visuals can be limiting
I've already said that one of the advantages of Pinterest is the visual content and the fact that people enjoy browsing images, but for some business it can be difficult to create interesting content.
But I am also convinced of the advantages of using Google+. I tried to create an account, but it doesn't allow me to use the name of my site. I read somewhere, that the companies first need to create a personal profile and then add the company's page(like in FB) to it. Any thoughts on this? :) Thanks again! Lili
Reply
I'm not sure I necessarily agree with you. If you try to use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, You Tube, Pinterest that takes a lot of work and is not necessarily an effective use of people's time.
So as Google+ and Pinterest are the newest ones, I think some people may at this stage want to choose. I hear lots of people saying they have various accounts in the different social media but haven't found the time to use them or unsure of the benefits.
Better to use one or two effecifiently and one that brings benefits to your business than using one or more poorly.
