Pinterest for Success

If you do not know what "Pins" mean, you could be missing out on one of the hottest social media platforms of late.    

Pinterest's popularity is skyrocketing and it has now firmly taken its place as the fourth most popular social media site ahead of Tumblr and Instagram.

So what is Pinterest? And how can it help to complete your social media strategy?

"Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save creative ideas."

Pinterest allows you to pin or link to photos of interest. It uses image boards called pin boards to share photos in collection. The whole concept is based on the idea that many people used to have clippings of their dream vacations, life goals, recipes, etc. on boards. Pinterest is very much like a virtual pin board where you can discover ideas and  inspirations and share them with others. Each photo has a click-through link that leads you back to the website where it was discovered. Users can check out other people's pin boards, like, comment or repin as they wish.

60% of Pinterest users are women. Thus, quite tellingly, the most popular subjects on Pinterest are Recipes, Fashion, Fitness, Beauty, and Decor. 

Here are a few influential Pinterest accounts:

Martha Stewart Living

Refinery29

Birchbox

                        

The Knot

But why should you add Pinterest to your social media strategy for your business?

Here is why..

(Source: Entrepreneur.com)

Pinterest is an excellent media channel for you to better market your content. It inspires users and it has a striking visual impact. It is a great tool for you to build your brand image.

Each pin serves a purpose and it must be visually interesting and appealing. There are a few things to bear in mind when managing a successful Pinterest account:

• Keep pin boards fresh, relevant, and fun.
• Focus on a handful of topics or themes.
• Know your brand and what you want to market.
• Ensure your images are top notch quality and pin-worthy.
• Strategically time your subjects to current happenings and news.

So now you have a Pinterest account. But how do you measure its success?

Clicks back to your website, conversions, and the number of followers are good indicators to measure your Pinterest activities and engagement. Click-throughs from pins could seriously drive traffic to your website. Having an exceptional landing page to greet users  and providing positive experience once they land on your website from a pin will increase your chance of converting click-through to qualified leads.

Now that you know everything there is to know about Pinterest, start today and pin your way to success!

May Mandy Han