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Pinterest for business isn’t a very popular choice in India. Pinterest and Instagram are both images sharing sites. While Instagram is where you click or download a photo on your phone, apply filters and then share it using relevant hashtags for discovery, Pinterest is a more of a curation and photo searching site. According to Pinterest website description, Pinterest helps people discover the things they want to plan, buy and do. The pins can be anything that you like and that’s what makes this platform interesting. It sounds fun right? But you might say, how will Pinterest help my business?

Pinterest is one of the most active social media platforms that send traffic to the website/ business directly. Pinterest is most popular with the female audience. Still not sure why people use Pinterest? Check this out

There are a lot more statistics out there that prove Pinterest worth, hence let’s jump straight to the question – How can it help my business?

Relevance in India

Though Instagram is more popular today, let’s not confuse with the functionality. Pinterest is mostly used to find images that are inspiring, educational and motivational. You will find very limited images that are boring, personal in nature or direct sale related. Hence if you have content that can be educational, motivating or awe-inspiring and not limited geographically, Pinterest is the place to be.

Focus on being an Inspiration

Don’t just promote your wares. Like any other social media, continuous promotion about your products or services isn’t going to cut well with the audience. Have a clear strategy about what your Pinterest page needs to be. Have minimum boards about your products. Focus more on keeping your pins inspiring, authoritative, humorous and even DIY if relevant. Create strong boards and intersperse them with your product images.

Connect and Communicate

Link Pinterest to Facebook and Twitter with find friends. Comment on others pins. Share genuinely good content. Do like and comment other pins but don’t overdo as it might be considered spam or a bot and don’t pin excessively on a single day. Take time out daily. Once you get the hang of it, it hardly takes 10 min per day.

Ease of Pinning

Make your website pinnable. Have widgets that let your images be directly pinned from your site. Use the Pinterest browser extension or Pinterest button to pin images from your site or any inspiration that you find around. Build a community around your product or service or fun ideas that are aligned to your business. Create DIY photos or videos and have them pinned on your boards. Be educative while selling your products. Pin great images from your website and blog. If you are an e-com site have a Deals board or an OOTD board and lead people to your site. Make use of rich pins  to keep things interesting and engaging.

How to use Pinterest for business or personal brand

Collaborate

Identify influential pinners and collaborate with them on a group board. Group boards are a great concept and I suggest you put in some thought before you go ahead with it. Being a part of some group board which is irrelevant to your product or service will not help you in any way. Similarly, as the group boards reflect upon your choices too, ensure they are in-line with your overall strategy.

Plan contests

You can design some fun contests with Pinterest. Have a “Pin it to Win it” contest or Pin your DIY contest. Lots of brands are doing great stuff with the Pinterest contest. Look around for inspiration. Have a web page that states your contest details and pin that on your contest board. Most importantly, comply with Pinterest guidelines.

Pin the Best

Pinterest has come up with ‘Lens’ a search option where you can click a picture and search related images on Pinterest. This is a goldmine for brands. How many times have you seen a dress or a décor item or some small knick-knack and fallen in love with it, but as it belongs to a complete stranger, you can’t just ask them. Now all you need to do is click a pic and related images will be shown by Pinterest. Brands should make the most of it by putting up stunning images as you never know who is looking for you.

UPDATE

I have recently started using Tailwind and it is definitely helpful. Will soon share the stats and best practices for that, however in the meantime if you wish to join my Tailwind Tribe do check out here

Have you used Pinterest, or have some more tips to share? Do comment your ideas and thoughts about Pinterest.

 

 

68 Replies to “How to use Pinterest for business or personal brand”

    1. Yes Agreed Sumit, It has limited reach in India, hence I advise of its use only if it fits our business model.

  1. I love clicking pictures, and as long as they are helpful and educational to somebody, I can use Pinterest as a medium to spread the love. As I am not very used to Pinterest as much as I am with Instagram or Flickr, I am hesitant to spend too much time there. But reading this, I really think I should reconsider. Thank you for coming up with helpful posts consistently!

  2. This is one bit of social media that i am completely ignorant about. I do go to it as an end user and have found great ideas there but I don’t understand it much. Need to rectify that perhaps.

  3. Hi Neha! This is exactly what Ive been needing to read. Thank you so so much for these excellent pointers. Will be following your blog religiously from now on for more such informative tips. Hugs!

  4. Pinterest is something I have been trying to get my hands on, by the complexities of it have somehow made me resist it. Your post is comprehensive and motivates me to give it a second thought.

  5. Great information shared. Never thought about all of these. But agreed that I got a good traffic from Pinterest.

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