It was just a few days ago when Pinterest announced the creation of business accounts, along with various tools and tips that would help brands develop a great presence on it. This move proves the rising interest that businesses show on the new trending social network, as they feel they can showcase their products in a great visual way. Pinterest seems to acknowledge their interest in this move and that’s why it decided to separate the personal and the business account, and even created buttons and widgets for websites.
Pinterest has managed to become rather quickly a popular social network and thus, everyone wants to be part of it and take advantage of its big referral traffic. It is true, Pinterest’s focus on images has attracted a great audience, and it has become a great source of referral traffic for various websites. However, what should we really expect from it when signing up, and do we all need to use it for business purposes?
By the time you read that a rising social network has been popular, you just want to become part of it. You are reading about successful case studies from brands that fully took advantage of it, and rather quickly, and want to succeed, too. There has been an increasing number of professionals asking for help to sign up on Pinterest, waiting for immediate results. They are requesting hundreds of likes and re-pins, an instant success and the increase of their sales on their website. For some reason, to many of them Pinterest seems like the magic website that by the time you sign up, you are becoming “Mr. Popular”. I’m afraid there is no such site, at least not one that I am aware of.
What these people need to know is that:
- You cannot have hundreds of likes and fans in ANY website in a very short period of time. (Unless you have Justin Bieber talking about it). Being impatient and buying fake numbers doesn’t help your business at all.
- Pinterest might be continually rising, but it’s still a new social network. This means that it won’t bring you the stats of Facebook and it should be treated on its own terms.
- Not every business is suitable for Pinterest. It might be trending, but if you don’t have the relevant content to promote, why do you want to sign up? Also, don’t forget that the majority of Pinterest users are women. Never forget the audience that you are addressing. Make sure your visual content would catch the eye of the potential followers and that you do have enough to create several boards. What’s the reason to create boards only with ‘borrowed’ content?
- What makes a Pinterest account successful is not yet fully understood. It is completely subjective whether an account is considered successful or not. Usually, a nice Pinterest account is one that gets followers gradually, that has eye-catching images, and that leads followers to its website. If you manage to take advantage of the popular referral traffic of Pinterest over time, then this is a success. But, always keep in mind that a social network won’t boost your sales on its own.
To sum up, Pinterest is an interesting social network that you can use either as a way to extend your social media presence (and spend a significant amount of time without even realizing it!), or as a showcase for your brand.