For those of you who do not know, Pinterest is the newest and fastest growing social media website today, and how to use Pinterest for Business should be on your mind. Pinterest  has been able to reach 10 million unique monthly visitors – faster than other social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. From November 2011 to January 2012, Pinterest’s unique site visitors went  from 4.8 million visitors to 11 million.
Many business people may look at this as a small site, but the truth is, it is not. New members and users are growing at a fast pace since it started. So, by the looks of it, entrepreneurs and markers cannot underestimate the power of Pinterest for Business.
According to Pinterest’s database, 80 percent of its users are female – which means it is now a powerful tool to attract female customers on the Internet. Below is a list of the top 10 ways to use Pinterest for business.
1. Spread the word about your product through an online photo contest.
Pinterest is a great place to organize contests. Your contest could be a search for the best pin of pictures of your product or your product logo being used by real people in everyday life. Your participants will pin photos of your brand and share them with friends. Therefore, your traffic will increase, as well as your product’s popularity.
2. Provide high-quality content for your audience.
Just like other social networking sites, providing high-quality content on Pinterest boosts your site reputation, thus attracting more attention from your followers. Provide useful information and problem-solving tips in the field you are good at until you become an influential user on Pinterest.
3. Pin some helpful shopping lists.
Provide helpful shopping lists to your followers that include your products. Create a Pinterest board and put pins as shopping lists.
4. Suggest gift ideas by adding price tags.
You’ve probably noticed that some items on Pinterest have price tags on them. You, too, can do it by simply adding a price in the description along with this symbol – $.
5. Use Pinterest as a marketing tool.
Find out what your customers think and figure out the products that they need. Also, think about the latest trends and which products sell best at present. With Pinterest’s live feed, you will have an accurate update about what your customers think and need at the moment.
Another good way to use Pinterest is by creating product bundles. Group some of your products that go well together and pin them as a package.
7. Get product ideas and suggestions from your followers.
Have your customers participate in your company’s decision-making by creating a board that lets them throw up all the ideas there. You could also let your customers decide on which idea is the best.
8. Create a coupon pinboard.
Gather all your product coupons and discount codes and place them on a pinboard. This will give value to your customers as you help them save more money while you promote the products you offer.
9. Show a more in-depth look of your products.
Some customers are curious as to how you make your products so it is a good idea to pin photos of the making of your products. This will also educate your followers about your product’s composition.
10. Pin on your company’s vision.
Make a pinboard showing how you see your company in the next years to come. Create your vision in such a way that you and your team will be motivated to do better in the future.
If you have some other ways you are using Pinterest for business, please leave a comment for me and I will add them to this list.
Such a helpful article! Thank you, I love Pinterest but have been having trouble convincing work of it’s value for business. This blog post will be doing the rounds 😉
Great Dave, glad it will help!
Thanks for sharing Bill. Like # 1, 3 , 5. Got to start back using them for business more often.
Home run as always Bill. Now time for me to jump on the Pinterest bandwagon!
Thanks.
Thanks for the insights, Bill.
Always looking for actionable solutions.
Have a great day!
Jim
Thanks for you’re tips Bill. I started Pinterest a few months ago, just for the fun. But i realized the potentials. Yet i don’t have a product of website. So, i like to find a way to use Pinterest for affiliate marketing. I manged 1 product to post there straight from Paypro. But other attempts to do so failed.(considerd spam) There is a site special for paypro users on Pinterest and i;m going to explore that now. Thanks again for you’re info!
Thank you. This was most enlightening and helpful. So much, that I am opening my account today.
Great information.
Thanks for some unique ideas I have not seen before.
Another tip is to pin to a shared board (and if one doesn’t exist then create your own)
Another tip is to find some appropriate public (shared) boards and pin to them. I’ve had lots of repins that way. Or start your own shared board.
That is a great additional tip, thanks Emma!
Great tips! I will share with my small business clients. I like tip 10. Great way to keep the long-term goal focus in any company.
You’re welcome Canday
Well, when you are ready to start a business you have a head start 🙂
Bill!
Thanks for reaching out via Twitter and sharing these 10 tips. I especially La La LOVE #10 – what a fabulous idea!
Cheers!
Ande
http://pinterest.com/bringbackdesire/
You bet, glad you liked them!
I like the idea of a coupon pinboard!
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This is a great list! I really like #3 build a shopping list. I think that this is an excellent idea. I also like #10 that is very original and a great way to engage a business’s current and potential customers see your business vision and it is great to share with employees or have them contribute.
I would also add, #11 feature customers utilizing products or feature a customer of the month, week, day, etc. This is a great way to engage users and let potential customers see how fun it is to do business with your company.
Great post Bill, thanks for reaching out to me on Twitter 🙂
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You bet Ashley, thanks for adding the additional item!
Great pinterest tips you shared with us Bill. Thanks
Hi Bill,
You haven’t steered me wrong with your excellent content. I appreciate reading about additional Pinterest tips to help anyone that wants to market their products, services, or content.
To Your Success,
Stacie Walker
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Hi Bill, this is a great post. Pinterest is a very exciting new platform and growing so fast! I like the idea for the vouchers board, and some of the other techniques mentioned in the comments are interesting also…
I’m going to read some of your other posts also…
Many thanks
Simon
Great article, never been sure how to fully capitalize on Pinterest, many people had suggested waiting to see how the business opportunities would develop on the site it naturally favors pictures of product based items, but how well it would work for service based products I would like to see.
I love the unique ways that Pinterest is used. But, sometimes I think Pinterest Pinners pin too much. One example is a guy who pins constantly pics about architecture. I had to stop following that person. It was like he was just on auto pin! Some people should just be more natural about their pinning. Be more personalized.
The last one is a good idea. Pinterest seems to be king when it comes to toughest learning curve for small business.
Great content and value from you as always Bill. Pinterest is on my must update, refine and exploit its growth and reach to the masses.
I’ve started using Pinterest for several of my clients and I’ve noticed noticeable jumps in visitors. Great ideas from your post which I will be implementing.
Wonderful, hope they help!
Pinterest is new and it’s very interesting. It’s another way to market products at the same time having fun. I think it is well designed before it was launched. They really studied the Search Engine Architecture to help the users in their business, site or blog. It’s a new way to socialize to other people by common interests.
Very true Ralph. This is one of the main reasons it is taking off, it’s simplicity.
Thanks Bill for some tips on Pinterest. I have been using it and would like to learn more as the traffic is interesting. Not that I needed another social network but have already connected with a few people there. Thanks again…
Ken, I was actually just looking last night at my analytics stats, and I am getting more traffic from Pinterest then Facebook and LinkedIn combined to my personal blog! It is a huge player!!!!
I think services like this need to be created by persons that allow others their creative rights. NOt sure that pinterest despite what has happened is really giving us what we need.
Well, no Pinterest you have full creative rights. It is just a matter of if you know how to do the graphic design, then the sky is the limit. If not, there are plenty of designer on fiverr.com that can help you develop whatever you need.
Agreed Bill – for whatever reason Pinterest has grabbed folks attention by storm. The next 12 months will see a flood of traffic as well as transition to business orientated use. We will also see a myriad of training, webinars and courses on the tips and tricks of this new social platform.
My take is that the site allows you to quickly organize anything on the web into simple folder (i.e. boards), by which you can find them again without having to think “did I book mark that, or was it on Facebook?” when you go to look for something you saw online before.
Very timely – we just wrote a post on the blog today about how to use Pinterest in WordPress. It’s a great way to get exposure, but as far as the SEO benefits, they won’t last. Never rely on the latest gimmicks for backlinks – just good content. Anytime you say something like “I got backlinks” and “fiverr” is mentioned in the same sentence, well you should already know what I’m getting at.
So true, just like all of the other social media sites, the SEO benefits diminished quickly. But, if you are getting tons of traffic from Pinterest itself, then double bonus if there is a temporary SEO boost to your site as well.
I’ve used pinterest to optimize my site and the result was amazing my site was jumped from #234 to #9 in few weeks time.
The trick is we must got our website pinned and repinned by many people this is the hardest part. Most of pinterest users won’t doing repin when they aren’t like what we pinned.
I do simple thing to outsource it on fiverr and got my site pinned by more than 70 people, I don’t know how can he did it just search by typing pinterest on fiverr and you will find it.
As I know currently pinterest is best for SEO for these reason:
1. Once our website pinned it has 3 backlinks counts
2. Google interest in social media signal so it will not tagged as links farm
3. Currently pinterest links are dofollow even the image
4. Also support anchor text, it’s perfect for placing our keywords
5. The President now pinning on Pinterest lol.
Very well put on some good benefits of Pinterest. I really was. It surprised when it took over the number 3 position from LinkedIn. Twitter is next…