When a marketer is looking to engage with his or her audience beyond Twitter and Facebook in the social sphere Pinterest is typically the social media called upon. This networking tool draws on a largely female audience at 87 percent and since February 2013, it has gained about 25 million users, Business Insider reported.
The fashion and retail industries especially are gaining a valuable audience by using this tool. Digitas has found that 18 percent of content engagement on Pinterest is driven by brands, while 82 percent is by community. And the top brands in retail and fashion average 46 repins for every pin – demonstrating that those who are using the space are firmly engaged with following the brand. As for numbers in terms of revenue, Pinterest shoppers typically spend more at checkout, between $140 to $180 spent per order, compared to those social media shoppers driven from Facebook or Twitter at between $60 to $80 spent per order.
In addition, Pinterest’s share of referrals for the home furnishings and home accessories category accounts for almost 60 percent of all social traffic, reported Rich Relevance. The average U.S. consumer on the social website follows an average of 9.3 retailers.
Now that we understand just how important Pinterest is for most retailers, it’s time to create a strong social strategy to best take advantage of the tool. A creative job agency will be looking for a marketer who is experienced with engaging an audience on this interactive tool. Here are five tips and tricks to maximizing your usage of Pinterest:
1) A picture says a 1,000 words. Pinterest is a purely visual-attraction based social media network. As a result, it is highly important that any pins placed on a board are engaging and attractive. This means that the image of a product must be expertly laid out and taken with the right lighting in mind. A shadowed image that is off center or poorly framed can decrease the attractiveness of the picture and result in less quality engagement from potential customers.
According to SlideShare, nearly 1.5 million users spend an average of 15 minutes a day on Pinterest. This social media account has already proven to directly promote greater spending by consumers, which is why it is important to focus on creating an attractive image that draws a user to repin the picture and perhaps even follow the link to your website.
2) Create games. Everyone loves the chance to win something great or to participate in the branding of their favorite organizations, services or products. As a result, creating fun competitions on Pinterest has evolved in a great marketing strategy to boost customer or potential customer engagement and spread the presence of the brand on the platform. Many travel and destination corporations and fashion retailers have this trend to particularly helpful in terms of generating increased users and prompting discussions about the brand on the web.
3) Let the personality of the brand shine. Constant Contact, a B2B marketing company, claims that even B2B organizations can learn to use this primarily B2C social media network with success. It’s all about making sure that the personality of the organization and the expertise it brings is packaged in an attractive manner. While creating a conversation on Pinterest for a B2B brand may be more difficult then say, sharing pictures of designer shoes, it is still possible with the artful pursuit of engaging a community.
4) Remember to share, share and share. Too often a business or marketer can find themselves only promoting their content to an audience. That’s hardly the point of a strong social media account. Create an engaging presence and build a community by remembering to share your followers’ content and promote their brands and products in an effective manner. By sharing and mentioning a fellow member of the community, you are encouraging this person to do the same with your pins and opening yourself up to a greater network of users.
5) Add Pin It buttons to content and images. Because Pinterest images are largely supplied by the users, it is important to ensure that it is easy to create these boards. You don’t want a user to pin an image under the wrong visual or link to the wrong page on your website. To avoid this and help support the creation of valuable pins, you can create easy to use Pin It buttons for images and content on your website to help support sharing. Social media users, in general, much prefer simple to use tools. Anything too complicated will detract from the experience and could leave a user frustrated or make them give up on the attempt to pin, repin or share your content.
Now that you are ready to market on Pinterest, learn more about Tumblr.
