Pinterest calls themselves a “virtual pin board”. This website is known for connecting people from all over the world through common tastes and interests. There are many uses for Pinterest including finding new recipes and do it yourself projects. The content that you post is called “pins” and your pins get organized in boards. Pinterest is interesting because it lets you browse other people’s boards and “repin” the content you like onto your own boards. This website offers content like pictures, videos, recipes, tutorials, and much more. 
In order to effectively use Pinterest, you need to make sure your content speaks louder than words. Since Pinterest is solely based on pictures, you need to make sure your pictures are high quality; let your pictures do all the talking. You also want to credit all your content from where it came from so it won’t tarnish your rep. Your boards on your homepage is what keeps your content organized. Using your boards correctly will benefit you when you’re trying look back at your posts. You can have as little or as many boards as you’d like. Pinterest lets you rename them and change the cover picture of your boards. For example, if you found a picture of gourmet food that looks good to you; post this under your board that relates to “Food”.
There are so many things you can do with Pinterest. You can plan your wedding on it, find new recipes, see what the latest style is, and so much more. Pinterest lets you use keywords to find specific or general things you are looking for. You don’t even have to repin content, you can simply like or comment it. Your likes show up on your homepage under a different category than boards. Just like Twitter, you can follow other people and they can follow you. The people you follows content will show up on your “following” home page. This is different than your actual homepage because your homepage is filled with just your content.
When you repin something, Pinterest gives you the option to follow that person’s board that you repined from. This is a quick easy way to follow more people and make your following homepage more diverse. It’s said that when people go on Pinterest, they go on to just browse around. Pinterest is a great website for just browsing around because they have so many different categories to choose from. Aside from the popular page, categories range from health and fitness, science and nature, cars and motorcycles, travel, sports, and many more. It’s not a mystery that Pinterest can be used by anyone.
Pinterest can be used by small businesses, large corporations and anywhere in between. The first step to market your business on the site is to add the Pinterest button on your website. This will increase the awareness of your customers showing them that you have a Pinterest page. Just like in any other case, key words are the key! If you are an up and coming gym and you want to attract more customers, you would want to post pictures of your gym and services, pictures of your equipment, and even videos of small work outs to show them what you have to offer. The cool thing about Pinterest is the hyper linking. If you post a picture of your equipment on the site, a customer can click the picture and be brought to your website.
You want to target your audience on Pinterest by using key words that appeal to what they’re looking for. Once you’ve got their attention you want to keep it by pinning as much relevant content as you can. A recently new feature on Pinterest allows you to create a “secret board”. This can be helpful in so many ways. For businesses, if you are in the mix of making a new board and don’t want to post it right away, a secret board is right for you. This gives extra time in preparing the board and making sure it is just right for your audience when it’s ready to be posted.
Pinterest is a great source of referral traffic for websites and blogs. It drives in more traffic than Google+, Youtube, and LinkedIn combined! At the moment, Pinterest has 11 million users and is getting more every day. This site is a great because the content brings traffic directly to your website with one click. If you use this site correctly, there’s no other way to build up your brand name on the web.
Sources:
http://pinterest.com/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-for-using-pinterest-for-business/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/pinterest-marketing-what-marketers-need-to-know-to-succeed/
http://www.examiner.com/article/how-to-create-a-secret-board-on-pinterest-for-the-holidays
The content in this article is part of Digital Ethos’s Digital Media Education in the Higher Education Internship Program, the content was created by @KaylaMarzo, a Student at Suffolk County Community college, intern at Digital Ethos.
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