Is Pinterest Right for Your Brand?

As a digital PR pro, I’m a huge fan of Pinterest – and many companies underestimate how powerful it is. Even digital agencies and digital PR pros! It has an ability to showcase your brand and message that can be extraordinarily powerful.

With over 70 million users, 2.5 billion page views monthly, an average time spent of 14 minutes and 9 million users who connect their Pinterest account to Facebook – it is FAR more robust than most marketers realize.

Interestingly enough, only 20% of the content pinned is original, meaning 80% of all activity is re-pins.

It also has incredible abilities to drive faster SEO results than any other social media platform, except Google+ (Naturally! Google loves their own products.). I have a pinboard currently ranking #1 on Google for localized SEO  after trying unsuccessfully to do it for over a year organically on my website.

Given the site is only 3 years old, many companies are still struggling with how to use Pinterest and unsure if it is a good fit for their marketing strategies.

If you are undecided, here are a few “rules of thumb” to use.

Pinterest is essential IF…

1. You are an e-commerce company selling products online. Pinterest’s ability to drive referral traffic and convert buyers is fantastic and FAST. It’s applicable to both B2C and B2B companies.
2. You are a highly visual business. If you are an interior designer, photographer, media publisher,  restaurant or chef, or any other type of business that is based on beautiful visuals, then Pinterest is a wonderful way to share them. You will need original photography that you own the licensing rights to use.
3. You are a public personality, such as a speaker, TV spokesperson, radio show host or author. Creating a speaker “roll” or newsroom of your media coverage is highly useful. Many don’t realize pins can include video, not just images.
4. You are a local business who understands the importance of geography-based SEO.When done correctly, Pinterest SEO can help you rank within just a few days for competitive keywords or phrases that simply take too long to rank well organically on a website.

Pinterest is not terribly useful IF…

1. You don’t have anywhere to drive the traffic to – such as a website or Facebook page. Pinterest activity should be about conversion, not just awareness.
2. You don’t have the resources to create original pins, such as infographics, photography images or video. Just repinning isn’t likely to help your business bottom line very much.
3. You aren’t pinning with purpose – and commenting/liking other pins to start conversations. If you don’t have a goal behind your activity, how do you know if you achieve it? Be sure to match what you are doing on ANY social media with what you are trying to accomplish. Not every social platform fits every goal.

So… are you Pinteresting enough? If you haven’t taken a closer look at Pinterest to see if it fits your brand strategy – or your client’s strategies, if you are with an agency – then you could be missing out on a powerful resource.

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