Using Pinterest to Boost Your Brand

Pinterest: what’s it all about?

For anyone familiar with mood boards or even a collage the concept of the three-year-old social site ‘Pinterest’ is simple. Find an image you like online, ‘Pin it’ to a board using a bookmark button.

If you find more than one image you like you can group them together to create visual mood boards and collections. Want to share your favourite images with others? No problem: follow other members, re-pin, like, share and comment on their chosen images too.

This is all sounds and definitely looks very nice, but as a brand what’s it actually all for….?

Pinterest’s Growth is Phenomenal

As of May 2013 Pinterest had 25 million members and is the fastest standalone website to hit 10 million unique visitors a month.

The most popular member has over 8 million followers and has pinned more than 25,000 images. Whilst this pinners description suggests they are a penguin from the Antarctic (hmmm..???) the majority are young, well-educated females.

Brands are increasingly seeing opportunities for engaging with, and more importantly capitalising on, this market through Pinterest.

How are Brands Using Pinterest?

Pinterest is most effectively used by businesses that naturally have a strong visual element to them such as retail, food, home decor, design, and travel brands. Unlike facebook which is all about the people, Wired recently reported that the most popular pins are those without human faces (other successful features include having multiple colours, little background and a portrait layout).

Retailers in particular are gaining a return on their pinning investments as increasing features offered on pins has led to the site acting as a user generated shopping centre. Significantly higher conversion rates are seen on pinterest in comparison to its competitor social media channels. Pinterest shoppers, on average, spend nearly $170 per session, with Facebook shoppers spending $95 per session, and Twitter shoppers spending $70.

Brands are also able to engage and interact with their followers, not just through the likes, comments and re-pins mentioned earlier, but increasingly through cross channel techniques such as running competitions. Followers are set the task of develop a board on a set theme, and use hashtags and sharing to as a way of entering, providing even more marketing opportunities.

You Don’t Need to be on Pinterest to Win at Pinterest

Because of it’s viral nature a pinterest account isn’t even always necessary to gain maximum brand exposure. This has been proved by Chanel who generate on average 400 product pins and 3,600 repins with no active official pinterest account.

OK, I’ve got it. So Pinterest is all about selling products and services right?

Wrong.

Pinterest is all about Aspiration and Inspiration

The most important lesson of all about creating a brand presence on Pinterest is ensuring it is not just about the brand and selling the services on offer. Boards should always explore subjects that are an extension of a brand.

Pinterest works well for already visually strong brands.

Here’s an example of an online home goods store with nearly 7,000 followers.

You can navigate directly from pins to the product page on the store’s website to complete a purchase.