Using Pinterest to market and grow your business is an untapped channel that a lot of creative entrepreneurs are missing out on. We invited Jared Bauman to share with you a variety of ways that it can benefit your business.
Pinterest: the oft-forgotten social media platform that could very well be your secret marketing engine this year. This highly popular search and discovery tool has developed into a lot more than just a place to get DIY recipes and home improvement ideas. As a matter of fact, with 90% of weekly users using Pinterest to make purchase decisions, it should play a key role in your marketing plan.
Jared Bauman of 201 Creative, a digital marketing agency, provided the PRO EDU community with an in-depth tutorial on Pinterest Marketing. Here are his seven reasons that all creative entrepreneurs should be using Pinterest for marketing
1. Pinterest is a discovery platform, made for creatives
It’s really important to understand just how different Pinterest is from other social media platforms. People go to Pinterest for vastly different reasons than they do other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
By and large, Pinterest is known as a discovery platform. It is a place where people go to be inspired and discover new ideas. The platform lends itself nicely to creative topics and ideas, especially when they are shared in a visual way.
In other words, success on Pinterest relies heavily on good imagery, which is the very thing that creative entrepreneurs are paid to create. Users go to Pinterest looking to be inspired by pictures, and photographers are paid to create pictures.
2. You’ve Already Done the Work
Now that we’ve established that Pinterest is a great platform for creatives, its important to double down on the fact that the platform harnesses the very thing creatives get paid to create.
Photographers get paid to take pictures, designers get paid to create designs, and retouchers get paid to fix and improve images. The finished product that professional creatives make is well suited for Pinterest.
This allows you to get multiple uses from your projects. In essence, taking your finished work and posting it on Pinterest is not a lot of extra work, but could result in a lot of additional exposure and traffic.
3. It's a Social Media / Search Engine Hybrid
Like we mentioned earlier, Pinterest is not like any other social media platform. And whereas so many social media platforms are extremely fickle about traffic and reach, Pinterest has a lot more long term stability.
By and large, when you post something to Facebook or Instagram, it immediately starts to lose traction. In rare occurrences, the post is still gaining traffic a day later. But, for the most part, the impact is short term and temporary.
This makes it hard to scale these social media platforms, but Pinterest is very different. On this platform, most pins gain traction over time. This is because Pinterest acts more like a search engine than it does a social media platform.
When you begin to look at it like a search engine, all of a sudden your approach changes. Pinterest has visual benefits well suited for creative, but the long term staying power to help you grow sustainable traffic and brand awareness.
4. It works better over the long term for you
Pinterest is a great investment in your long term marketing strategy. While you’ll have the occasional viral pin that will get you instant traffic, the bulk will come over the course of time.
In many ways, Pinterest represents a nice hybrid between traditional social media channels and search engine optimization (SEO). Whereas Facebook and Instagram provide instant results, SEO is truly a long play.
Long term marketing strategies like search engine optimization can produce powerful results for your business that are scalable, but take awhile to develop. Pinterest, though, represents a great way to utilize social media while still getting scalable, long term benefit.
If you’re focused heavily on social media right now, and relying on it for your brand awareness and website traffic, Pinterest is a great way to slowly transition some of your social media efforts to a longer term focus.
5. Its untapped (for now)
It wouldn’t be fair to say that Pinterest has yet to be discovered, but it certainly is still a relatively untapped social media channel at this point. Whereas Facebook and Instagram are highly saturated and difficult to stand out in, Pinterest does not have nearly as many creative professionals utilizing the platform.
Jump on the platform today, and chances are you might be one of the few in your local market who are actively using it to grow your business.
Yes, as time goes on, Pinterest will probably follow other platforms in getting harder to get organic traction on. Their 2019 IPO is probably the first signal of this impending change. But, odds are there are still years of runway to take advantage of before this becomes a reality.
6. It can be virtually automated
Just like many other social media platforms, you can practically automate much of the daily tasks associated with Pinterest. Using the tool to grow your business means you must evaluate how much time you invest and compare it to the return you get.
Software like Tailwind allows you to pre-schedule your pins, posting them to a variety of boards and regularly scheduled intervals. Tailwind is Pinterest approved, meaning that you’ll be integrating with a software that works well with the social media tool and follows all the rules.
Tailwind makes it incredibly fast to set up and post dozens of pins in next to no time. With software like this, you can manage a Pinterest account in under an hour a week. This makes it so that it doesn’t take a lot of return to make it worth your time.
7. You can plan and prepare during the offseason
Most photographers, designers, and retouchers have a defined time of year that they are busy, and another part of the year that is slower. This offseason, when used effectively, can be a powerful tool to scaling out your marketing efforts.
All aspects of Pinterest can be planned, built, and executed during the offseason. You can design your pins, write your descriptions, and prepare your posts when you’re in your offseason.
Using software like Tailwind, you can schedule out posting on Tailwind months in advance. The real power of Pinterest comes into play when you utilize it in concert with a larger hub-and-spoke marketing approach to your business.
Tying it all together
The last thing you need is yet another useless item to add to your to-do list. But, Pinterest marketing is far from that. This social media platform helps you grow your business through its ability to create brand awareness and website traffic. Through tools like Tailwind, you can reduce the amount of time it takes you to a mere hour or two each week. Learn more about how to use Pinterest for your business with our tutorial.
