I’ve had the pleasure of attending Social Media Women for the past year, and it is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable networking events! For this months event, Nancy Georges hosted a packed room to discuss Pinterest – basic uses and the dos and don’ts for businesses.

Pinterest for Business

Pinterest has become a fast mover amongst social networks, driving more traffic to retails sites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. According to Adverblog, Pinterest has a large female audience (at 68.2%), 50% of users have children and have an average household income of 100+K. These demographics cover a large portion of the home and lifestyle market – and it’s only getting bigger.

General Advice

First and foremost, Pinterest isn’t going to be for every business. No-one ever would want to follow a board on accounting (or would they?!). Some of the industries marketing well on Pinterest include the home ware, fashion and photography.  Not sure if Pinterest is right for you? Ask yourself these three questions:

• Does my audience already have a Pinterest presence?
• If not, can I offer them something of value to make them want to connect with me on a new channel?
• Can I sustain this channel for the long term?

Still want to continue? The next plan of action after creating an account was outlined by Nancy as follows:

1. Be a curator: Create boards and repin good content to those boards.
2. Connect: It’s ideal to have content on your own boards first before connecting with other users/boards. That way, when curiosity gets the better of them, they are more than likely to return the favour if you have interests in common.
3. Comment: Be active and join the community. Commenting on pins is also a great way of establishing your presence without repinning the piece of content on your board (it may be something you like, but does not meet the feel of your own boards).
4. Sales Person: Having established yourself in the Pinterest community, create boards surrounding your products and services. Make your pictures visually appealing (see below)!

Lindt Chocolates on Pinterest

Lacoste on Pinterest

General Dos

• Do tag your pins (great for social SEO)
• Create great content – repinning all the time will wear out over time, and users may have already been exposed to it. Instead, be a leader and inject fresh content into peoples streams. It can set you out to be an authority in your Pinterest category, and attract more followers.
• Do make your board names interesting and attention grabbing – show creativity and flair! Drunk Knitting anyone?

Creative Pinterest Board Names: ‘Drunk Knitting‘ by marcymassura

General Don’ts

• Don’t watermark your images – Pinterest is based entirely on visuals, if your aim is to have your content shared – it’s not going to happen with a big ugly water mark slapped on top of it. If you do need to watermark your images, subtly apply it to the corner of your image instead of the centre – allow users to enjoy your image (product/service), not your company name.
• Don’t pin all at once in blocks – Your followers will have their stream inundated with your posts, which may not appeal to them at the time. Instead, space out your pins and prevent yourself from being unfollowed!

Then what?

Pins and followers are all well and good, but how do you measure Pinterest’s success? One of the tools mentioned on the night was PinReach, an Influence and Analytics tool that allows you to identify which content your audience is most receptive to (based on repins) and which products in your collection.

The ability to measure a Pinterest campaign based on conversions exists with Google Analytics by analysing your referral traffic and the sources available under ‘Assisted Conversions’ under ‘Multi-Channel Funnels’.

Hopefully this guide can help you discover the world of Pinterest – whether it be for business or personal use. If you’re new to Pinterest, what are the biggest challenges you have faced so far?