Pinterest although relatively new to the world, is widely considered to be the internet’s Inspiration Depot. The use of Pinterest as a platform on which solutions can be offered to searching people is merely beginning to dawn on businesses.
To clarify, Pinterest is a platform where people can share images and web links that relate to, as the names suggests interests, hobbies or seek solutions to problems they may have encountered in a fun, DIY sort of fashion.
Despite over half of all Pinterest users also using Instagram, it remains a place where go to learn things, a place where people go to seek specific things, or at the very least, to consume content that comes under their general interests rather than people directly expressing themselves. Which is why Pinterest is a great platform to offer your product or service to an audience that is already on the hunt for solutions of some kind and depending on what your business is offering, Pinterest might just be right for you.
Before we get into the basics of what sort of content you should be posting (or ‘Pinning’) Pinterest has some very interesting demographics that should be discussed in order to determine if it fits within your social media marketing agency strategy.
Firstly, most of its current active users are women at around 70% however half of all new ‘Pinners’ are male. Majority of these Pinners lay within the 18-29 age range, the smallest group being the 65+. Lastly the most popular topic is Art & Craft hobbies followed by food, floral and gifts. This kind of demographic is naturally more likely to receive certain businesses better than others, anything to with weddings being a hot topic on the site; but if you’re offering the right stuff, then all you need to know is how to format your pins in a way that will appeal the most to your target.
So! What factors and qualities should you consider when creating a pin for your business? Some eye-catching or beautiful is a good start, Pinterest is a visual platform and its users expect pretty things. Next you want it to be helpful in some way to the audience, Pinterest users are often on the site to look for specific things, you also want to appeal to them in a deeper sense than visually.
In conjunction with that you also have to make it ‘actionable’, this quality refers to 2 things; Does it tempt you to take action? And how is it for one to do so? There are number of ways you can balance out these attributes when creating pins to achieve a number of possible targets, but whatever your target is timing is always something to consider.
Knowing when to pin is crucial, as Pinterest statistics show that certain times of the day and week are more favourable to your business endeavours. ‘Business hours’ are evidently the least effective with more users seeming to log on during the night hours, when inspiration strikes the most! Naturally, weekends are favourable for pinning in general, unless the subject of your pin has bearing certain events that might be taking place on certain days of the week.
Hopefully this cleared up the sometimes-vague nature of Pinterest and helps inspire you to take action and benefit from the wonderful marketing tool that Pinterest can be. With all that in mind go for and pin!
