I often find that Pinterest is the forgotten social media platform. I’ll tell you why… it isn’t actually a social media platform – it’s a search engine! The most impressive search engine out there (IMO) but often confused with social media… and for good reason, the lines are blurred as to what it is. But I don’t go on there to follow people, I go on there to research. And that is what everyone else is on there for – including your customers!
But did you know that people go on the website ready to buy? 93% of people actually go on to the platform to actively search a product or service.
Pinterest is just another search engine. People go on the website looking for something, whether that is tips, to buy a product, or advice, using keywords and hashtags (yes, they now uses hashtags – it’s new and exciting!).
Even if you don’t get any sales from the platform think of the website as a visual search engine.
Make sure you have pinnable images on your blog and web pages, so that people can pin your images and link them back to you! if you use the ‘P’ share button in the red square that is down the right hand side of the screen (on a desktop) you will see an example of what I mean when I say add some Pinnable images to help people share your work. This button makes it easy for people to share pins of your work on the platform, exposing your website to more potential customers.
Aside from all of that – there’s less competition on Pinterest! Get ahead of the game, while people are focusing on Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is quietly growing in the background. And there’s a steady stream of businesses getting work out of the platform. As I keep saying, it’s a search engine, and people are searching for everything from recipes and personal trainers to web design and social media tips.
Don’t miss your opportunity to get ahead of your competition and start to optimise your profile for business.
It is a visual platform, using more landscape and square images, but of course the all important KEYWORDS. This is where your search engine work comes in. And as you’re not competing with the massive numbers on Google/Yahoo!/Bing you have a much (MUCH) better chance of coming top in the searches.
Simply put, each image is a link to a page you choose. So you obviously want to send people back to your website, which in turn helps your website on Google.
When I say there is less competition on this search engine, don’t worry. There are 175 million users on the platform every month. 2 million boards are pinned every day for shopping, and it’s not all women looking at recipes anymore, men now account for 40% of new Pinterest users.
87% of of Pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest!
A Few Fun Facts….
- There are over 75 billion ideas on Pinterest.
- 72% of Pinners use Pinterest to decide what to buy offline.
- 67% of Pinners are under 40-years-old.
- Over 5% of all referral traffic to websites comes from Pinterest.
- Pinterest said 80% of its users access Pinterest through a mobile device.
- 93% of active pinners said they use Pinterest to plan for purchases and 87% said they’ve purchased something because of Pinterest.
- Two-thirds of pins represent brands and products.
- Food & Drink & Technology are the most popular categories for men.
- An average Pins made by an Active Female User is 158.
- Recipes: There are more than 1.7 billion recipe Pins.
- Shopping: Every day nearly 2M people Pin product rich Pins.
- Articles: More than 14 million articles are Pinned each day.
- Average time spent on Pinterest per visit is 14.2 minutes.