Another new day, yet another new Social Media platform for us to get our Small Business teeth into!
Pinterest is the latest website to really gather some impressive momentum in recent weeks and months…..but is it to everyone’s taste?
More importantly, have some people been a little too hasty in jumping to the wrong conclusions, and dismissing the entire concept as a waste of valuable time?
When I first mentioned to Josh, our newest designer, that I was researching a new Blog article based around the possible Small Business potential lurking within Pinterest, he snorted into his glass of weak lemon cordial.
“Pinterest?” he exclaimed. “Waste of time! No marketing potential at all in that. It’s just a website for women. It’s all flower baskets and baking recipes. No scope for marketing in there, unless you’re a florist or a cook.”
Hmmm. I think that young Josh might be going through a bit of a funny phase at the moment, though. He seems a bit too keen on trying to appear all tough and masculine, with an apparent disregard for anything remotely feminine.
It’s ever since we caught him trying to knit that cardigan in his lunchbreak last week.
He actually went to get a tattoo done the other day. He was supposed to be coming back with a bold new image of a dragon eating a tiger fiercely emblazoned across his chest.
He reckoned that he changed his mind at the last minute, as he wanted to save the money for some new bodybuilding equipment instead.
I think we all know that he ran out screaming in terror at the very first sight of that needle.
But coming back to Pinterest…….is it really aimed predominantly at women simply wanting to share recipes? Or is it actually a fabulous new platform with which anyone at all can effortlessly raise their Small Business profile? Just how does it all work anyway?
Let’s take a little look at this intriguing new Social Media channel and try to pin down this platform for ourselves….
Essentially, Pinterest is simply a new arena in which users can upload and share images and ideas and notes on Virtual Pinboards.
The challenge for any smart-thinking Small Business (once you’ve set up a new account and created your own unique virtual board) is to craft compelling marketing images and designs and updates which can be pinned to your board, and hopefully inspire the loyal followers of your board to share (or ‘repin’) the idea with others on their own boards!
It’s not a million miles away from Facebook or Twitter.
People can easily choose to ‘follow’ your virtual business board, and thereby subscribe to all your new updates (or ‘new pins’.)
Followers can ‘like’ or comment upon your new pins in exactly the same way as they can on Facebook, and you naturally have the same power to moderate these comments quickly and efficiently, with very little fuss.
Additionally, in much the same way that a powerful re-tweet on Twitter can spread your message far and wide to a whole new audience, your engaging marketing messages here on Pinterest have the potential to be shared across a diverse range of other unique boards with a simple repin from an appreciative follower.
So far so good…..but can’t we already do this kind of stuff on our existing Social Media pages? What’s so special about Pinterest? What makes it any different from Facebook, Twitter, Google+ , and all the rest?
Well, perhaps the key attraction of running your own virtual business board on Pinterest is that it’s just so deliciously visual, in a way that the other social media sites can’t currently hope to begin to compete with.
Whereas the majority of other Social Media platforms are so heavily reliant on the power of the written word, Pinterest offers a pretty funky and dynamic image-driven experience, which encourages you to get those creative juices flowing and approach your marketing in a brand new graphically engaging style.
It looks and feels fresh, zesty, fantastically appealing, and utterly unique.
So, is it working? And why has it been labelled by some as a women-only zone? (Which, naturally, would be bad news for mainstream marketing, as you’re missing out half the population!)
Well, it’s true to say that a significant majority of active Pinterest users are currently female, and that many of those virtual boards out there right now are geared heavily towards such topics as recipes, makeup, weddings, hairstyles, and baby showers.
So, young Josh wasn’t entirely wide of the mark with his pretty brief conclusions above. He just wasn’t thinking very far ahead.
Because as Pinterest continues to gain incredible momentum and grow quite rapidly in popularity (in a manner which has frankly taken a lot of people by surprise!), it’s inevitable that the male population has finally started to sit up and take notice of this latest success story in Social Media.
Some of the latest boards now cropping up cover a wider range of topics including music, movies, sport, books, travel, games……pretty much anything at all, in fact.
So the game is now really opening up to cater for every possible taste, and pull in an increasingly wider audience from all walks of life.
The marketing potential here is growing stronger every day, and presenting every Small Business with a terrific chance to interact with a unique new audience in a vibrant and stylish new way.
So, can your Small Business produce a brilliant new board with true pinning power?
Perhaps it’s time to seize this new creative opportunity, and promote your latest product, service, article, offer, or update on your brand new virtual pinboard with a slice of visual magic that will compel your followers to repin your enticing messages and spread the word……..
One quick note of caution for those of you who might want to dive in straight away and get pinning as soon as possible……the site currently operates under a slightly curious ‘invitation request’ system, whereby you register your interest in signing up, and then sit back and wait for Pinterest to get back to you.
I’m currently hearing stories from Small Business owners who have been left dangling for just a little while, so a big dollop of patience might well be recommended at the moment.
It would certainly be in your best interest to request your invitation right now, so that you can at least get the ball rolling…..and you’ll hopefully find the short wait to be worth your while.
Have you explored the pinning power of Pinterest yet?
How would you rate the potential of this strikingly visual new Social Media platform? Do you have any tips or insight on pulling in the best results from your Small Business pins?
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