pin it like a proYou may be familiar with the way that Facebook and Twitter communicate with their users by using photos to enhance their informational posts, but not everyone realizes that Pinterest reaches its target audience by using images. If you’re like me, ‘pinning’ items to Pinterest can be a fun pastime, but for those in the eCommerce business, Pinterest can be a very useful tool. Seven million users are currently on Pinterest, and of that, 500,000 of those are business accounts, and like most all new social media, this number is growing rapidly. You might be interested to know that as of late 2013, Pinterest is actually growing at a more rapid rate than Facebook. There are hundreds of pins for every category imaginable, and if your company is established on Pinterest, your products can be featured there as well.

Business Accounts

If you want your business to get attention, you need to set up a business account instead of just a personal one. Pinterest offers built-in analytics for businesses, and they can tell you just how well the pins coming from your website are working out on Pinterest. Some of the things that you will be able to evaluate are number of pins, pinners, repins, and repinners, as well as impressions, clicks, visits, and the overall reach. You will want to make sure that your brand info stays the same across all platforms, so use the same recognizable logo as your profile photo, and make sure to like your Pinterest account with your Facebook and Twitter. If you make the mistake of setting up a personal Pinterest account instead of a business one, don’t worry because that is a easy thing to switch over.

Using the Gift Feed

Following up on the Pinterest business accounts, Pinterest recently launched a Gift Feed; which can be extremely beneficial to ecommerce businesses. For eCommerce businesses getting your products listed on the gift feed is an absolute must. This is comparable to Google Shopping before it went payed. The gift feed allows Pinners who have flagged your products to be automatically notified if the price of that product goes down. This feed makes it very easy for you to increase your reach for no additional cost. One thing to note is that you will need to set up rich snippets or rich pins in order for your products to be listed. Adam Thompson wrote a really helpful and comprehensive “how to” on Schema markup over at SEJ, you can read it here.

 

Quality Images

Anyone can tell you that the prettier an image is, the more it will be pinned. You don’t want to use poor quality photos or ones that are too small, as they will not attract very much attention. Vibrant colors always stand out, so avoid dull, boring colors. Because Pinterest is centered on images, you want to use the best quality photography you can, but if you don’t have any images readily available, feel free to repin others’ images. One this that is of the utmost importance is to always give credit where credit is due. Pinterest will allow you to change the URL of an image, and while it may be tempting to link it back to your own website, you should always link it back to its original source to avoid any copyright law troubles.

 

Be Creative

Pinterest is a place to share your dreams and ideas, and to use your imagination freely. Try to relate your ideas to your consumers because the great thing about Pinterest is that anyone can take one of those ideas and make it their own. Feel free to be as creative as you want to be, and try to think outside the box. Don’t feel like you are tied down by your own brand’s limitations; share your vision with the world.