Why Your Business Shouldn't Avoid Pinterest

What is Pinterest? It is an image-sharing social website that started in 2011 and literally exploded on the social media scene in 2012. Users create virtual "pinboards" where they post and share online content that they enjoy. Users also browse other pinboards and "repin" content that they like onto their own boards.

Pinterest is a site of visual stimuli. People are literally addicted to the platform, living vicariously through the images that they see. When they look at, like and repin images, people are thinking, "I want to see this place one day," "I want my day to go this way," "I want my house to look like this," "I want to look like this," "I want to wear this," or "I want to buy this now or one day." It provides users with the opportunity to materialize their imagination as well as their goals and dreams (while maintaining an anonymous profile if they so choose). In essence, it is a virtual vision board and a virtual wish list.

To be honest, I didn't learn about Pinterest until I noticed a large amount of traffic coming to my online lifestyle magazine while reviewing the site's analytics. Through a little bit of digging, I realized that a large portion of the website's traffic was coming directly from Pinterest. After joining the website, I found out that certain articles from my website were repinned by many users on the social media platform, generating thousands of pageviews and visits. Pinterest operated like a silent social media marketer on my behalf, and I was stunned by the positive impact that it had on my site's traffic (and  subsequently, its revenue) overall.

While Pinterest may already benefit your company in some way with no effort on your behalf, you want to intentionally take advantage of the marketing advantages that the image sharing site offers for your business. From a marketing perspective, the platform gives you direct access to people's direct likes and dislikes. According to Forbes.com, "marketers can easily see a goldmine of information on potential customers. For example, an interior design marketing team can see who is influential in the home decor section. They can then start following and see what trends people are repinning and liking."

Unlike viral videos on the web, Pinterest traffic to your site never really dies down. Let's say many people repin an image from your website. The repinning may pick up really fast and slow down, and then randomly pick back up several days later after someone else sees the image on someone's board, repins it, and by doing so, shares that image with their Pinterest followers. As a result, the platform has endless possibilities of increased traffic and revenue to your website and business.

Here are some random Pinterest facts that you should know about:

• Pinterest buyers spend more money more often and on more items than any of the top five social media sites.
• People who use Pinterest on average follow 9.3 retail companies on the platform. 
• Pinterest pins which include prices receive 36% more likes than those that do not.
• The number of daily Pinterest users has increased by 145% since January 2012.
• Pinterest leads in both awareness and visitation among social image sharing sites (like Tumblr) with 36% of online consumers aware and 19% visiting.
• Pinterest generates 4x more revenue per click as Twitter and 27% more revenue per click than Facebook. 
• 81% of online consumers trust information and advice from Pinterest. In comparison, Facebook's percentage is 67%, and Twitter's percentage is 73%. 
• Pinterest attracts 1,090 visitors per minute.
• Pinterest retains and engages users as much as 2-3 times more efficiently than Twitter was at a similar time in history of their platform's lifespan. 
• Pinterest drives sales directly from its website.
• Of people with Pinterest accounts, 21% have purchased an item after seeing it on Pinterest.
• Pinterest generated more referral traffic for business than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. 
• 97% of its users are women.

I encourage you to get involved on Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) and experience it for yourself before using it to promote your business. After you get comfortable with the site, you should start developing a strategic plan for marketing your business on the social media platform. Stay tuned to the Stafford Business Group blog for tips on how to get the most out of your marketing efforts on Pinterest.