Can you really use Pinterest for local business marketing? That is the question!
Many small business owners I speak with look at me as if I have two heads when I mention Pinterest. While the social site is growing rapidly in popularity, it isn’t as popular as old favourite Facebook.
Of course, there’ a but…
Pinterest continues to grab the eyeballs of us Brits with its ever scrolling pages of delightful images (usually of food, in my stream anyway!)
Wallblog recently published a survey with some interesting UK stats, including:
- between May 2012 and May 2013 unique users from within the UK grew two and a half times, from 1.295m to 3.204m (comScore)
- 38% of UK Pinterest users are male
- women spend 75% more time per visit on Pinterest than men (5.7mins vs 3.2mins)
Not to mention more and more brands report that Pinterest drives more buyers to their websites than Facebook. Fabulous if you have an e-commerce website.
However, the majority of local businesses don’t have an online shop. Can it help you?
Pinterest for Local Business
Last month, Pinterest introduced Place Pins. I dribbled and drooled and got very excited over the prospect. Granted, the new Place Pins were aimed at those pinners who share their travel exploits. It does provide a great opportunity to start driving people back to your local business website as well as increase your overall online visibility.
To use Pinterest for local business marketing, there are 4 things you must put in place:
1. Use a business account and verify your website. This will give you access to analytics so you can see what is working for you.
If you already have a Pinterest account it is very easy to convert to a business account.
Click the button on the top left
Click the businesses link at the bottom of the pop up
Click convert here and fill out the form that pops up
To verify your website, I have a quick video on this post “How to Verify Your Website On Pinterest“
2. Get your website approved for place pins/rich pins
This is a bit more in-depth, and I’ll cover how to add rich pins in my next blog post
3. Create boards and pins with keyword rich titles and descriptions. Use your location in the descriptions too
4. Create one or more “Places” board that includes the map pins. Again, I’ll cover how to do that in a new post.
Then all that is left to do is get pinning! You could start with this handy image I created while trying out Canva.
Over the coming week, I’ll share more information on how you can pin down (*groans* bad pun!) Pinterest and start using it to market your local business online.
Over to you…
Are you on Pinterest? Why not share your link in comments and I’ll pop over and follow you. You can find me on Pinterest slowly overhauling my boards at www.pinterest.com/mlbojan
How to Use Pinterest for Local Business Marketing by Jan Kearney
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I will be interested in what you reveal during the next post. Please let me know when the new post is out!
Women versus men – makes sense that we gals would be pinning more than gents – after all, it’s FOOD and FASHION that probably gets the most pins. eh?
Apparently popular pins are DIY and crafts over here in the UK Bonnie – although my feed always seems to be full of food! Next post coming up soon, I think you’ll like that one as a blogger 🙂
I am not ready to venture into Pinterest just yet, but when I am I will go back to this blog. There are very easy instructions to follow. Thanks for this blog.
You’re welcome Rochelle – thanks for popping in 🙂
I love pinterest, and a lot of my views come from there. I have transferred my account to a business account. But I noticed that a blogger I just guest posted for has at the bottom of the pins that come from her site the title of the post, and the blog’s name. It is automated as that is what happened to it when I pinned from her site. How does she do that?
Hi Tammy, the automagically adding the title and blog name will be covered in my next post 🙂 Thanks for popping in!
Hi Jan,
A very informative interesting article, as always.
Pinterest has become a very attractive option for me since I created my own local business website. Looking forward to learning about Rich Pins! I am not sure how I can use Places board though, but maybe I need to read more about it.
Best wishes,
Galina
Fab post Jan. How did you create the ‘numbers’ images (1-4) by the way?
Super post Jan and very easy to follow! I’m off to change my Pinterest account and look forward to your next article.
Great stuff Marilyn – I’ll look you up 🙂
Awesome news. I just noticed that place pins as well through Pinterest so I’m really curious to see how businesses take advantage of it.
I see very few place pins fly through at the mo – will be interesting to see how businesses embrace them. Thanks for popping in Misty 🙂