Pinterest & the People Who Live There

 

So, you’ve heard about Pinterest and you’d like to find a way to make it work for your business. This is one of the most popular social media websites ever created, that is saying something because there have been dozens of astronomically successful social media websites in the past decade or two. In fact, Pinterest is such a force to be reckoned with that they have now earned the number three spot in social media website rankings. That means there are Facebook, Twitter and then Pinterest. Any business person that wants to increase their revenue and online presence should be on Pinterest.

What is Pinterest? How does it Work?
Pinterest is a social bookmarking site. Basically, it is a place where people hang out, and when they find something cool, they show it to all of their friends. While the social bookmarking site was not a new concept by any means when Pinterest launched, they were one of the first to include a visual component as the basis for a social media website.
When you post something on Pinterest, it has to have an image as the basis of the post. You post – or “pin” your photos on a virtual pinboard, and can “repin” other people’s images from their own feeds. Pinterest is different than the traditional social media sharing site because people can create their own boards that people can browse so that someone who only wants to look at the photos in a single category doesn’t have to sift through every picture that the user has ever posted, such as the case with both Facebook and Twitter.
You sign up for Pinterest the same way you do other websites – with an email address and password, or you can use your Google or Facebook account to log in. Pinterest is already integrated with all of the major social media sites.

Why Has Pinterest Become so Popular?
Pinterest has grown to be the number three social media site on the internet, which is impressive considering that they were competing against giants like Google Plus, Stumbleupon and Digg. They obviously do something different than the sites mentioned, which is part of the reason visitors have flocked to set up boards and pin their favorite pics. Today’s world runs on visual stimuli and that’s exactly what Pinterest provides to their users. Here are a few other reasons that the site has grown to epic proportions.

Reason #1: The way the site is set up
The designers behind Pinterest knew what they were doing when they created the way that content is organized and accessed. On other social media sites, particularly Facebook and Twitter, it is not only difficult for you to bookmark content you want to check out at a later date, it is also almost impossible to find an image that you’re looking for from a specific user.
Particularly with Twitter, you pretty much have no choice but to go backwards through every image the person has ever posted including their videos if you want to see a particular image and as far as finding content that you posted, if you tweet a lot what you are looking for is probably going to get lost in the shuffle, never to be seen again.
The files on Pinterest are a lot more organized and conducive to a search for a particular one. All the files within the pin board are organized and you can easily see which image links to which website. So, if you want to save content for later to read you can put it on its own pin board and then browse it at your leisure. This is something unique that Pinterest has and other sites don’t.

Reason #2: You don’t need a lot of followers
Another reason that the Pinterest site is so successful is that even people that only have a few followers will still have plenty to do. With Facebook, people can see the content that you post on your timeline but only those who’ve liked your page or people that are following you. Same goes for Twitter. The only people that can see your updates are your own followers.
With Pinterest, things are a little different. When you share you’re sharing with the entire community. You will often find people you don’t know commenting on your pins after seeing them in their ‘Everything’ updates.
If you share something really cool, Pinterest might move your pin to the featured or popular section of Pinterest, or you’ll get even more visitors; that means that even if you only have a few followers, if you post something great it can still go viral.

Reason #3: You don’t have to get the kitchen sink when you follow someone
With Facebook and Twitter, if you decide to follow someone, you will get all of their public updates, whether or not they apply to you. That’s just the nature of social media. But what if you could choose only the tweets that you want to see from that person? That’s essentially what Pinterest does. Since the content is posted to different boards within someone’s account, you can choose the board that you want updates on. If you’re not interested in something, you don’t have to subscribe to it. Of course, you still have the option to follow every board by that person as well.

How You Can Use Pinterest for your Business
Pinterest is a great tool. We’re going to explore how you can use this social media site to promote your business in the remaining chapters, but basically, you post content on your site, share it on Pinterest, and try to get traffic from there to your own website. So, if you post great pictures, Pinterest can be a huge source of traffic for your business, some of whom may turn into one-time or long-term customers.

What Kind of People Use Pinterest?
According to statistical analysis and research that has been done on the demographics of Pinterest, the audience members that use the social media site are the perfect people to advertise to. Many of them are high-income families, business owners and people looking for inspiration on what to buy. The Pinterest audience is ready-made to funnel to your website and send to your checkout, but you need to make sure that you are respecting your audience and doing everything you can to contribute, rather than just be posting to try to sell something. People use social media sites to be sociable, and businesses that understand this, and make sure their business is connecting with followers, are the ones that are most successful.