Using Pinterest for business may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of this relative newcomer to the social media scene. But with explosive growth and the ability to drive traffic to your website, Pinterest is certainly a tool worth considering.
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How to Use Pinterest for Business
Before you get started using Pinterest for business, it’s important to ask what the end goal is. Will you be using it for branding purposes? To drive traffic? To showcase your organization for potential new hires?
It’s also important to think through the implications of using yet another tool. It will require oversight and management to accomplish any of the goals we just mentioned.
“You can’t just make one board.” Kelly Dingee told us in a recent BLR webinar. “You need to make sure that you break up the information so that you’re sharing lots of different boards with people – lots of different information – so that it’s very, very easy for people to learn more about your organization in the bite-sized pieces they want.”
Doing it right takes time – and the interaction must be both ways. A company can’t just put information out there and expect others to just consume it without any further engagement from the organization. Follow, repin, and engage – don’t just post your own things.
Another important tip is to be sure to link back to all of your other social media sites. Give people as much opportunity as possible to connect with you in other ways. In other words, think about using the site as a marketer and think of how it will be good for the brand. One such example is that Pinterest can drive traffic to your website.
“When I was learning about Pinterest when I was first starting to use it, and I realized that that was part of the purpose was to drive traffic back to websites – and that Pinterest actually does a better job at driving traffic back to your website than Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media site – it kind of got my attention.” Dingee explained.
Best Practices in Using Pinterest for Business
With all of these exciting uses of Pinterest for business, where should you begin? Here are some best practices:
- Include a summary about your company on your Pinterest page
- Link back to your website
- Include all other social media accounts
- Have plenty of boards so that people can explore at their own pace
- Have plenty of pins
- Create boards for a variety of topics and name them in a way that draws interest
For more information on using Pinterest for business, order the webinar recording of “Pinterest for Business: Engage Your Audience, Promote Events, and Reinforce Your Brand.” To register for a future webinar, visit http://store.blr.com/events/webinars.
Kelly Dingee is a strategic recruiting manager and leads the research team at Staffing Advisors. She is also a regularly featured writer on the talent management blog “Fistful of Talent.”