Why Pinterest for Brands is a Must

Do you remember the last time you actually pinned something on a wall with thumbtacks? We don’t remember either. This vintage concept of pinning thumbtacks on walls was probably forgotten because everyone is pinning on Pinterest – you know, the online pinning site, where you can virtually pin any digital image on the web to your professional or personal Pinterest account? If you know this much, bravo, we can begin now!

There is no stopping Pinterest from expanding. Pinterest is literally the fastest growing social media platform at the moment; it experienced an extraordinary 2,702.2% growth since May 2011, and has surpassed 10 million unique visitors. What does this all mean? This means that Pinterest can offer a tremendous amount of exposure for your business’s brand strategy. If you haven’t caught on to the latest social media marketing strategy yet, take a look at Hubspot’s article on why you should use Pinterest for marketing. Hubspot gives you a better idea of how useful Pinterest is, before we get into actual examples.

What makes a solid Pinterest account? A great Pinterest account features a variety of boards that range from key messages/images from brand (product sales, places, etc.) to subject matter, not directly related, but still relevant content (a humorous picture, places to go, etc.). While Pinterest is good for saving you lots of bucks for advertising, don’t forget that Pinterest is also a place to engage with the audience as well.

Pacific Place shopping center does a great job at executing Pinterst strategy by pinning different kinds of items to their categorized boards. Pacific Place has a board dedicated to fall collection, featuring clothing brands located in Pacific Place. Featuring merchants directly related to Pacific Place is a genuine approach at advertising without the traditional advertisement components of pitching sales or in-your-face promos.

Pacific Place has another board titled “Views” that is definitely worth mentioning. “Views” is a collection of Seattle’s favorite destinations and amazing landscape features. These boards are not directly related to Pacific Place, but they are still loved by fans because they’re easy to engage with. This is what we mean by keeping your boards diverse.

If you’re still skeptical about the prevalence of Pinterest, just look at some of the biggest names using Pinterest to leverage their name. You’ll easily spot names like Mashable, Wall Street Journal, GAP, Whole Foods, Nordstrom, etc.

Although Ellen DeGeneres was not included in the list, she’s definitely well-deserving of honorable mention in our book. (You know she’s awesome when she has a board dedicated to iPhone auto-correct fails.)

Why would big brands need Pinterest if they’re already big? Again, Pinterest (or any social media platform) is not for generating direct sales. It’s about engaging with your audience, listening to them and discovering their lifestyle. As Hubspot would put it: “It’s about finding creative ways to show how those products and services fit into the lifestyles of your target audience…” – I could not agree more. And with 10 million potential new set of eyes that will browse through your boards, it’s quite tempting not to be on Pinterest. Wouldn’t hurt to incorporate into your social media strategy, right?

What is your take on businesses on Pinterest? Leave a comment below to chat!