Hello, my name is Abby and I am completely, unabashedly, happily addicted to Pinterest.
Have you jumped on the bandwagon, yet? If not, you might want to give it a shot. I mean, c’mon—everyone’s doing it!
No, seriously. Pinterest is rapidly gaining ground in the social media arena. According to Hubspot, between May 2011 and May 2012 Pinterest had a +4377% growth. How’s that for peer pressure?
Still not convinced? Let me give you a few reasons why you might want to explore this fantastic new social media outlet:
Pinterest is popular. I mentioned this before, but it’s a big reason to get involved. Pinterest is the third most popular social network behind Facebook and Twitter, which means it’s beating out sites like LinkedIn and Google+. The Huffington Post announced that Pinterest “hit 10 million unique monthly views faster than any standalone site in U.S. history.”
It drives sales. The average order from a Pinterest user on shopify stores is $80—more than Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Almost 30% of pinners have an annual household income of more than $100,000. People on Pinterest are compiling boards on the kinds of things that interest or inspire them, including items they want to purchase.
The reach is incredible. Pinterest has more referral traffic percentages than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn. Not only that, but pinners can connect to the site through their Facebook or Twitter accounts, which means that their pins get shared via multiple networks to all their friends and followers. In this aspect, Pinterest’s reach is, without exaggeration, pretty astounding.
Lots of potential for engagement. Pinterest users spend an average of 89 minutes a day on the site, which is even more than Facebook. Pinners are clearly invested in the network and how they can use it. There is no limit to the ways you can engage with your customers on the site: you can add a Pin It button on your website, especially your blogs; you can create contests around pinning; you can also follow your customers’ pins and comment on their boards, creating tons of opportunities for conversations.
Branding. If you check out other companies’ pages on Pinterest you might be surprised at what you’ll learn about them. A great example is GE’s Pinterest page, where they’ve created a board on “Badass Machines” and another called “Cancer Pintherapy.” With their page, GE is showing us who they are and what they’re all about. The creative aspects of Pinterest can give you tons of ways to demonstrate your brand. And the visual format of pins and boards makes it so easy to do!
