Pinterest for Small Business

In my first blog I talked about one of my favorite stores, Dress Up Boutique, and its social media strategy. While Dress Up was succeeding in some areas of social media, they were desperately failing in the Pinterest department. Which actually is not very surprising. Pinterest is a quagmire to a lot of businesses. How do you communicate your brand, mission, and core values within some random pins with short captions and boards? Rather than leave the Pinterest predicament as I did before I thought I would go into more detail as to how Pinterest can benefit small businesses.

Stores like Dress Up Boutique, Red Dress Boutique, Pitaya, Encore, Cheeky Peach, Entourage (the list could go on) and all other small business boutiques, Pinterest is the place to be. Pinterest is a social media platform that is largely dominated by millennial women ranging from the ages of 15-29. This just so happens to be the same age range that most boutiques target. The first step of any similar type of business that does not currently have a Pinterest profile is to get one. Otherwise they are missing out on a fantastic marketing opportunity.

Businesses should be thinking about the content they're putting out and the visual appeal when pinning. Being a very image-centric website, professional and content related pictures are key. Content that relates back to a blog, article or other interactive forums have been proven to have more "clicks" than those that relate back to a shopping site. Marketers should also use Pinterest as a way to generate positive consumer sentiment and loyalty to the brand rather than to increase sales. As other social media sites, one should always adhere to the 80/20 rule.

Pinterest can also be used to understand your typical customer better. Have a follower who is constantly repining your content? Check out their boards and interests. Even follow them back. After a while your home Pinterest page will be full of your potential customers and the content that they're interested in. It's almost like free market research!

Boards should be relevant and on track the the business' mission. It is very easy to get "pin happy" and want to start a new board with every new trend on the runways. The biggest mistake businesses make is having an overwhelming Pinterest profile with over 30 boards. Keep it simple. Have a board that relates to each new season's outfits. After a year evaluate which products had the most repin interaction and then delete! Yes you heard me right, take care of some Spring cleaning. Product that is no longer available or in season should be taken off Pinterest boards in order to keep a polished and up to date page. Can you imagine a small business that starts a new board every time they get new product in and never deleted anything after 5 years of business? Followers would be so overwhelmed that they may not even take the time to look through your more relevant pins. So keep it simple, on point, and on track with the business mission.

When in doubt, talk it out. Reach out to your fellow marketers and coworkers at your small business to see how they might feel about a pin or new board idea. What may seem like the next big Pinterest epiphany to you might actually not correspond to your business values and goals. Enjoy Pinterest but keep it relevant.

And when Pinterest is done right, this might happen:

Customer repins dress they like on Pinterest and get involved with the brand....

And then they buy it themselves. 

There goes my paycheck again. Some tips taken from: http://www.godigitalmarketing.com/pinterest-effectively-market-small-business/.