What's Pinterest and Why Should I Care?

In the never-ending assault on your marketing budget, new methods for branding and product placement have to be met with some caution. One service has come along that's getting as much attention in the marketing world as Jeremy Lin is in the basketball world.

This service is Pinterest, an online pinboard tool.

Before getting into what exactly Pinterest is and how you can use it to grow your business and brand, let's look at the cold, hard numbers. Last month, Pinterest nearly doubled its total lifetime visitors, meaning momentum and awareness is on the rise. Secondly, the service is already ranked #7 among all social media sites based on unique visitor growth, and is right on the tail of LinkedIn in this area.

You can't ignore growth like that.

So, what does this service do? Basically it is a way for you to compile images (and videos) you like from websites into one place. Instead of uploading images, you are essentially making a copy of images from across the web and keeping them on your "pinboard." You can have many different pinboards to keep organized. Images are linked back to their original source, meaning the website where they came from. Users can "repin" images from other users' pinboards, add comments, as well as share and follow pinboards.

Images don't just reside solely on users' pinboards. Users can instantly share images via their Twitter and Facebook profiles. One popular image could potentially reach across nearly one billion user accounts!

While it may be obvious without saying, the type of content that goes up on Pinterest is visually engaging. As one popular blogger put it, "Everything you can eat with your eyes goes." It's very common to see slices of cake, fashionable shoes, sparkling jewelry, hair style designs, tech gadgets, and "destination" images dominate pinboards.

Therefore, if you sell or make cake, shoes, jewelery, or gadgets or style hair or are in a destination like the East End, you've got something to offer the majority of Pinterest users!

If you're ready to use Pinterest for marketing purposes, here are four tips to make it work for you:

1. Share (repin) existing content. Don't spend time scouring the web for great images. Reuse what others have found. It'll draw those established users toward your pinboard and brand.
2. Pin your product images and videos from your own website. Create different pinboards based on your product categories. Remember, in a visual medium, your angle is to promote a "lifestyle" through your products.
3. Be smart in your descriptions. You have to add a text description for your images. Make it fun and about your brand. If you include a dollar sign ($) your image will get a sale tag placed on it by Pinterest. Users can select "gifts" in Pinterest to see exactly what's for sale.
4. Include a "follow me on Pinterest" button on your website along with your other social media buttons. (Hamptons Creative Group will be adding one of our own soon.)

Are you one of the nearly 15 million users on Pinterest? How are you using it? If you're not on there yet and could use some help, let Hamptons Creative Group know so we can be there for you: http://www.hamptonscreative.com/contact

View other posts on marketing, design, and promotion here: http://hamptonscreative.com/interact/