With Pinterest’s heavy traffic and ever-growing popularity, many brands have been making the leap and joining the site every day. For many, it has been a mecca for pushing traffic to their business, giving them a platform to develop a great community and offering a new way to connect with their audience and spread their brand. In seeing this potential, our clients have been asking, is jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon right for my business?

Make a Strategy

As with any social media site, it is important to educate yourself on the platform, learning what is involved in being a truly active member and how much time it would take to maintain your profile. Not all businesses are right for Pinterest. You need figure out if your offerings and capabilities are compatible for the site and then build a solid strategy before you make the leap. Joining any social media site takes time, effort and, in the case of Pinterest, awesome imagery and great content. So, is your business ready to make the commitment?

Check out our infographic to find out if your business is right for Pinterest. Then read below to learn the 4 incredibly important questions you should ask yourself to find out if your business is ready to join up.

Below are 4 incredibly important questions to ask yourself to find out if your business is ready to join Pinterest:

1. Can you stay active on Pinterest?

Before joining in, it’s important to figure out if you have enough time and effort to stay involved and get the most out of Pinterest. Being active on Pinterest means, pinning, repinning, commenting, or liking images on a regular basis that are relevant to your brand. Daily activity is best, adding roughly 1-30 pins across a variety of your boards. These pins should be from your own content, other original sources on the internet and users on the site. All this activity takes time—a lot of it. Pinterest can become a time-suck for your business if you do not have a strategy in place for how you are going to use it and how much time in a day you will spend being involved on the site.

Worried you may not have the time to stay active? A great way to get pins on your board regularly is to invite guest pinners to collaborate on your boards. Just make sure they share the vision and values of the company and will pin content relevant to your business. People love to follow users that are active pinners—If you join the site and remain inactive, you’ll go nowhere. You will need to make sure you can allot enough time and effort into staying involved on the site to reap the greatest benefits for your business.

2. Do you have visually engaging imagery, or can you create it?

Pinterest is an exceptionally visual space. People go there to get inspired, collect and organize the things they find across the internet—and being able to contribute visually interesting content is vital. if your business is already producing great imagery, you have a jump start on what you need to be involved on Pinterest. If you don’t already have great images, it’s time to create them. You may consider hiring a professional photographer or graphic designer to help enhance the imagery on your site or blog if you’re not able to produce it yourself. The question is, does your business have the time, money and energy to create content? If yes, then Pinterest may be right for you.

Eye catching images and content are one of the most vital parts of successfully marketing your business on Pinterest.

3. Is your target audience using Pinterest?

Before you jump on to Pinterest you need to ask yourself, who is my target audience? If it’s female, you’re at an advantage. About 80% of Pinterest users are female, so having a product or service that appeals to that demographic is important to your success with the site. You must consider if your product or service is something that will visually appeal to women or if it’s something a woman may purchase, find helpful or want to share. This is not to say that a male-oriented product may not do well, you may just have to change your approach and get creative with how you showcase your brand across the site. The key to being successful on Pinterest is figuring out how your business can fit into the lifestyle of the highly female user base. If you can, Pinterest may be for you.

4. Do you have more to share than just what you do?

Pinterest is all about content you share, not only the product or service you provide. Sharing your own products and services on Pinterest is great, but your page shouldn’t be limited to your own work. Users get turned off when a brand becomes too salesy. They want to see items that are useful or interesting to them, not just a product list. Pinterest is all about telling a story with your brand, using imagery and content to build a lifestyle around your business. It gives you a way to reveal more about your brand personality rather than just your product line.

Use Pinterest to clarify who you are by posting inspiring images, news, tips, infographics, customer photos, or products from other companies. Pins can be used to highlight aspects of your business that may not come to mind when people first think about your brand. For example, if you own a hotel, Pinterest would not only be a great opportunity to show off your property, but you could create boards of local attractions, best scenic areas, local deals, dining spots, or even tips on how to pack your suitcase. Sharing more than just what you do will give users more reasons to connect and follow your business.

Petplan Pet Insurance is a good example of a business that is sharing information beyond what they do. You wouldn’t necessarily think insurance would be an ideal candidate for a Pinterest page, but with all the boards dedicated to different aspects of our furry friends, they have succeeded in using Pinterest to tell a story about their company.

Should your business join Pinterest?

If you can answer yes to all these questions, you should definitely consider getting on board with Pinterest. This means you’ve got the drive, resources, and creativity to make Pinterest a successful marketing tool for your business. If your answer is no to the majority of these questions, your offerings may not be completely compatible with Pinterest. It’s going to take a lot more energy for your business to be successful on the site. You must then determine if the benefits are worth your time or if pursuing alternative social media or marketing options would be more of an advantage to your business.

For more pinteresting tips on Pinterest, check out my related post:
How to Increase Your Pinterest Followers: 20 Pinteresting Tips
How to Create Pinterest Images that People Love to Pin: 7 Pinteresting Tips

And as always, don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest, and of course, Zoom Creates.