Looking to reach more potential customers, Westport travel agent Eva Greenwald is building her social media platform. Her main focus? Pinterest.
Pinterest.com, a virtual pinboard for photos and articles, is becoming the newest social media platform for businesses. The website has become a top five web traffic originator, beating out Yahoo!, Bing and Twitter, according to Shareaholic Analytics, which has data from more than 200,000 publishers that reach over 300 million people per month.
“I’ve gotten calls from my Facebook and Twitter and I’m looking forward to it happening on Pinterest,” said Greenwald, who owns Best Cruises and Travel Now L.L.C. in Westport. “I love how I can engage with so many people on social media. There are no geographical boundaries.”
After a week of playing around on the site, Greenwald has roughly 20 “pins” and 30 followers ”“ a proud accomplishment for a business with three employees, she says. Her board topics include “places we can take you,” family travel and destination weddings.
Speaking at a SCORE workshop on social media in Wilton on Sept. 6, social media consultant Diane McKeever said Pinterest is becoming a new way for businesses to connect with consumers. SCORE is a nonprofit education and counseling organization dedicated to expanding small businesses.
When choosing between creating a Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest account, McKeever said businesses need to weigh several questions: How does social media fit into a company’s overall marketing strategy? What is the company’s primary message? Who is the target market?
If women are a target market, a business may want to consider Pinterest, McKeever said. About three-quarters of Pinterest’s users are women. Businesses can market their own products on the site or pin interesting photos and articles related to their business. For companies using the site, the goal is to generate interest in their brands and hopefully bring more traffic to their own website.
Pinboard topics of Scotland-based McKay Flooring Ltd. range from photos of wood flooring to photos of Scottish alcohol. Using McKay’s pinboards as a case study, McKeever said companies selling products don’t necessarily need to post photos or articles a company has created itself.
McKay has used Pinterest to host pinboard contests of interesting flooring or interior designs for a room and none of the photos are McKay products. McKay has roughly 150 Pinterest followers and one competition can generate more than 800 entries and people interacting with the brand. McKay is hosting competitions integrating Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter now as well.
Pinterest even lends well to business-to-business service companies, McKeever said. PediaStaff, a pediatric therapist staffing company, has used Pinterest to post quick tips and ideas related to child development. The pinboards don’t necessarily relate to the company’s core business activities, but the site has nearly 30,000 followers. With 14,500 pins to 136 pinboards, thousands have connected with the company, creating broad brand recognition for the company among users generally interested in children.
Drawing an analogy between the site and cutting out magazine photos, McKeever said the days of paper-filled “idea” filing cabinets are long gone. The upside? The photos you keep and make note of will actually get looked at again, she said.
