Much like its social network cousins Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest started out as just a way for people to share stuff to the world, in its case photos of whatever catches their fancy. On the surface, Pinterest is a fun social media site where users can express themselves by way of creating and managing photo collections that pertain to their personal preferences, hobbies, events, and commenting on other users’ collections, which are referred to as “pin boards”. Since it was launched in 2010, however, Pinterest has evolved into something else, and we’ll get to that in a moment.
Pinterest at a Glance
The whole gimmick for Pinterest revolves around the idea of users “pinning” photos on the Internet to a pin board on its site. These photos are categorized accordingly, and are shared with other Pinterest users who share the same tastes and interests. At present, picture collections that fall under sports, travel, fashion, film, art, cars, home design and humor are proving to be popular among Pinterest users.
Today, however, Pinterest has become more than just a place to share favorite photos. Now the world’s third most popular social media site after Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is showing a lot of promise as an e-commerce site.
Why Pinterest Should Be Of Interest To Your Online Business
In its relatively young life, Pinterest has earned a reputation as a great source of traffic for retail sites. Pinterest is now regarded as being on the same level as its bigger and older cousins Facebook and Twitter as far as traffic referrals to e-commerce sites are concerned. Much of this owes to the way Pinterest works. Every single image that is pinned on Pinterest has a link back to the website source, and users can re-pin and comment on those images, so you can imagine the kind of feedback that it would generate. Pin an image of any of your products, and you will certainly have a lot of traffic thrown to your e-commerce site’s way.
To further show you how good Pinterest can be for your business, consider these:
- Sharing pinboards or images is actively encouraged, and Pinterest users have been found to be highly likely to share those photos with others. That means your images—and the link to your e-commerce site—can be disseminated pretty quickly.
- The site is populated by people who actively post links to retail sites
- Studies have shown that Pinterest referrals have higher conversion rates. One such study says those who reach retail sites via Pinterest are ten percent more likely than those who got there via other social networks to buy something from those sites.
- You get to know shoppers’ interests and needs better by following their own pinboards. In turn, you can tweak your own y pinboards, products and services using that information.
There is no denying the benefits Pinterest has to offer your business. It is a fantastic tool to both small and medium-sized businesses. The best part about it is the fact that it’s a fun way to do business as well.
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