If You Really Must Use Pinterest To Market Your Business- Here’s How To Do It
Ok, I admit it, I’m a Pinterest snob!
I’m starting to get touchy about all these articles in the mainstream press on how to use Pinterest to market your business and how it’s the “New Social Media”. Most of the advice has been misguided at best, others just downright awful.
As someone who has used it for a while (since October 2010) I can already see the difference all these articles are making. There is an influx of marketers who have no idea about the actual users of the site and what they respond to. I’m afraid they will end up ruining it for others by filling the place up with rubbish with the sole intention of promoting their businesses.
Why the big furore?
Pinterest is being touted as the next big thing. A social media bookmarking site that allows users to “pin” content to their “boards”. The media are calling it the new Facebook and business owners are hearing all the success stories and scrambling for invites, imagining it to be the answer to all their dreams. In reality though, the site will not work for everyone and by following some of the so-called advice you may end up breaking the Terms of Use and the Pin Etiquette.
The Pinterest Masterplan?
So I’m starting to get disillusioned. Pinterest must know that this influx of new users on a single minded mission to promote their own businesses is going to cause the site to stumble. Was this Pinterest’s strategy all along? First get the visual design bloggers to start using it, like Erin Loechner from Design for Mankind who I was lucky enough to snag my invite from. Then show the impact the site can have in bringing traffic to websites and blogs. When it becomes mainstream, sell it before it implodes. We’ll just have to see what happens!
I personally use Pinterest to collect images of things I love – just like they say the site is intended for. I don’t feel the need to use it for marketing purposes because I like using it sporadically and to curate images that mean something to me, like my own personal inspiration boards.
I do however get a lot of views to the blog from Pinterest so I can understand why marketers are advising people to use the site with a proactive plan and strategy.
I’m hesitant to do a “how to market your business on Pinterest” post but if you are going to do it, I want you to do it right. I’ve seen articles telling business owners pin your QR codes, coupon codes even resumes! Why?? Are these going to get repined, again and again? Unlikely! Unless you have a lot of followers who are following the particular boards where you are going to pin your coupon codes, not enough people will ever see it. You also risk losing the followers you do have if you start pinning too much self-promoting content.
So from someone who has used the site for a while and not since last week here are my tips for using it to market your business, if you really must ;)
1) Create “pinnable” content.
Probably a no brainer but create content that people want to pin in the first place. Consider the images that get a lot of love on Pinterest and see how yours stack up. Bright, clear photos of products, well styled and of course a product that people actually want. Blurry, dark photos will never get pinned, neither will a product that offers nothing to the world.
You should always be creating the best products you can and present them beautifully. Anything less then no matter what sites you use to promote your work, the response will be minimal at best. Find a book to help you take great photos of your products or you can hire a photographer.
2) Make it easier for people to pin your stuff.
I don’t advise pinning your own items to Pinterest as the terms of use say you shouldn’t use it for commercial activities. Instead add a “pin it” button to your site, blog or shop to encourage other people to pin your work. It also lets them know you are OK with them pinning your content.
The items that they choose to pin will be most likely to resonate with their followers so let them decide which items from your product range they want to share. You are more likely to experience the “viral effect” of Pinterest this way too.
Our free Pantone Colour of The Year Social Media Icons have been pinned and repinned countless times drawing in a huge number of visitors to the blog. I’m convinced it’s where the editors of Babble.com saw them too, prompting a mention on the New Home Ec series.
3) Monitor if your products are being pinned.
Keeping track to see which products are popular is a great way to inform other areas of your business. Use this code to search the site and see if any of your products have been pinned already. You may be surprised to see something is more popular than you thought.
http://pinterest.com/source/yourdomain.com
Side note: Unfortunately this doesn’t work with shops on Etsy because of how they have set up shop domains e.g: http://etsy.com/shop/yourshop
Check out the comments to see what people are saying about your products. This could help advise future product development ideas.
A visual playground
In my opinion the whole point of Pinterest is for people to pin things they see and like. It’s their choice so why force it? I’m happy with letting it happen on it’s own whilst concentrating on providing the best content I can for you, our readers. If you pin something you like, then that is a bonus.
Edited: Of course you don’t NEED to use Pinterest for your business (or at all). Like everything it’s up to you to decide if it is for you. If you are going to use it or make your items easier for people to pin you should read the terms of use in full so you can make an informed decision.
Edited 23:00 Since I published this article I’ve read this post which highlights some very disturbing fine print indicating that all content uploaded to Pinterest by you or others is giving them permission to do what they like with it in the future. This permission (license) cannot be revoked. Click the article to read more so you can make an informed decision over whether you want them to be able to use,sell, distribute your art work and images at some point in the future, if they so wish. I’m hoping Pinterest will address this soon.
How are you using Pinterest? For marketing your business or for pleasure?
Thanks Isa, for the great article and for opening my eyes! I really had no idea what was happening to Pinterest … I’ve been using it since last June to strictly, like you, “pin what I love.” in fact I hardly ever go to the front page because there are way too many tattooed hotties, scary high heels and baby animals for my tastes. Consequently I’m in a bulletin board bubble, happily pinning and paying zero attention to the way the site has changed. How discouraging that the site is being abused and tainted by disingenuous members! Ugh!
Thank you for your comment Rachel. I was in my bubble as well mainly repinning images from the boards I followed. It’s only when I used the search box I noticed that all these random things were coming up! The mainstream media has gone crazy over Pinterest and every business blog advising doctors, estate agents, accountants (non-creatives basically) are all signing up to pin their website homepages and offers! It’s laughable in a way because they clearly have no idea about the people using the site and what they respond to!
I’m fairly new to Pinterest. I’ve mostly been using it for colour inspiration for future projects. Finding colours that work well together isn’t always easy but Design Seed offers tons of colour options derived from great photographs, making it much easier to find well matched colour combinations.
I also used it as an inspiration board to plan my daughter’s birthday party and have collected some photography ideas. Other than that it’s mostly inspiring pictures and some quotes. Since I’m into party decoration I also pin some party styling photos and weddings.
I’ve uploaded a few pictures myself, but only 3 of them are directly related to my shop.
Such good information, Isa.
I have noticed a couple of the people I follow have started adding promotional pins for their shops. “Flash Friday Coupons” etc…. That has always been a turn off for me.
I do absolutely love all the inspiration Pinterest offers. It’s where I turn to first when I need to look something up. I really hope the powers that be are able to keep Pinterest a place for all to enjoy.
Hi Patti thanks for commenting! I think it will be interesting to see what happens to the site in a year or two. I personally love being able to quickly pin inspiration from my phone right before bed, it helps relax me!
Oh gosh, I didn’t realize that was happening either. Though it is super jarring to land on the front page and think “what is this?!” before you remember that you must be signed out. Like you and your commenters, I keep my boards pretty:) I don’t pin much of my own stuff, though I did recently only because I was excited about offering new products.
On a different note, I think it’s interesting how divided the creative community seems to be over Pinterest. I keep stumbling across articles who rail against it for copyright infringement reasons.
Hi Gaia, I’m starting to see it dilute the search results too which is a pain. Pinterest does state you can pin work you are proud of (in the etiquette section) but then says not to use it for commercial gain so it is confusing. The copyright infringement is a whole other post! It is very complicated which is why I advise everyone to read the TOU and make their own decision whether it’s right for you.
I am having an affair with pinterest..in a good way !! haha… saves things for me, nicely curated AND wow there are some cool things you can find on there..I have to limit my time scrolling around. I always try to pin from source so credit will be given to the right person.
For my business I just love when someone pins one of my pieces, it reaches people that you may never have reached otherwise. Plus that product stays on someones board and maybe if they need to buy a gift, they can find my shop so easily. I do not feel I need to PIN my own work so much..the odd thing I will but mostly I love the fact that it may make it unto someones board because that person `loved“it enough to save and show the world.
I really dislike the idea of using Pinterest for marketing purposes. I’ve been using it for a long time now, and I feel like it’s getting more and more inundated with crap. I do try to pin handmade things I admire and want to buy, and I certainly hope those sellers get traffic from my pins.
You just said most of the things that I have been thinking over the last couple of weeks!
Blatant advertising turns people off on every social network yet that seems to be all many businesses know how to do. I love Pinterest and have advised some of my clients to become familiar with it as a way to share a more personal side of themselves and to become a useful resource. I definitely would not recommend it for every business and I would never recommend that people use it to “advertise”.
I personally use it to showcase some of my photography (which can’t be pinned from my website due to the way the site is built) and also as one more place to share some of the how-tos that I post on my parenting blog. It has become an amazing place to reach people I never would have before and it is always a thrill when something I’ve done gets pinned by a complete stranger! But I also use it to gather and store projects that I want to do and things that I love – just for me.
Thanks for writing this post! And I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that Pinterest manages to stay as wonderful and fun as it is now!
Thanks for a great article, Isa. I couldn’t agree more. Matter of fact, I just pinned this ;)
I swapped Pinterest for Tumbler ages ago to create DIY, inspiration boards or just to save something that I’ve seen that I want to blog about or buy. I always pin correctly so the link goes directly back to the post because it’s so infuriating when you have to search through an entire blog to find a tutorial!
Occasionally i do pin my stuff that I’m proud of to see what reaction I get, helps me gauge whether it might be a saleable item.
I wondered what all the sudden influx of pinners was about, now I know and already it’s beginning to get on my nerves ;)
I have a board for craft stall inspiration that people might find useful for all their upcoming fairs!
http://pinterest.com/jacqui_sharples/craft-stall-inspiration/
Thanks Isa, for this post. Im very new to pinterest and it is addicting. I pin colourful items, personal interests and wishlists etc . I do see people on twitter advertising flash sales and pinning their own products .. so it definitely left me confused as to how to use it. I add a pin it button to my images on my website . I haven’t pinned my artwork but I have pinned my colour palettes..
It did leave me wondering if I was self promoting- but the idea of the palette is to inspire people , so Im left a little confused as to how to use it. Anyway, things are a lot more clearer now and I hope Pinterest will take note of the concerns and address them rather than brush it under the carpet.
Great article Isa!
I have such a love/hate thing with Pinterest. Items that do get pinned there seem to fly off the shelves…but I also have MANY items of mine that are pinned without credit, without link to my shop, and even a few where people claimed them as there own (gasp!!). I had a pillow featured in Better Homes & Garden which people then sewed and made copies of and then claimed it was their work featured in the magazine…all via Pinterest. Yuck.
I’ve made mistakes too – I didn’t realize it was against TOU to pin our own items…I had pinned a few things from my shop with the idea that if I pin it first then at list it’s being credited back to me! Ooops.
I really hope Pinterest listens and takes a stand, otherwise it may just self-combust and turn into a yukky junkyard of unlinked, uncredited, unhappy pins.
This is a tough decision, to use or not use. The truth is that even if you don’t pin your own wares up to market to others, people can still find it on their own just by browsing the internet, pin it to their boards and change the verbiage and I suppose ownership. Maybe pinterest needs to prevent the pinner from being able to change the descriptive information businesses assign to their products. Now that I’m aware of how changing the descriptive info can effect the owner/business/person I don’t change it anymore. I (like most others I’m assuming) was only changing it to express my excitement over the item and how it pertained to me (as I have several personal pinning boards and only one for my etsy jewelry store).
I’m looking forward to seeing where all of this goes. I really enjoy using virtual pinboards and hope it will help me with my business a bit as well.
Yesterday i saw tons of ‘Starbucks’ and ‘HM’ pins for coupons. The big businesses have already taken over. Where is the ‘block’ button?
As someone who loves Pinterest I’m a little sad all these issues are popping up, but they are definitely something to take notice of.
Even with their disclaimers, I have many questions about Pinterest’s liability. They are trying to dump it the Pinners, but think they should also be held accountable.
For starters, you aren’t even supposed buy something, like a book for example, and use it for any other intended purpose. If you made a copy of a page from the book and hung it on your wall, this could be considered copyright infringement because you are using it as art without permission.
Taking Pinterest’s own terms of use into consideration, it is against the rules to pin and promote your own work. Most likely, the pinner has not contacted the person about using the photo, so we can assume it is being pinned without permission and/or some sort of release from the creator of the work who holds the copyright.
Neither the pinner or Pinterest received permission from the copyright holder in the first place. Both parties should be liable for using it in any way, shape or form. How can Pinterest even begin to say they have any kind of licensing rights to something pinned to their boards? The person pinning didn’t have the right to use it and the artist’s rights are not transferable without permission. Now that I’m thinking about it, does Pinterest have the rights to post it on their BOARDS without permission. Let alone, store this information on their servers. They are providing the service, so it seems like THEY should have to get permission.
Pinterest seems like harmless fun. But the more I think about it, the more questions I have. The biggest issue that concerns me is what do they plan to do with the (full size) photos and in they are saving? If they weren’t planning something, why try to claim licensing rights?
After all, what company doesn’t want to grow and make money? Eventually, they will want to be compensated for this service. I find it hard to believe they will be satisfied with keeping the boards available out of the goodness of their heart.
Definitely a few things to think about…
Hi Lori, the full size images are a concern for me too. They even specifically ask you to pin nice big images when you sign up! I don’t know what they are planning with them in the future but I do know there was a case with Google that lost, one of the reasons being that Google only save a thumbnail size image on their servers. So it’s interesting that Pinterest do differently. A lawyer must have written their terms of use- you’d think they’d get one with copyright experience!