Have you been Pinteresting? If not, you should seriously consider this.
Pinterest, the up-and-coming social media site, is now all the rage. And like other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, not to mention professional media sites such as Linkedin, Pinterest is an excellent outlet for pet businesses. And like the others, it's free.
Here's what Pinteresting is all about, how it can benefit your business and how to get started.
Pinterest History
This social media superstar is essentially a virtual scrapbook/photo album that was co-founded in 2010 by Paul Sciarra, who exited the company in April 2012, and Yale University graduate Ben Silbermann, a native of Iowa who previously worked for Google. Silbermann is now the company's CEO.
Despite a slow start, the site has exploded in recent times; It now boasts an average of 10 million unique users per month, making it the fastest growing standalone site to attract that many viewers in a specific time frame in Internet history. In fact, the site experienced a whopping 85 percent increase in unique visitors between January and February 2012.
Industry insiders claim that Pinterest is especially appealing because it's easy to use, well-organized and chock-full of beautiful images (you can also post video links). Users can "pin" images that appeal to them, then others can "repin" or like the images, similar in concept to Facebook's "share" and "like" features. One can also link their Pinterest pins to their Facebook and Twitter pages, allowing you to reach a wider audience.
Meanwhile, the Shareaholic Internet content-sharing company reports that Pinterest now drives more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. So this is obviously a valuable arena for business marketing and promotions.
Pinteresting to Promote a Pet Business
Just to give you some examples of how other businesses and organizations are using Pinterest to market themselves, here are links to the Pinterest pages for:
ASPCA
Martha Stewart
PetSmart
Because of its visual appeal, ease of use and growing popularity, the possibilities for promoting and marketing a pet business through Pinterest are virtually endless.
The site is also especially valuable to online retailers. According to a report from marketing analytics company Experian Hitwise, the site is now the top referral traffic driver for retailers, particularly in terms of driving traffic to retailer websites.
This is great for small brick and mortar retailers, too, because Pinterest offers many opportunities to localize content and enable your business to reach out to and engage your community. For example, you could post photos and info about doggie parks, in-store pet adoption and promotional events or, if you're a pet groomer, before and after photos of your furry clients.
As with any form of social media marketing, you should avoid merely hawking your wares. Rather, it's best to present information that's within the customers' best interests, and to engage your audience.
You could invite customers to pin photos of their pets. Additionally, you might offer news viewers can use, such as timely info about seasonal pet allergies, just to give one idea; Pet adoption tips; Interesting pet trivia; And so on. The sky really is the limit.
How to Start Pinteresting
To access the Pinterest home page, just click on this link. You will then need to request an invite to join by supplying your e-mail address. You will receive your invite via e-mail, after which you can pin to your heart's content.
One cautionary note: Be careful about the pictures that you use, because there have been some concerns about copyright infringement in regard to Pinterest. While it's rather unlikely that pet products companies would take offense to your using images of their products that you have for sale, others who hold copyrights might not share those sentiments.
It's often time-consuming to get permission from others to use their images. So it's best to get your images from creative commons sources such as flickr or, better yet, take photos yourself, have your employees take them for you or encourage your customers to submit their own pictures.
As with any form of social media marketing, this does require a commitment of time and effort. But, ultimately, the effort will pay off because this is an excellent marketing and promotional tool that's a great complement to other social media.