Small businesses need all the attention they can get if they are going to make it through the turbulent early years of their operations. All businesses are going to struggle early on, but the challenge is even greater for smaller entities that have precious little capital to work with.
The good news for small businesses is that there are more tools currently available that can aid in their growth and continued success. Social networking sites, in particular, have proven to be incredibly helpful.
While most probably already know about the value of using Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram, Pinterest deserves the attention of small business owners as well. By pouring time and resources into Pinterest, small business owners can effectively expand and build themselves up.
Included below are some of the top reasons why Pinterest is beneficial to small businesses.
Businesses of all sizes have flocked to Facebook and Twitter in the hopes of reaching more people. For the most part, those platforms have been helpful to businesses, but there are also instances where they have been detrimental to the brands.
How many times have you seen companies posting a status update or a tweet that looks woefully tone-deaf or ill-advised in general? That tends to happen on Facebook and Twitter because those platforms cater more to individuals. When brands are trying to seem too much like people, their messages may not always hit the mark.
Now, compare that with Pinterest; businesses will be greeted by a more accommodating landscape. Folks know that they will often interact with businesses while they are browsing through Pins, and they are fine with that.
Even if you’re inexperienced when it comes to social media, you can feel comfortable using Pinterest because you don’t need to pretend to be a random person using the website.
Pins are what people and businesses use to communicate on Pinterest. They will often contain either a video or image of some kind, but businesses can also put links in them. If you’re a small business owner, you will want to take advantage of that feature.
What’s great about placing links to your website inside a Pin is that it provides the viewer with a quick way to reach you. They don't need rerouting to another place or jump through extra hoops to learn about your business because there's a link right in front of them.
The direct links to your website will be even more useful if you are introducing new web pages. You can generate organic traffic more efficiently with the help of those direct links.
It probably comes as no surprise that Pinterest’s reach pales in comparison to other social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but that doesn’t mean that it has a limited user base.
According to Statista, Pinterest boasts a monthly active user base of around 335 million people worldwide. Narrowing our focus to the United States also reveals that the site has an awareness reach of 72 percent.
What that means is that even if you base your business in North County, San Diego, you can still have productive interactions with people from all parts of the country, whether they’re up in Maine or down somewhere on the east coast in Florida.
You should also strongly consider using Pinterest even if you’re looking to target mobile users. The site reaches around 36 percent of the available mobile United States audience, which is nothing to sneeze at.
In keeping with what we talked about earlier, Pinterest users also have no problem with encountering businesses and brands as they browse the site. Many even indicated that they like to use Pinterest to keep up with their favorite brands.
The Pins you’ll find on Pinterest will feature images and videos, but you can get creative with what you post if you want to.
You can opt to post pictures and videos of the products you’re selling, but you don’t need to stop there. If you want to give folks more interesting pieces of content, you can also post infographics or include direct links to blogs or articles that they also find valuable.
Touting your brand on Pinterest is certainly a worthwhile strategy, but the point is that you don’t need to limit yourself to that.
In addition to posting more varied pieces of content, you can also switch up your marketing efforts by collaborating more with your followers.
Let’s say that you’re planning to come out with a new product but would like some external feedback before moving forward. Setting up a collaborative board on the website gives you a chance to obtain that feedback while simultaneously making potential buyers aware of your new product offering.
Pinterest gives its users access to their analytic tools, and it’s up to you to take full advantage of them. These analytic tools are quite comprehensive, as well.
You can use the tools to ascertain how specific Pins are performing. From there, you can figure out what kinds of Pins you should put out more as you continue to promote your business.
The statistics provided by the site will also tell you which Pins are garnering the most attention on different platforms.
One more reason the analytics tools are so helpful is that they can tell you where your audience is. With that data in hand, you can tweak your future marketing campaigns to better appeal to those interested users.
Small business owners should always be searching for anything that can give their brand an edge over their competitors. In pursuit of that, they may want to give Pinterest a try. Considering the benefits that small business owners can receive from using Pinterest, it’s a near-lock that their investment of time and resources will yield a great return.