8 Ways E-Commerce Businesses Can Use Pinterest to Their Advantage

November 23, 2014

What is one way e–commerce businesses can glean useful customer/market information via Pinterest?

1. Describe With Detail

Often you’ll see Pinterest accounts that are done in such haste that they don’t even bother adding descriptions to their pins. This is the most blatant way a company can say, “I don’t really care” in this situation — don’t fall for that. Try to engage customers from the title of your board, the kinds of pins you pin to it and the descriptions you give each pin. – Rob Fulton, Exponential Black

2. Take Interest in Pinterest

Pinterest is a great tool that my skin care company uses to engage like-minded folks. It fits in perfectly with our demographic. We have a dedicated Pinterest expert on our staff who meticulously pins and interacts with other members of the community. We also run many e–commerce specials through our Pinterest page. It is a great resource! – Timothy Schmidt, WebsiteRescue

3. Look for People’s Related Interests

You can find some great related interest information regarding your followers/target market, along with the friends of your followers and their target markets. – Jon Cline, Rokit SEO

4. Take Advantage of the Free Focus Groups

At Kinetic we are always thinking about large scale testing for brands. Through testing on Pinterest you can figure out : a) what is resonating best with your online “window-shopping” audience of your existing goods, or b) what product to make by putting up your ideas and seeing what people go for (and which people go for it). It offers a fantastic, scalable and free focus group for retail businesses. – Jack Hanlon, Kinetic Social

5. Predict What Customers Will Share

To find out what customers are willing to share, companies can go to Pinterest, type in their product type into the Pinterest search bar (i.e. “cookies”), and be blown away with images that customers are sharing. Once you’ve identified the photos being shared, it’s a matter of recreating those photos with your own products and seeding them within the Pinterest community. – Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

6. Assess Your Competition

Sites like Pinterest offer a great, real-time window to what’s trending on your audience’s radar. – Sam Saxton, Salter Spiral Stair and Mylen Stairs

7. Look at the Business Analytics

This allows you to gain valuable knowledge about your brand — from discovering who’s engaging with your brand to building meaningful relationships with brand advocates and recruiting influential pinners. These insights will allow you to capitalize on opportunities and drive real business results. – Daniel Wesley, DebtConsolidation.com

8. Audit Content That’s Shared

With Pinterest, you can quickly discover what sort of content your customers love sharing. Once you understand the basic formula for creating Pin-worthy content, then you can produce your own blog posts, videos and gifs that customers will absolutely love and share withtheir friends. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep