Why Pinterest Is Good For Your Business

Vishal Pindoriya

Here’s an opinion that you may not ever hear from anyone else, but I stick to it and can back it up with relevant facts and figures: If I could only have my business on two social media sites, they would be Facebook and Pinterest. Surprised? Then you need to be informed a bit more about why Pinterest is good for your business.

Facebook is a huge no-brainer, of course. Sure, it’s leveling out in terms of growth. Yeah, the kids don’t think it’s cool anymore. It’s old-school social, not cutting edge. But there are still just shy of 1.5 billion active users there, so being absent is a big mistake. If you ask the average social media user where the obvious number two spot is though, I’d be willing to bet that 9 out of 10 will name Twitter. That would be mistake number two.

A Few Great Reasons

So why would I choose Pinterest as the second choice, and why should you? There are plenty of good reasons, but these should be enough to persuade you into my line of thinking.

Traffic – Pinterest drives more traffic on the web today than Twitter and Reddit combined, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. If you’re trying to drive traffic to your website, the visuals on Pinterest will do the trick nicely. More on why that is shortly.

Search – Google loves images and videos. While you can’t upload your own videos to Pinterest (that’s what Youtube is for), the entire site is image-driven. An active Pinterest account will take your ratings up the page quickly. The only social site that will work quicker is Youtube, and of course that’s Google-owned.

Longevity – Post something on Facebook and see how many people find it a few months from now. Those numbers generally go way, way down after the day is past and users’ newsfeeds have rolled on to the next interesting topic of the day. Pinterest images tend to become popular after they’ve been up for a while. This has to do with the way the site is set up into boards. People tend to go to boards when they find them and browse, whereas on Facebook and other sites very few go to Pages and scroll back through the past posts. A post from a year ago on Pinterest, seen by the right people, can bring new waves of popularity and repinning for a long time to come.

The “Buy” Button – Recently introduced and still rolling out, Pinterest has now launched their “Buy” button which allows users to make a purchase on the spot when they find something they love, with no extra charges for either the buyer or the seller.

Growth – Pinterest is neck-and-neck with Tumblr as the fastest growing social network around, adding new users at a very fast pace. Even with the popularity the site already enjoys, setting up a new business account there today still puts you fairly close to the ground floor in terms of potential.

Inexpensive – Did I mention the “Buy” button? Well, did I mention that there’s no charge for businesses to have one on their products? That’s right. For now anyway, Pinterest is relying on businesses having enough success using the instant purchase feature that they’ll be convinced to pay for promoted pins to grow their sales on the platform.

The One Big Reason

All of these are good enough reasons to have a solid presence on Pinterest, but the biggest reason of all, which goes hand-in-hand with most of the above, is the users there. Pinterest is still dominated by women. College-educated, thirty-something moms. In other words, the largest group of consumer purchasing power in the world.

Pinterest users don’t go there to connect with other users and share stories. They go there to buy stuff, or more specifically to find stuff to buy. They are shoppers, plain and simple. Pinterest today generates 400% more revenue per click than Twitter, and even 27% more than Facebook. For shoppers, Pinterest is a paradise. That’s because not only can they shop on a brand’s boards, they can shop on the boards of other users that they follow who have already curated tons of interesting and similar items.

Two-thirds of Pinterest users self-identify as early adopters, which mean they like to try new things. We already know that they’re avid shoppers, so combine that with trying new things and you have an excellent marketplace for new brands or products. One study in 2014 even showed that Pinterest users are watching less television and reading less print material, replacing that time with browsing Pinterest. And anything that can drag viewers from the screen on their wall is doing something right.

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