6 Pinterest Strategies for Small or Unconventional Businesses

For travel agents, artists and fashion brands Pinterest seems like an easy fit. What better way to show off exotic locals, new works of art and the latest trends and beauty secrets. But for many other businesses, out-of-the-box-pinning can be the pathway to new success.

The following strategy points are designed to help any business build and develop a strong Pinterest profile and develop boards that will make them shine.

#1 Create boards with your products. Create individual boards based on brand, type, function, theme or whatever makes the most sense for your business. You don’t need to feature every item, pick out your top sellers or highest profit-margin merchandise and feature. Make sure every pin links back to your website. You do have the option of adding a price so that it will appear as a tag on the actual image. To a price tag to your pin add a “$” sign followed by one or more numbers in the description field of your pin. However, before you place price tags on all your pins, experiment to see how pinners respond. If the pins without tags receive overwhelmingly more re-pins than those with price tags, consider not implementing the practice.

#2 Build boards with the Lifestyle of your consumers in mind. Your Pinterest profile should be more than products. It should be a reflection of the culture and values of you and your consumers. And it should be a profile people want to visit to find new ideas. So show off your creativity and have fun creating boards that you and your clients will enjoy. A great way to do this is with boards for inspiring quotes, your favorite books, humor and art. It can even be specific to your geographic region such as favorite local monuments, destinations or festivals.

#3 Create Themes around special events and holidays. People love themes especially when the themes reflect an upcoming event or holiday. Again, this is an opportunity to show off your creativity so go beyond product shots. You can show your product in use in original ways and mixed with pins that are complimentary that you find from other pinners and then mix that with your favorite recipes for the holiday.

#4 Engage. Social Media is not like traditional media where you talk at your audience (think radio and TV, your audience sees and/or hears you, but you can’t hear them). Social Media means you have an open forum for everyone to weigh in and share ideas and opinions. So go ahead and follow others, re-pin, comment, and ‘like’ other pins. Then monitor the comments, respond, and thank your followers for their engagement. It will build positive sentiment and give your business a more personable feel.

#5 Show Support for your fellow local business and create a board to feature them. Engaging with your fellow business community strengthens all of you. You might even want to consider a shared board as an opportunity to show how you complement each other.

For more ideas, I recommend you visit the following Pinterest profiles for inspiration.
Bevmo
Home Depot
HGTV
iEnhance
Bath & Body Works
California Riverside Ballet

If you need to know the basics on Pinterest account set-up and FAQ’s, please visit Pinning 101 or contact adgrlSu.

INFOGRAPHIC: Multi-Network View of One Person's Social Presence

Ever since Google Ad Preferences came to my attention, I've been thinking about what my overall social media presence says about me and what I've concluded is that it is very misleading.

Google is perhaps the most misleading, after all it had determined by my search history that I must be a middle-aged man who enjoys fishing and investing, neither of which I spend any time doing.  They get some things right, I do like online gaming, advertising and travelling.  My Google profile consists of Google+, Reader, Gmail and YouTube so I'm quite surprised that the computer analysis wasn't closer to the real me. A human looking at my Google+ would easily determine that I am a woman and that I am involved in marketing.  I'm not a heavy user of Google+ yet, so it really isn't the best look at who I am and what I enjoy.

Foursquare is a bit more telling but it amuses me none the less.  I am the mayor of 16 places, a third or which are fast food or quick service eateries and I check into these types of places often. This may lead some to believe that I would be a bit overweight.  While I don't consider myself thin, I also don't consider myself fat or overweight.  I just happen to have a lifestyle where I seem to be eating on the run more than I am able to eat at home or at healthier options.  But I do love fast food.

I have 81 Foursquare badges.  I have driven out of my way to try to earn a new badge. I secretly hope to be first in points everyday even though they mean nothing.  I am competitive and all of this supports that.

I am new to Pinterest but by all accounts my account is pretty sad which either means I am not the least bit creative or am not easily inspired. I hope this isn't true. But what little I have pinned reveals that I love to travel, read and watch science fiction/fantasy, cook sweets and want to remodel my home.

LinkedIn, the professional networking site, is, by nature, going to be quite accurate.  After all, it is an online resume.  Reading between the lines, I have 177 connections.  LinkedIn has not disclosed the average number of connections but most people speculate it is around 50 when considering all users and closer to 500 for the active user.  Being an active user below 500 connections, I either don't make business contacts easily or I don't connect with people I don't know very well.  The truth is the latter.

Twitter is one of the least personal social networks in my opinion.  Sure you can show your personality off in your tweets, but there isn't a lengthy profile to complete, 160 characters doesn't say much.  But if someone were following me closely they would know that I am deeply interested in advertising, marketing and social media, that I check in via Foursquare and that I love to read and share articles.

Finally, there's Facebook.  I have both personal and a professional business page.  This is probably the closest to the "real" me.  I've switched over to Timeline showing that I'm an early adapter, I have populated this timeline with photos and events from my childhood, I share videos, I talk with friends and I play some of the games.  I also enact as many privacy controls as I can find ans stay aware of.  But I've used this network longer than the others and share the most on it.

I hope you enjoy the below infographic contrasting the real me with the social me.  You can also find this on my official website www.adgrlsu.com.