Why You Should Use Pinterest – No Matter What Your Business Is

Rosalind Henshell

Why You Should Use Pinterest – No Matter What Your Business Is

Pinterest launched early in 2010 as a closed beta project for a select group of users. It soon progressed to be an invitation only site, and I remember requesting an invitation to join early in 2011 after seeing friends’ pins popping up on Facebook and wanting to try it out myself.

I initially set up a personal account (which I still have) and I have to admit I didn’t really “get” it. I’m not a very visual or arty person and quickly got bored of looking at images of perfect homes and cookie recipes.

Pinterest stayed off my radar until it was time to plan my wedding, when it provided endless inspiration for my dress, hairstyle, invites, table decorations and everything else that suddenly becomes all important for the big day. But again, once the wedding day was over I quickly forgot about Pinterest.

Reading as many blogs and social media news sites as I do, I knew how important a site Pinterest had become for businesses. I could see a great fit for a lot of retail businesses, designers and anyone that makes things, but I didn’t really think that it was something that would suit my business.

My target audience is other business owners, typically UK based professional companies who work in the B2C space, for example Dentists, Solicitors, Estate Agents, and the work that I do isn’t “pretty” to look at – social media marketing, Website development, Reputation marketing – it just didn’t seem like Pinterest was the place to find either my ideal customer, or to showcase what I did.

However, I kept seeing more and more reports of how people were getting tons of traffic from Pinterest back to their websites and it got to the stage where I realised I had to give Pinterest another chance.

I have to admit when I looked at it from a business perspective rather than the perspective of a casual social user I was very surprised. What I found when I searched was a great source of business blogs on every topic you can think of, written by the very people that make up my target demographic – Business Owners!

I was also surprised at the businesses I found to follow on there – Law Firms, Dentists, Estate Agents – all the businesses I want to work with!

It turns out that having “pretty” pins is only part of the story on Pinterest. If your content is interesting and you have headlines that grab people’s attention then Pinterest is a great place to share your work. And, as with any social media platform, the people you want to target are already there, it’s just a case of looking for them and making sure your Pins will catch their eye.

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