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I’m a Man, and I Love Pinterest

Pinterest

Review: A Unique Site Fit For Any Audience

By Dale Landrith

I remember the day I fell in love with Pinterest. We were renovating our home, and I hired a builder who first ripped the roof off of our Cape Cod home, and then decided he had other projects to work on before putting it all back together. You guessed it: I figured out quickly that I needed to know more about building projects and be able to finish various parts of the project myself. I have worked on demolition, framing, insulation, and I am still working on drywall, flooring, painting, and finish work. (Also, I had a tarp over half my roof during a Nor’easter that dumped ice, snow, and wind on us in record amounts and left us without power for 4 days. Good times.)

I needed a way to find answers to my building questions

Because I work in social media, I spend hours every day on many social media channels looking at businesses, content, ads, and working to create strategies for business success in online. While I analyze Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and every other channel, and I talk with prospects and clients constantly about the opportunities these platforms provide, Pinterest has not been a big highlight in my personal time. To me, Pinterest was a place for dreaming of perfect weddings, kids parties, and finding new recipes.

Wrong Answer: I fell in love with Pinterest.

As I looked at my house project, it did not take much analysis to determine I was in way over my qualification level. My problems were immense and I was not sure even where to begin looking for help. Let’s face it, most contractors want to sell their services, not tell you how to build a house without them. My career and passion is all about the web, so that is where I turned. On Facebook, I I got sympathy but little help. Twitter couldn’t solve my problem in 140 characters or less.

Solution? Cue Pinterest

Pinterest was a channel that I had not spent much of my personal time perusing. But when faced with building project after building project, I found that on Pinterest, I could see pictures of projects like the one I was undertaking. With one click, I could access instructions, building plans, or a source to buy products I needed. This is the channel I needed for my home. As I continued (still working on it now) through my home projects, I found that Pinterest gave me ideas, instructions, and buying opportunities to walk me through each phase of the projects I was undertaking.

Now as you can imagine, I have been exploring Pinterest as much as I can over the recent months, and I am finding more ways that this channel not only helps me, but in turn, ways that I can help businesses use this valuable channel to influence buying decisions and behavior.

As I help businesses develop a strategy for Pinterest, my primary focus has been with businesses that are highly visual and targeting women between the ages of 35 and 55 with above average income. Who doesn’t want to target this demographic? This group makes lots of buying decisions, spends more money than most other demographics, and has helped Pinterest to the reputation of a higher click through to sales ratio than almost any other social platform. As I have used it personally, my perspective has evolved. While I encourage all small businesses that target this group and use Pinterest to promote their brand and products, if this is the only demographic you think about, you are missing out.

Ways I now use the channel:

1. Home Projects

As a social media junky, an avid outdoorsman and now, a do-it-yourselfer, I follow many brands, pages and handles on Facebook and Twitter.   These channels are great for engaging with brands and people that have similar interests, but lack in the information department. It’s hard to figure out if someone knows what they are talking about in 140 characters, and following replies to tweets can be tiring. Pinterest on the other hand has allowed me to search for and pin to my own page all of the information I want about any project or topic I can think of, and many times lots of projects I didn’t know I “needed” to do until I saw a pin from someone else or another business. When I find a pin I like, I put it on a board like my Home Projects or Home Décor boards so that I can get to it on the weekend or plan for it in the future. My home project pins range from useful for projects I need to do now to projects that I dream about having the time, resources, or “need” for. These pins allow me to see a picture of the project, read a description of what it’s linked to, and see what other users think about the pin quickly. Here’s an example.

In each phase of the renovation, we have décor decisions that need to be made. Everything from picking out color schemes, styles of cabinets and cabinet layouts, doors, and most recently, window trim. Recently, I searched for pins that showed window trim ideas. I pinned a few that I liked and that I thought my wife might like, and we looked at them together. Not only did we find a style that we both liked very quickly, following the linked pin took me to a website that gave me step-by-step instructions to recreate the same look.

2. Kids Projects

When my wife has a night out with her friends or needs some time away, I like to find extra special Daddy dates to have with our 4-year-old daughter. Outside of another trip to McDonald’s, my creativity is pretty well shot after a day or week at the office and renovating the house.

Solution: My Kids Projects board. This board contains ideas for activities I have completed with my daughter that are some of my favorite times spent with her. When I am perusing Pinterest, I pin everything from how to make our own play dough or rock candy, to manufacturing painted rock caterpillars in the garden, and building an exterior 4’ x 8’ chalk board for all of that sidewalk chalk we have. When a Daddy date approaches, all I have to do is refer to my kid project board, and I have complete instructions, materials lists, and links to purchase the necessary products in some cases. My daughter now gets excited for Daddy dates, and we have a great time with them.

3. Vacations

Recently I began searching for a place for my wife and I to visit on a vacation this winter. I began researching warm places to go, and places to stay on Homeaway.com and other vacation sites. It seems that I always find places I like, and then when I go back to find them again with my wife, they disappear. Pinterest solves this problem for me as well. As I searched the Homeaway.com site, there was a Pin It button on each property page. Each time I found one I wanted to save, I pinned it to my Vacations board. Problem solved. When my wife and I sit down to talk about vacation ideas, we now use Pinterest to review things that we found earlier.

Now maybe all of this seems very basic, and perhaps you are one of the people who use Pinterest with many more pins and boards than I do, but my point in reviewing this is how powerful of a tool this visual social channel has become for me. As more and more people continue to research their buying decisions and projects, Pinterest is a golden opportunity for your business. By pinning images, blogs, do-it-yourself tips, products, etc. to your business Pinterest page, you give a tons of potential buyers access to dream and plan with your pins. By linking your pins to places viewers can purchase what they want/need, you make the purchasing decision easy for them when they are ready to buy.

Speak to your customers with Pinterest

“Content, content, content.” “Let your customers get to know your business.” “Educate your prospects and they will thank you with sales.” We’ve all heard these things over and over, and I’ve even preached some of them myself. Pinterest allows you to do just that. Figure out who your prospect is, and pin a bunch of content that is interesting and useful to them. Help them solve their problems, and be sure to link to all of the places on your website that they can also pay you to solve the problems for them. Businesses belong on Pinterest, and building a strategy around this channel can really improve your businesses online toolset.

I have become a Pinterest junky. It’s now a place for me to learn, dream, and buy from those who show me what I need. If you need help building a strategy behind Pinterest, contact me, and we’ll discuss how you can use Pinterest to help people find and connect with your business.

Is your business in need of a Pinterest strategy? Contact Dream Local to have us get started today.

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