Should you be utilizing Pinterest to market your business? This video features information on Pinterest’s demographics, types of businesses best served, marketing tools available and best practices on using Pinterest for marketing your business.
Full Transcription
Brent Haeseker: Hi this is Brent Haeseker, website consultant with NetSource Technologies, and once again, I’m here today with
Veronica Buhl:: Veronica Buhl:
Brent Haeseker: And she is our Social Media Expert Specialist here at NetSource. For the last few weeks, we’ve been doing a little series on marketing on different social media platforms. We’ve done Facebook, last week we did Twitter, we’ve done Instagram, and LinkedIn. Alright, so this week, we are going to do
Veronica Buhl:: Pinterest!
Brent Haeseker: Pinterest! We’ll start off with the general breakdown of the demographics
Veronica Buhl:: So generally the people who are using Pinterest are between the ages of 18 and 45. Quite interestingly, 81% of the users are women which I found surprising.
Brent Haeseker: What was that statistic again?
Veronica Buhl:: 81%, some of the others are more evenly skewed, but this one is still very female oriented.
Brent Haeseker: I knew that Pinterest had been skewed heavily towards women for a while, but I didn’t realize it was still that much. Actually, when I set up my Pinterest account a couple years ago, in my description, I said “I’m a guy on Pinterest, is that allowed?” that was my description for my profile.
Veronica Buhl:: They didn’t kick you off so I guess you’re alright.
Brent Haeseker: But go ahead with your demographics.
Veronica Buhl:: Another thing is that millennials use Pinterest as much as they do Instagram, which I also found surprising. Usually they weigh towards one or the other, but they like them equally. And 50% of Pinterest users make $50,000 or more and 10% make greater than $125k a year. So these are mostly women with pretty good income. 87% of users have purchased a product because of stuff they’ve seen on Pinterest. So they’re looking for stuff, then they’re putting it aside, and then they’re deciding whether they want it or not, so that’s pretty interesting. There’s 175 million monthly active users, so it’s pretty active I would say.
Brent Haeseker: not as much as some of the others we’ve looked at, but still a very engaged, active user base. Everyone always talks about Pinterest being so heavily skewed towards women, but actually it is a pretty cool service. I use it and I think its actually pretty cool. I kind of use it as a visual bookmarking service of things that I’m interested in. You can find plenty of things that a guy like me could be interested in on Pinterest. Perfect example, of course, is me and my wife are building a house, and we’re looking at plans and different ideas, layouts, different ideas for how to paint, or to decorate the house and stuff like that. But also I use it for products I’m interested in buying, and keeping a list of different things that I can go back to at a later date and say yeah this is something I’m interested in buying. It’s almost like a quick, easy link to get back to the website.
Veronica Buhl:: I think that’s pretty typical of how users do use that. I do the same thing, I don’t use it a lot, but when I do, I’m setting up boards and stuff. Different factions of my life, you know I have a guitar one with all different guitars I like. I may have one with houses, layouts, and paints that I like, the way I like things set up. Just as visual reminders, so when I decide to go do something, I can pull up the board and say oh yea, that’s what I liked.
Brent Haeseker: You can go right to it because you can visually see it instead of scrolling through a list.
Veronica Buhl:: And most people are, but I’m a very visual person, so I like to see things. So I think that’s pretty typical of how people use Pinterest.
Brent Haeseker: Right, and you mentioned guitars. We’re both actually musicians. A lot of times, also, I will pin educational videos. Things that are cool like oh hey I’d like to learn how that guy played that on bass guitar, and I’ll pin it. There’s a lot of great uses for it, and again just mentioning it right there. Say if you’re a teacher of some sort, using videos that you are also then pushing them out as pins, getting people to be interested in what you’re doing. That kind of leads us right into what businesses should be using Pinterest. We just mentioned an idea there. Tell us some other ones that could utilize Pinterest.
Veronica Buhl:: Any kind of travel or hospitality where you can show your destinations is a great idea. Fashion is a great one. That one I thin kind of overtakes Pinterest, that and arts and crafts.
Brent Haeseker: I don’t have too many fashion pins.
Veronica Buhl:: You Don’t? You will, give it some time. Beauty, home and garden is a big one, like we were just talking about, and event planning. Now this one is a great one because you see people who are getting married or having any big event, they can have a board and plan everything out, and see it visually, and organize it in a good way. So that another way to use it.
Brent Haeseker: With the home and garden, a landscaping company, doing a lot of pins of work they do would be a perfect example of that. Another one is real estate.
Veronica Buhl:: Real estate is a good one.
Brent Haeseker: That’s a great industry that can be served by marketing on Pinterest because it is very photography based. You want to have a lot of that photography be pins that are showing up on Pinterest. So that’s another good one. I think furniture makers, like a costume furniture builder might be somebody that would do well on Pinterest. Actually, through work, I follow a lot of stuff on work. There’s marketing boards that I follow.
Veronica Buhl:: I have those social media ones as well.
Brent Haeseker: There’s a lot of stuff on Pinterest that’s really business oriented. A lot of times people just hear about recipes and fashion like you mentioned, but really there’s a lot of cool stuff on Pinterest that can be utilized both for marketing your business or about learning more about marketing your own business through Pinterest, you could do that too.
Veronica Buhl:: It’s a great way to pull things together.
Brent Haeseker: There’s a lot out there that you can do with Pinterest. So, tell us about some of the tools that Pinterest offers for their user that want to market on Pinterest.
Veronica Buhl:: Well like all the other ones, you can have ads. They have four different types of ads. They have promoted pins, which is just if you have a pin of yours out there and you want it to show up higher. You want more people to see it, so you promote that and it puts it in front of people that would relate to your product, who they think would relate to your product. Then they have promoted video pins now, which is the same thing. You have a video out on Pinterest and you promote that so it’s put in front of more people. They have something called “one-tap pins.” These are pins of your product or something that they can literally tap on that and it takes them to the website. It takes them right to the website where they can purchase the product if they want to or learn more about it.
Brent Haeseker: So it’s definitely a good one for anyone who does retail. That’s one you want to know about if you do retail.
Veronica Buhl:: That’s a perfect one. And then the other type they have is promoted app pins. These are for people that have apps for their business. What it allows you to do is not only promote it, but it allows people to actually download it right from Pinterest. So if you’ve got an app, and you want to promote that, this is probably a really good way to push it out there as well.
Brent Haeseker: For most people, the promoted pin and the one-tap pins are probably two of the more common ones that they’re probably going to gravitate towards. With Facebook and really any of the other services, they give you some ability to target the people that you’re advertising to. I’m assuming of course {interest has the ability for that as well.
Veronica Buhl:: Yes, yes they do. A lot of it comes from who is following you and keywords that you’re using. So they’ll find people who are searching for the things you’re advertising, and when they see the keyword, they’ll push it to the people that are gravitating towards those searches. They’re really trying to put them in front of the people that are actually looking for them.
Brent Haeseker: We were talking about all the cool things you can do with Pinterest, some ideas for what you can actually post on Pinterest, got some ideas for that?
Veronica Buhl:: One thing to keep in mind is that people go there to get information. It’s said that 87% of the people that look at a product on Pinterest are trying to decide whether they want that product or not. Not necessarily buying from Pinterest, but they’re making a decision about the product and they will go buy it. So that’s a huge percent. almost 90% of people when they look for something or a product there, they’re looking for information, and they’re making a buying decision right then. So you may not get a lot of e-commerce clicks, but if you have a product, a person might think about it and then go buy it form you from whatever source. So that’s a good thing to keep in mind. It is an informational platform. People are using it to gather information to make a decision. So when you’re promoting your product, make sure your product is actually solving a problem for them. The more clearly you put that across, the more likely they are to come back to you and purchase from you.
Brent Haeseker: Okay so obviously product photos if you’re in retail is an obvious choice, but also if you’re solving a problem, maybe doing some before and after photos could be a good thing to have on Pinterest. Or maybe some kind of infographic that explains a process. Like if you’re in a service-based industry, maybe the infographic kind of shows “here’s the issues and here’s how it can be solved.” You can do that through some type of creative infographics. Something that kind of catches their attention, gets them to click on it, and get more information, and of course contacting you for more information on that product or service that you offer.
Veronica Buhl:: And knowing that they don’t actually buy from the app, they’re just making a decision to come and buy from you. Make sure that you have a link to your site, a phone number, some way they can contact you to make it easier for them to get your product or service.
Brent Haeseker: Obviously with any of these social media services, you’re going to want to cross-pollinate with a;; the other things you’re doing. So if you’ve got a blog, and you’re posting to your blog, likely you’re going to have a photo that you’re using with your blog post, like your hero image that you’re using to show off at the top of your blog post. Pinning that to Pinterest would make a lot of sense, with a link to your blog article. So you’re always cross-promoting. If you’ve got something on Facebook, if it makes sense to also put on Pinterest, put it on Pinterest. So always be thinking about how you can reuse the content that you already have or the stuff that you’re already promoting, and also push that out on Pinterest like you would with any of these other social media services.
Veronica Buhl:: For every social media platform, always have a link or a way they can contact you. I’ve seen a lot advertise really nice things on social media, and then there was actually no way for me to actually know how to get it. There was no link, there was no information whatsoever. So always, no matter what platform you’re using, make sure there’s a link or a phone number or an address, something that they can get in touch with.
Brent Haeseker: And even having it on the photo itself that you’re sharing is also a possibility if you have a little watermark that you want to put at the bottom of your photo, that’s an idea too. But definitely always making sure that if you’re taking the time to put stuff out there, make sure that people can get back and find you, other wise it’s like putting a billboard upon the side of the road that says “Hey, we’re a great company!” and there’s no way to find out who you are. Who are you? I don’t know. Any other thoughts on Pinterest, and some ideas or things that would be helpful for people to know?
Veronica Buhl:: It’s a great place for promoting products and services, especially to women and millennials because as we said earlier, those are the key people who are on Pinterest. If you’ve got a product that appeals to those two demographics, this is a great place for you to be. They’re using it, they’re there, and they have the money. IT’s not like it’s five year olds on this or anything. And as always, I say it in every video, be creative, be funny, be interesting. Think outside the box when you’re advertising. Think of ways to be different from your competition. Your competition, you may perceive them to be doing better than you and they may be. But if you can show a way of being better than them, your product better than them, your message better than them, and be different than them. Think a little bit outside the box even though your product may be the same. You’ll be surprised how quickly that wins followers and customers. SO just always be creative, think outside the box, and play around with it. See what works, see what doesn’t work.
Brent Haeseker: Thank you for watching this video, once again, we’ve been doing this for the last five or so weeks now. Doing a video on social media services and how to market on them. If you’re finding yourself where you’re struggling to do your own marketing with social media or you need some help with it, feel free to give us a call. You can reach us at 1(800)709-3240. Again, this is Brent with NetSource Technologies and this is Veronica. She is our Social Media Expert here at NetSource, we would love to talk to you, and help you out with whatever we can with the marketing that you’re doing. Any kind of other online marketing you’re doing, we can also help out with as well. And of course, we can do website development work too, because that’s primarily who we are. So feel free to give us a call, again, 1(800)709-3240. You can also reach us online at netsourceinc.com. We thank you again for watching, hope to see you for the next video that we do! Bye!