The Tech Update

Apart from tweeting and liking, entrepreneurs are now expected to “pin it.” Pinterest is an online social media site where users create a board of their favorite media. According to Jennifer Forker, from The Seattle Times, even though Pinterest only launched in 2010, “’Pinterest regularly surpasses Facebook and Twitter as referrals.’” How much does Pinterest surpass the other social media heavyweights? Forker reports that “More than eighty percent of all Pinterest pins are re-pins.” Instead of brands having to push original media, many of their followers are sharing it for them.

A modern spin on a classic vision board, Pinterest can help any entrepreneur realize their brand’s vision of creating a greater online presence.

Visuals

Human beings are highly visual creatures. YouTube and infographics are proof that audiences enjoy visuals. While most of your subscribers would love to spend an hour of their day reading your blog post, most of them cannot. Time is a limited and precious resource. Fortunately, an image is worth a thousand words. With visuals, your reader can decide, in seconds, whether they can spare a few minutes of their day to read what you have to say. The visuals on Pinterest can entice readers to read your content.

Humanization 

Social media is all about being social and engaging with your audience. Like other social media sites, Pinterest is not meant as a solely self-promotional tool. Your followers will quickly be turned off by this approach. Pinterest is a reciprocal community; it humanizes brands. Pinterest allows followers to get to know a brand’s personality, and, ideally, trust the brand. On Pinterest, users are the main driving force behind referral traffic for brands that they trust.

Marketing 

No matter what product you sell of what niche your blog is in, all entrepreneurs are in the business of marketing. Fortunately, bloggers do not have to rely on a direct response agency to take advantage of Pinterest’s tools. Beth Hayden’s guest post on Copyblogger captured ways that beginning, intermediate and “black-belt” pinners can all take advantage of Pinterest’s marketing tools.

Entrepreneurs can use a number of Pinterest’s extensive marketing tools, like a prominent Follow Me Pinterest button on a website, an exclusive “thank you” board or a Pinterest contest, to reach their audience. According to Hayden, there are fifty-six ways anyone, at any stage of their Pinterest journey, can use Pinterest to promote or revamp their marketing strategy.

So if you are looking to get ahead in business or blogging, Pinterest should be one of your first stops.  The possibilities are endless, and it undoubtedly demonstrates the new face of social media.