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Using Pinterest for Local Business Marketing

Pinterest has been one of the fastest-growing websites ever, reaching 150 million monthly unique visitors. Its mobile usage is enormous—over 80% of sharing on Pinterest happens on tablets and 30% on phones—making it a prime venue for local social behavior.

Here are a few tips for making the most of this social network:

Set up a Pinterest Business Account

Much like Facebook and Google+, it's possible to have both a personal and a business profile on Pinterest. The first step in making the most of Pinterest is to sign up your business. If you've already been using a personal account as your business, that's fine, too—Pinterest allows you to convert your personal account to a business account easily.

Watch What People Pin from Your Website (and from Your Competitors' Sites)

Pinterest publishes feeds of pins from every website in the world—well, at least those websites that have had at least one piece of content pinned!

To see what's popular already on your own website, just type http://www.pinterest.com/sourc... and add your domain name onto the end, like this:

http://www.pinterest.com/source/epicgolf.com/

On the pins of your own content, see who has pinned them and be sure to follow them (now that you have a business account!). You can repeat the process with your competitors' sites to give you even more ideas of who to follow.

For fans of your content, you can start up a conversation in the comments area of their pin. Thank them for their interest in your content, ask them what they liked about what they pinned, etc.

Finally, you can look at your competitors' content, discover what Pinterest users find appealing, and consider posting similar items to your own boards.

Give Each Board its own Theme

Most companies that are successful with Pinterest have at least 15-20 boards. While you certainly don't need this many boards straight out of the gate, segmenting the types of content you pin is good for both fans and search engines. Well-targeted Pinterest boards can sometimes rank in search results!

For example, create a unique board for each manufacturer whose products you sell, a board featuring happy customers receiving deliverables from you, unique boards featuring partners' content or inspirational content, and more.

Pin at Least Once a Day

Similar to Twitter, the shelf-life on a given pin can be relatively short. Make sure you're staying at the top of your fans' minds by integrating at least one pin into your daily routine.

Pin from Many Different Sources

As with other social networks, sharing is caring. There's a certain degree of karma involved in building up a social profile, and it's rare to see a popular social media account that's both insular and successful.

Pay special attention to sources whom you want to notice you—whether they're other companies or individual users. Pinning content from their websites to your boards, repinning content they've added to Pinterest, and commenting on their pins are all ways in which you may be able to grab their attention. (They'll receive notifications when you do this, both in their dashboard and via email.)

Set up a Foursquare Business Account

Yes, you heard that right. To maximize your success on Pinterest, it's also important to be on Foursquare. The two networks announced an integration called "Place Pins" in November 2013.

You'll want to claim your venue on Foursquare to make sure it can be found by this new service from Pinterest.

Experiment with Place Pins

The long-term effects of the Pinterest-Foursquare partnership have yet to play out, but at a minimum, be sure to tag each of the photos you pin from your website with the location of your business.

And if there are existing boards in your account where geo-tagging pins would add context, you can also add maps to these boards by updating their existing pins with a location.

Learn from Successful Accounts

  • Perch Furniture is a custom sofa store in Portland, Oregon that showcases interiors and related furnishings that inspire their customers and prospective customers.
  • Genuine Scooters is an independent scooter manufacturer from Chicago that's done a great job making use of Place Pins to identify lesser-known spots in their neighborhood.
  • WeddingWire is a little bit like Yelp for the wedding industry; they've created a Pinterest board of inspiring places to get married (geo-tagged, of course). This strategy can be replicated on a smaller level by local photographers, caterers, and the like.

Utilize Additional Resources

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