Interest in Pinterest

The newest player on the social networking scene is Pinterest, an almost exclusively visual site that allows users to create online bulletin boards, or “pinboards,” set up in categories such as home decor, food and wedding inspiration.  In addition to a photo or video, you can add a caption, price or link. The users of Pinterest are largely female (80%) and visit the site 11 million times a week, according to Kim Garst.

Pinterest makes it simple to pin new pictures onto your boards, either from a camera (such as the one in your smartphone), a web site, or someone else’s pinboard.  If you are part of the SnapRetail program you can  easily post their pre-made ad templates on your boards.  The Crabtree & Evelyn gift with purchase offer on our site is an example.

Participants sign up to follow those whose interests they share, and can also browse by category (including art, gardening, books and movies, products, technology and travel).  When you find an image you like, it just takes a click to repin it to your own board. As with Facebook, you can also “like” an image, which helps attract attention to it. A tip: if you want your store name to be associated with a photograph no matter where it is repinned, use a program like Photoshop to put a “watermark” of the shop’s name somewhere on the photo before posting it.

I recently set up a Pinterest account for my customers and friends under Shoporangetree.  It took me a couple of hours to do, because I wanted my “boards” to be full of interesting images right from the start.  I also wanted to give careful thought to the categories that I set up, although I could have changed them later.  There is a specific pinboard of resources for readers of this retailing blog, so I hope you’ll consider becoming a follower.

When you set up a Pinterest account, you’ll want to include information about your shop under your profile picture. You might even add the store name after your personal name, because the profile assumes you are an individual with just a first and last name. For good tips on setting up a Pinterest account, I suggest reading the blog by Beth Hayden entitled 56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest.  One of the points that she makes is that you should add the Pin It app to your browser toolbar, because that allows you to easily repost an image from any site you are visiting (including your own).

Unlike Facebook, it is possible to browse and search what people are “pinning” without setting up an account yourself, but that wouldn’t be so much fun.  It is the repinning and “liking” that makes it interactive and interesting.

How can Pinterest help your shop?  By posting items on your boards, you attract interest in them that may well get shared  within and beyond your market area. Users can also share pins on Facebook and Twitter, integrating with these more established social marketing venues. You can in fact use your Facebook account to sign up for Pinterest, and invite all your Facebook friends to follow you.  At the moment, however, you can’t pin an image directly from your Facebook feed.

Your boards become a brand statement about your store and your style.  You can easily post information about new products at no cost, and with little effort.  The conversation you participate in on Pinterest is part of the personal interaction you want to have with your customers.  And the very visual nature of Pinterest is perfect for retailers, since we all sell merchandise that we want our potential consumers to see. 

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder