Dream Posts

Over the weekend I happened on one of the greatest uses of Pinterest for marketing. A simple brilliant picture of a Quisinart Mixer---glowing a wonderful Christmas red. Under the pin were the words "I've always dreamed of having one of these."

It was posted by a retailer with a link back to the sale priced product on the retailers own website. Imagine the pins this would produce and how convenient for a spouse to simply follow that pin back to the website to make the purchase of the dream gift.

That's power.  

So You've Signed on to Pinterest---Now What to Pin?

Pinterest is made up of boards and pins. Boards are made up of pins. Pins are pictures accompanied by a very short amount of verbiage. Pinners will peruse pins and come across your posted Pin. If the picture captures imagination, interest, love, pinners will like the pin, comment on it, or even repin that pin back to their boards.

And so your pins go forward. So what do you pin? And how to arrange your pins?

Pins need to be knock out photos or graphics. The picture needs to tell the story---accompanying verbiage is only secondary. Let's say you're a small business retail establishment. You sell a product. You have sales and events that customers might be interested. Your business has a lot of happy customers. Your customers use your product and get great results.

These are the things you post:

• A board with great pictures of your products linked back to your own website for additional information. Customers will repin back to their own boards for future reference.
• A board with great graphics regarding special events and sales that also links back to more information. Customers will add to their boards or calendars and share to other potential customers. 
• A board that shows your happy customers. Your happy customers will share with potential customers.
• A board showing the results of using your product. Whether it is a garden from your garden center, a meal from your restaurant, or a great book from your bookstore, your product gets results---post them. They will be repinned and passed on. 

Make the pictures great. Keep the verbiage simple. And provide links back to additional information. Generating excitement about your small business couldn't be more simple.
    
 

The Power of Pins

I've got to tell you...as a consumer, I am hooked on Pinterest. Pinterest allows me to make a scrapbook of my interests. I can keep track of a reading list, my favorite music, projects for home and family, future purchases and products, things I'd like to do for the holidays, places I want to go...the list goes on and on.

And I have noticed that men are just as likely to have and maintain a Pinterest page as women are. The benefits of Pinterest for small businesses are enormous. But first---Pinterest is not another Facebook. Unless you have a pin that I think will add to my scrapbook I won't follow you or repin you onto my Pinterest page. Give me a great picture of a product I'm dreaming of or something that will help solve a problem I have and I'll pin it to my scrapbook. Give me an idea that I can add to my own project list and I'll repin it to my page. That pin will have a link back to your page and/or website. That pin, if it has enough value, will be repinned over and over again; hitting audiences that your small business never dreamed of.

A picture is worth a thousand words. And on Pinterest your picture can have a major impact.

Promotion on Pinterest

I've just joined Pinterest---hard to believe but I'm currently exploring this product for the first time.

I buy products that I need from one of my web customers and recently pinned a product I loved as a reference on my personal Pinterest page. The product pinned was one that I wanted to save as an idea for a future product.

I was surprised at the impact this pin made. It was re-pinned almost immediately by others and the pin included the original link back to my customer's page in an easy unintrusive way. It will be interesting to discover if this type of action results in sales or inquiry activity. It certainly has increased interest in the product.