What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a photo sharing social network that allows users to create and manage various categorized image collections in a ‘bulletin board’? style fashion. Users can ‘pin’? photos into categories they create based off their own personal interests. Pinterest helps people all over the world connect through their own like-minded interests, such as travel, culture, fashion, cuisine, and photography.
Who uses Pinterest?
- The average Pinterest user is female between the ages of 24-54
- Over 90% of Pinterest users are female*
- 33% of users are between the ages of 35-54*
- 50% of Pinterest users are parents
- Pinterest users are extremely active:
- 12 million unique monthly visitors*
- 2.2 million of those users post daily*
How are consumers using Pinterest?**
- Expressing themselves
- Reminding themselves
- Learning and exploring topics
- Searching for and discovering new things
Why is Pinterest beneficial for SEO?
It is no secret that search engines are using social media interaction as a measure of search authority within their algorithms. Since users can share ‘pins’ on both Facebook and Twitter, there is an obvious benefit from an SEO point of view. Listed below are additional SEO benefits from Pinterest:
- Picture captions are completely optimizable, and ‘pins’ can be indexed in search engine page results.
- Each image can contain links to send traffic to appropriate parts of the website.
- Following and supporting popular bloggers and websites across the web can increase your visibility and search authority- ultimately increasing the chances of high profile web sources featuring your brand on their websites.
Things brands should be aware of:
- Blatant self promotion is frowned upon, and ultimately will not be the most effective utilization of the site. The most successful Pinterest profiles are those that interact with the community and ‘pin’? items from other community members as well. As mentioned earlier, brands can support the target community by following influential people in the category, and ‘pinning’ photos from people have interests that align well with your brand.
- The Travel Channel does a fantastic job of connecting to people’s emotional ties to travel, such as the culture, food, and activities in addition to highlighting its traditional offering’suggesting destinations. The key lesson here is do not solely feature your company’s latest product and service’ensure there are additional boards that feature secondary categories associated with your brand, thereby creating more of a connection with the consumer.
- It is important to supply engaging imagery to maximize results.
- If your brand decides to use Pinterest, Pinterest sharing buttons should be added to all applicable content.
Providing that your brand actively participates in the Pinterest community, the site can be a great way to build social presence, gain search authority, and increase overall visibility for the brand.
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Sources:
*comScore, Mashable February 2012
**Maxymiser, March 2012
