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Is Your Industry Boring? No Problem, You Can Still Use Pinterest

Is Your Industry Boring? No Problem, You Can Still Use Pinterest 6 Comments

This post was written by a guest author, if you are interested in contributing on Opportunities Planet visit the write for us page!


Pinterest Boring Industry No ProblemThere is no denying the power of Pinterest.  Its tentacles are reaching beyond its early-adopting mommy bloggers and into young and old, men and women alike.  As it grows, it is leaving other traffic referring websites in the dust.  In fact, Pinterest recently surpassed Google, Bing, and Twitter in sending referral traffic – that’s right, Twitter! So if you focus on Twitter a lot for traffic, you may want to carve out a bit of time and show Pinterest some love.  Those that don’t will find themselves be left in the dust.

At this point a lot of people might be saying to themselves, “that just won’t work, my business is boring and not visual”.  While being in a non-sexy or boring industry can make Pinterest a little more tricky, it doesn’t make it impossible.  It just takes some lateral thinking to figure out how you can build your own home on Pinterest without sticking out like a sore thumb.  Here are 3 tips to jump start your own profile (and success) on Pinterest:


Think Tangentially

The things you pin on Pinterest do not have to directly relate to your brand, they just need to be in the same spirit.  For example, lets say you run a yoga studio.  People associate yoga with healthy, clean living, so pins can be about healthy recipes, relaxing places, home remedies, and other related content.  If all a yoga studio posted were yoga poses, that’d be pretty boring.  Use some classic branding and associate yourself with a bigger idea.

Ok, but yoga is still a fairly natural fit on Pinterest, so lets take another example, a car repair shop.  One of my local car repair shops is called Virginia Tire & Auto, and they recently launched a Pinterest page.   Car repair isn’t a natural fit on Pinterest, but they make it work by posting cool pictures from the local area, interesting car gadgets (like chargers), details on clever recycling of old tires, pictures of old cars, etc.  They’ve adapted to make Pinterest work for them.

Embrace Photography

Photos are the cornerstone of Pinterest.  If you have a decent camera, you can find success by taking pictures of people and things around your office and sharing them along with a little story.  If your staff has little tips or ‘lifehacks’, take a picture and share it on an appropriate board on your account.  Likewise, take pictures of people in your office working, or products in the midst of being made.  People like seeing ‘insider information’, so the more you can pull back the curtain, the better.  We are working with a client (Online Trading Academy) on their Pinterest page, and a focus has been on gathering up success stories from staff and clients.  We’ll then turn those stories into blog posts paired with great photography and share them on Pinterest.  Although they are a finance and investing education center, they are building a nice presence on Pinterest.

Use Infographics

Infographics have become incredibly popular online, and the Pinterest user-base has adopted them with open arms.  I can guarantee that, no matter what field you are in, you can find infographics that relate to you somehow.  Sites like Visual.ly and InfoCarnivore.com house many infographics and are searchable so you can easily find graphics that would work for you.  Simply locate the infographics and pin them to Pinterest.  Once you get comfortable with sharing and reading infographics, you might choose to start creating some of your own as well (it is a great content marketing strategy in its own right).

Experiment!

It’s like college all over again 🙂  Search around Pinterest and really absorb what people are doing and what is successful in the different categories.  Having a good feel for what is going on will give you a hunch on if your ideas will be successful or not.  But, don’t just stop at looking at what others do, experiment yourself.  If you have ideas, give them a shot and monitor if they get repinned or liked.  If not, figure out why and try again.  This is how real mastery is developed.

This post was written by a guest author, if you are interested in contributing on Opportunities Planet visit the write for us page!

6 comments

  1. I don’t know why, but I don’t trust a lot in Pinterest. Maybe because I haven’t used very much.

  2. That is understandable. You should jump in and play with it, maybe use a throwaway account so you get a good feel for it. I’d say it is about as trustworthy as Twitter, but definitely less promotional than Twitter.

  3. Brian,

    Great article, I’ve always dismissed Pinterest for a few of my clients. This really opened my eyes to the opportunity we’re missing. More referrals then twitter! Do you know of any wordpress apps that can help with pinterest?

  4. The first time I encountered Pinterest was when a mom blogger shared about it. It’s amazing that now it has become known worldwide and it even surpassed some famous social media sites! I agree, the use of infographics has helped spread more information in a fun and entertaining way and with Pinterest, it makes it all the more interesting to read and fun to share at the same time.

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