Pinterest: Put 28 Million Unique Visitors at Your Fingertips

And so you wonder… How can I get some of that traffic, right? If you have a “visual” business, it’s simple. Join Pinterest and post like crazy.

English: Red Pinterest logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you don’t know what Pinterest is, you have probably been hiding under a rock online, as it’s become one of the most popular, fastest growing sites on the Internet in just a short time. Pinterest is a pin-board sharing site, where you can add pictures of just about anything online already, or your own images to show your Pinterest followers. Think of Pinterest not as a pictoral Facebook, but more of an image dominated, rather than conversation dominated platform.

The site was actually live in 2010, but it didn’t gain momentum until 2011. Pinterest launched as a “closed beta,” meaning that unless you requested an invitation, you couldn’t get in, which was a smart marketing strategy. People always want to be part of something exclusive. So, if you started pinning before 2012, you were already ahead of the game.

According to ComScore, Pinterest was only getting about 7K visitors per month in December 2011. Compare that to the 28,856 visitors that it got in December of 2012, and you get the picture. 2012 was a BOOM year for Pinterest as more and more people got involved and started using the site, not just for posting pretty images, but for selling.

Pinterest Studies from 2012

BizNet did a study of Pinterest in 2012 that showed:

70% of Pinterest users get inspiration about what to buy there, while only 17% of Facebook users do.
67% use Pinterest to keep up with the latest trends in everything from technology to women’s shoes.
39% of Pinterest users go there to find specials on the brands they like.

And Shop.org did a study showing that the top three categories for making sales from Pinterest were:

Clothing and apparel
Jewelry, Handbags, and accessories
Art, Art Supplies, and Hobbies

But people are buying everything from handmade objects on Etsy to Men’s Custom Accessories.

What makes Pinterest powerful are two things:

One – the visual nature of the platform and
Two – the ability of pinners to repin your items and show them to their followers, too.

How to Use Pinterest for Business

Using Pinterest is simple. Just drag the “Pin It” button into your browser toolbar and find items you want to pin. If you’re doing it for business and not pleasure, you’ll want to be sure that the image’s URL applies to your shopping cart or affiliate page. To do that, after pinning the item, edit it, and fill in the appropriate URL

You can do this with your own products, but only if you have a snappy graphic to visually excite people. But Pinterest is driving e-commerce right now. You can also use Pinterest for affiliate products. The most important thing is that you have engaging images. They should be brightly colored, too. You want them to stand out from every other image on the page.

I know for sure that people are visiting my clients’ websites and buying from Pinterest. If you’re not paying attention to this powerful marketing tool, you most definitely should be. Start now!