Going on Pinterest to expand your small business seems like an obvious thing to do, but it’s not always the right choice for everyone. If you’re thinking of covering Pinterest in your business’s marketing campaign, here are a few questions you’re going to want to ask beforehand:
1. What Are We Doing On Pinterest?
In other words: why are you on the site in the first place? There are a lot of social media outlets out there, so why Pinterest? Ideally, you should have a clear concept in mind before you so much as register your name on the site. It essentially comes down to this: what are you trying to convince people of with the pictures you post on Pinterest?
2. What Will Resonate With Your Ideal Customer?
Who are you trying to reach and how will you reach them without seeming pushy or spammy? This question may be trickier than you think.
3. Where Are Our Images Coming From?
Are you posting original content, artwork, comics, memes and macros, stock imagery Photoshopped up to suit your purpose? Consider how you’re going to get your content.
4. How Often Will We Post New Content?
Several new pictures a day can get very spammy very quickly, but if you update irregularly, people will lose interest. Figure out what sort of time-frame works for you and your best followers.
5. Can Others Contribute Content?
Some corporate Pinterest pages let others pin to their page. Is this for you, or do you want stricter control over your page?
6. How Will We Moderate?
How will you moderate, and who will moderate? You can’t let just anyone post whatever they like on your page, so how will you police your users?
7. Who Will We Follow?
Some corporate pinterest accounts follow a lot of other accounts, knowing that their attention can really pay off for both parties. Others strictly post their own original content. This is something to consider.
8. What Are The Most Common Mistakes?
The biggest blunder that people make on pinterest is posting exclusively corporate product images and the like. Social media is not about the “Sell sell sell!” mentality, social media is about sharing, giving and taking. Give your followers content they actually want to follow, not just a sales pitch every five minutes.
9. Will We Pin Videos?
Will you bother pinning videos, or will you keep it image-only? Images tend to get repinned more often, but videos can offer a different kind of content that you won’t get with still photos.
10. How Will I Engage Fellow Pinners?
Finally, this is the big one, how will you engage other pinners? You can’t simply post content and hope for the best, you have to fine-tune your content around what people like to repin and what you think will pay off. Focus on making your followers happy and it shouldn’t be hard to get repinned more often than not.
As long as you keep these questions in mind at all major points in the brainstorming process, you should have no trouble finding the audience you deserve on Pinterest.
