Interest in Pinterest has allegedly grown by more than 4000% in the last half year. The site is one of the most popular in social media circles and has great marketing capacity for any small business owner. It’s a simple concept – a virtual pin board as it were, enabling many of us to keep an online scrapbook associated with our interests. Whenever we like a particular image we can “pin” it within the social platform and are able to categorise it all rather neatly in a way that makes this solution of interest to so many different small business people.
For example if you’re an interior designer there is a specific target category for Home Interior. If you’re a photographer you may find yourself spending a lot of time in the Wedding Planning category. It’s possible to establish your own storyboards within the solution to showcase your work very creatively. This level of expression allows the absolute personality of the individual concerned to come across very well. The more creativity that is injected the more interest is likely to be generated and the more the work is likely to be shared by other Pinterest users.
The virtual assistant can be engaged to create and populate an online presence for any such small business owner here. We talked about creating a “story” and the virtual assistant can use a preliminary brief to ensure that the theme and continuity of such a storyline is continued, month after month.
The virtual assistant can also be engaged to use Pinterest as a valuable market research solution. For example, what’s creating the buzz at the moment, what type of image is being displayed on a regular basis? What type of colours are people drawn to and quite simply what is fashionable and what is not according to this frontline research tool?
With this type of market research the small-business owner can then make a reasoned decision about a particular product or service rollout, the associated marketability and likely popularity.
Ensure that you keep your finger on the pulse when it comes to popularity and fashion with this tool. By getting your virtual assistant to create content that can be shared and distributed quickly you’re more likely to be able to attract a customer who can consequently be engaged for life.
Just like any other social media tool take the time to understand what it can do and what it can’t, what is acceptable and what is not. Remember that your virtual assistant is fully up to speed with all of these new and emerging solutions and can advise the best course of action accordingly. It doesn’t make any sense to jump into this without prior preparation, as we should all be wary about making missteps in the sometimes chaotic social media world.
Do you have a Pinterest account? If so, please post a link to your Pinterest account so that I can follow your boards.