How The Pinterest Phenomenon Will Impact Your Inbound Marketing And Content Strategy

The nuclear fission like popularity of social site Pinterest.com has taken the social web by storm. Shooting up the website rankings among the most popular sites out there today, this is one online community no brand, website or organization wants to ignore when it comes to reaching out on the web. No less than a few months ago you could have given it a miss while planning your inbound marketing and social media strategies but ignoring it now would be like ignoring Facebook, Twitter and a number of other channels put together. That’s just how influential Pinterest can be in adding to the referral traffic on your website! In the inbound marketing world, it’s a force to reckon with.

For those of you yet to get on the Pinterest bandwagon, the concept behind this game changing social networking is fairly simple: Imagine creating pin up boards for things you like whether it’s recipes, places you wish to visit, motorbikes you love or clothes that appeal to you and pinning up images / photos of the best you find on the web under each of these. For example, you find a photo of a destination that looks amazing, you can pin it up to your board of “places I like”. In true spirit of social networking you can follow others, see their boards and share your pin-up boards with others. Ultimately, where this site shines through is the visual experience it delivers and makes finding great web content fun.

Now if you’re looking to engage on Pinterest and tap into this massive social network which is rapidly becoming one of the top five sources of inbound traffic to so many sites, you need to make one major direction change in terms of the content you’re publishing to even have a chance of making waves on this social network:

Think Visually

Snappy 140 character texts like the ones on Twitter, Facebook-like status updates and well worded blog posts are not the fuel Pinterest runs on. If you’re going to be one of the sources for viral pins on Pinterest (and the site does link to sources for images pinned) then you need to think :

- Terrific appealing photos

- Graphics

- Infographics

- Visual representations

- Posters

- Designs

- (Videos too)

While the images pinned to Pinterest can be linked to the source site or page they came from, it’s the images and visual content themselves that actually draw clicks from other pinners so if your visual content doesn’t have appeal, it’s not likely to do too well on Pinterest.

Inbound marketing strategies and content creation for social media engagement and is going to have to put more focus on developing great visual content to include in publishing mix. For someone looking to develop a presence on Pinterest, you’re going to have to ask :

- Would someone be drawn to the image if seen on their feed of pins followed?

- Would they click the images you pin and share?

- Would they re-pin or share those images?

Pinterest is going to drive brands to be more creative in terms of photos, graphics, images and visual content. Put the focus on great visual content and Pinterest could do wonders for your inbound traffic and web presence!