Everyone has jumped on the social media bandwagon. We all know Twitter and Facebook and there appears to be a new social media platform coming out everyday.

But if you haven’t tried Pinterest you may be missing out on something that is quickly becoming a contender in the social media space. Most notably for its ability to drive actual sales and more money for your business.

Be sure to check out reason number 7 for more details on that but here are 10 reasons why I think you should use Pinterest for your small business:

1. It drives more traffic than Twitter, Reddit and LinkedIn combined. It’s the 4th larger traffic driver in the world and is an excellent source for referral traffic.

2. It’s viral and very social. 80% of the “pins” on Pinterest are “repins”. So people are actively sharing content.

3. Pinterest has a large audience (100 million active users a month) and is still growing. It’s mostly female and for the 25 and older set, but that is changing fast.

4. It’s ideal for anyone who works in a profession that can provide great visual content, like a wedding planner, chef, photographer or even areas such as fashion, beauty and real estate. According to Brandon Gaille & Repinly the most popular categories are “Food & Drink” 12%, “DIY Crafts” 9% and “Home Decor” 6%. (source: Brandongaille)

5.Even service professionals can use the site to promote their posts by creating images with the post titles on them, upload infographics, take an image from a slide presentation that links to Slideshare or create boards of pins that are related to their field.

6. Keep in mind too that Pinterest is mostly used as a shop and compare site – for just about everything. A good pin will have a high click-thru rate as people are looking to buy. Unlike Facebook, where most of its users are looking to be entertained or catch up with family and friends.

7. Pinterest is great for anyone looking to sell online. When it comes to retail and commerce, the average order value from a Pinterest referral is approximately $180/per order as compared to Twitter at $69/per order or Facbook at $80/per order.

But the real news is “Buyable Pins”. The platform has teamed up with Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce and DemandWare to give your followers the ability to purchase directly within Pinterest for FREE.

If you’re on another platform you will have to wait but this is HUGE because Pinterest almost from day one was developing into the ultimate “shopping” social media site and this is taking it one step further in that direction.

You can learn more about “Buyable Pins” and “Shopping with Pinterest” on their website.

8. Make sure when creating your own pins that you include effective, keyword rich captions. This is a very important feature of Pinterest. It’s how you can be found and it boosts your SEO like no other social media network.

9. Don’t forget to add a Pinterest share button to your blog posts. This makes it super-easy for Pinterest enthusiasts to share your posts. If you aren’t already including images in your posts (for Facebook) you should definitely do so for Pinterest.

Even if you don’t have a Pinterest page, don’t deny a Pinterest fan the chance to introduce you to their following.

10. Once you’ve gotten the hang of Pinterest and decide that want to go pro, you’ll need to register your business with Pinterest at business.pinterest.com.

You’ll may also want to consider some third party apps like Viraltag and ViralWoot. They each allow you to schedule your pins over time, like Hootsuite, TweetDeck and Buffer except it is only for Pinterest – prices start at $24/month for Viraltag and $10/month for ViralWoot.

Bonus Tip: If you liked to know how you can get even more ecomm traffic to your site from Pinterest. Be sure to check out this post from Lisa Austin at My ECom Club, “15 Powerful Strategies To Get More Ecommerce Traffic From Pinterest Right Now”.

Question: Do you use Pinterest for small business? If so – how? Share your comments and ideas below.

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This post was updated on November 30, 2017