Should Pinterest be Part of Your Content & Social Media Strategy? Part 2

This is part 2 of a 3-part series to help you navigate the latest social media darling, Pinterest. To read Part 1, click here.

A few weeks ago, I was splashing around with my kids at our neighborhood pool and I overheard two moms talking about Pinterest. With my recent work with the platform, my ears perked up and I couldn’t help but listen in. I was a little surprised when one of the ladies said, “I hate Pinterest…It makes me feel like a bad mom.”

When you consider the crafty, uber-creative and foodielicious folks that contribute much of the content, I guess I can kinda see where she’s coming from. But if you are considering Pinterest as a new channel for your company, it’s important to get in the heads of your target buyers and make sure your overall strategy compliments your brand, and doesn’t come with unintended side effects.

What Should Your Pinterest Strategy Look Like?

Most of us are still experimenting with different strategies, and it’s nice to have several different clients that are on board with being our guinea pigs. Here are six different approaches with which we’re experimenting:

1. Get Customers Inspired – One of our clients is a commercial printing company that targets graphic designers and creative directors within marketing/ad agencies. Designers are always looking for inspiration, so they’re creating Pinterest boards based on the different types of print materials (a brochure board, identity board, etc.) that they can print. We’re having them not only pin their own portfolio pieces, but also curate unique and innovative pieces that might inspire the designers they’re targeting.
2. Think Outside of Your Products/Services – We’re working with a specialty grocery store that targets foodies. Instead of just focusing on their food products, we’re having them create boards with cool kitchens, innovative cooking tools/utensils, bar accessories, table settings and servingware.
3. Pull Back the Curtain –A customer in the oil/gas industry is shooting and pinning behind-the-scenes photos to show their operation and community involvement. This is also ideal for their Facebook timeline!
4. Show Some Personality– If entertainment is a normal part of your brand and company culture, there is no shortage of funny photos and entertaining videos on Pinterest. Creating a few boards to show your company’s funny bone might tickle your customer’s fancy.
5. SEO Land Grab – Not sure how long it will last, but for the moment, Pinterest is prime, optimized real estate for companies who keyword-optimize their boards and pins. I’ve started seeing boards and pins show up in search results more and more, so a keyword-optimized board full of keyword-optimized pins might be a great way to propel your products/services up the SEO ladder.
6. Promote and Sell Your Stuff – Back to our fashion client (apparel manufacturer)…Since each pin includes a direct link back to the source (individual product pages), their Pinterest referral traffic is showing the best conversion rate compared to all other social media channels. The comScore report confirms this strong buyer behavior among Pinterest users as well. Their customers are on Pinterest. They see a product that was pinned by a friend. They want it. They buy it. It’s a beautiful thing.

A Word of Caution

Promoting/pinning your own stuff comes with a word of caution. The online world is already full of “content pollution” and direct promotion of your content via your Pinterest account will probably not result in much action unless you’ve already amassed a huge following. For example, I personally pinned our infographic on the “12 Things to Do After You’ve Written a New Blog Post”,  but didn’t get squat for repins or referral traffic. We did however get thousands of repins and referral visits based on other people (with large Pinterest followings) pinning it. Creating great visuals (or being a great curator) is the key and then you can let the organic pins work their viral magic.

Part 3 – How to Get Started with Pinterest

In part three of this series, we’ll provide you with a step-by-step guide to help you get your corporate Pinterest account setup, determine how your Pinterest activity should be managed and how to use your analytics and other Pinterest analytics tools to measure the effectiveness of your effort.  To be notified when part 3 is posted, click here!

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