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The Quick and Easy Guide to Branding your Business and Creating Massive Sales with PINTEREST by Kim Garst
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1 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2013, Kim Garst
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International
and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this
material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express
written permission from the author / publisher.
2 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
Acknowledgements
A Special Thank You To:
My God…who is constantly with me.
My family; husband Joseph and my boys, Tyler and Logan…
you are my heart and soul. Love you!
My Mother…who is always there for me.
My friends…for believing in me and pushing me towards this
and other goals in my life.
3 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
Contents
Introduction 6
PART I: A Pinterest Primer 8
What is Pinterest? 8
A Virtual Pinboard? What’s That? 8
A Virtual Pinboard for Business? Why? 10
Getting Started With Pinterest 11
The Pinterest Layout 17
Getting Followers 19
PART II: Using Pinterest for your Business 23
Does Your Business Need Pinterest? 24
Businesses Selling Products 26
Product Promotion 28
Tracking Product Popularity 29
Product Themes 30
Product Testing 30
Customer Testimonials 31
Exclusive Offers 31
Online Catalogue 32
A word of caution for product-based businesses 33
4 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
Pinterest for Service Oriented Businesses 35
Inspirational visuals 35
Cute kids or animals 36
Recipes, DIY Projects, stories in pictures 36
PART III: Marketing with Pinterest 39
Creating a Brand Image & Online Presence 39
Finding Fans 39
Listen To Your Customers 40
Using the Activity View to Listen to Your Customers 40
Crowd Sourced Promotion 41
Using Images 41
Why You Can’t Afford to Ignore Pinterest 43
Driving visitors to your website 43
Is Pinterest Slowing Down? 45
Connect with Customers: Seek and Discover Users’ Interests 48
Picking Up Trends 49
Link Building through Images 50
Creative Examples of Pinterest Link Building 51
PUZZLE CONTEST 51
5 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
PRODUCT PROMOTION: 51
SERVICE BUSINESS PROMOTION 51
Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Pinterest 52
Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Pinterest 53
Show Me the Numbers: Finding and Using Pinterest Analytics 54
Directing Traffic: Using Pinterest to Increase Click Throughs 57
Demographics 59
PART IV: Pinterest Case Studies - 7 Brands' Best Practices 61
Giving Your Business a Boost with Pinterest 71
6 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
Introduction
Pinterest, though rhyming with interest,
is only loosely related! Basically, it’s a
virtual pinboard just like the corkboards
we had in our rooms as kids and you may
still have in your home or office.
Pinterest is a social networking site that
allows users to create photo collections
online – like online, upscale scrapbooking. It is primarily a photo sharing website
where the members are allowed to create albums pertaining to a certain theme
or pattern.
Founded in early 2010, Pinterest has become one of the leading social media
networks – named by TechCrunch.com as the best new startup of 20111. The site
has grown rapidly and is viewed as a strong competitor to the older social media
networking websites. In terms of visits, Pinterest is now number 3 for numbers of
visitors, behind only Facebook and Twitter2.
1 http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/01/and-the-crunchie-goes-to-pinterest-best-new-startup-of-2011/ 2 http://www.vabsite.com/2012/02/pinterest-users-usage-trends-statistics.html
7 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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Over the past few years, businesses have been using social media websites for
promoting and boosting their businesses. The same is the case with Pinterest. You
might be wondering how a photo sharing website can help your business become
a success. This book is intended to be a guide for using Pinterest to strengthen
your business and brand. Read on and learn how ‘you can do’ branding with
Pinterest!
8 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
PART I: A Pinterest Primer
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is one of the newest social media websites that has quickly become
extremely popular with the youth and women between the ages of 25-54.3 If you
are in your 20’s, you may already be a member of this website. In case you don’t
know much about Pinterest, here is an overview of what it is all about.
A Virtual Pinboard? What’s That?
Pinterest describes itself as a virtual
Pinboard on which you can ‘pin’ your
images to share with your followers. In
addition to pinning your photos, you can
modify and post anything interesting you
find on the internet. In essence, Pinterest is
similar to a pinboard hanging on the wall in
your room or office. You find an appealing picture or a great magazine article, rip
3 http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-networks/pinterest-demographic-data/
9 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
it out and pin it up. If you are a parent, you may have a collection of your
child(ren)’s artwork.
The concept is the same, except that this is online and collaborative with other
members. Once you complete the signup process, you get the chance to create
different boards for yourself. You can customize and ‘name’ the boards according
to your interests. You can also like and follow other people’s boards. One of the
commonly used features is the re-pin, which is similar to the retweet on Twitter,
only here you can easily re-pin a photo a friend has on their board and add to
your own board collection.
The boards and anything you share on them can be posted on Facebook and
other social media websites as well. The original website link from where the
image was taken is posted, so when someone clicks on the image, they are
directed to that website. This helps in increasing the traffic to that particular
website. This alone could be huge due to the incredibly viral nature of social
media!
Like all social media websites, Pinterest is designed to be interesting and
engaging. There is little surprise that it has grown substantially to be ranked
among the top 3 social networks at present. Originally, Pinterest was used by
people to organize and share their interests with their friends and other users of
the website. Recently, the website has started to generate considerable buzz in
the corporate world.
10 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
A Virtual Pinboard for Business? Why?
So digital pinboards sound nice for kid pictures, vacation pictures, or maybe a
shot of your latest hobby, but maybe you still don’t quite understand how this has
anything to do with marketing and why you should even bother reading further.
We’ll cover specific techniques to use Pinterest for marketing your business in a
later chapter, but here are some examples right now of how this highly popular
social media platform has changed online marketing:
Just this year, Pinterest became the largest referrer for marthastewartweddings.com and marthastewart.com, surpassing traffic sent by Facebook and Twitter combined.
Pinterest is poised to become the second highest generator of traffic to Cooking Light’s website, up 6000% from just six months ago, placing only behind Google itself.
Pinterest was the ninth largest traffic source for Elle Décor and House Beautiful in March 2012, both of which have seen triple-digit percentage increases in their referrals over the prior six months.
Pinterest user engagement as measured by time spent on site has increased to nearly 100 minutes per visitor 4.
With these trends in mind, read on as we explore the basic setup and structure of
your Pinterest profile, followed by specific, easily actionable steps showing how
‘you can do’ branding with Pinterest!
4 http://www.vabsite.com/2012/02/pinterest-users-usage-trends-statistics.html
11 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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Getting Started With Pinterest
Access to Pinterest is now open (you'll see older tutorials referencing an invitation
only process; this changed in mid 2012). You can visit www.pinterest.com, click
Join Pinterest, and get started setting up your account quickly and easily.
After you click the big red "Join Pinterest" button, you'll see a screen that asks if
you want to connect to Pinterest using your Facebook or Twitter accounts. Now,
it would be so easy to just click on one of the big buttons for Facebook or Twitter
and just go from there.
12 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
But - don't get fooled by this screen! Instead, scroll down further and you'll see
one more option that is of special importance to you as a business owner.
13 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
See that little sentence at the bottom? This was a Fall 2012 addition from the
Pinterest team, the ability to use Pinterest as a business rather than as just an
individual trying to tweak your boards to work for marketing your business. So if
you are trying to use Pinterest as a business, you'll want to set it up that way from
the beginning.
14 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
The Pinterest team really did an amazing job in rolling out Pinterest business
accounts. Not only did they create business accounts, but they created a number
of tutorials, case studies, and other resources to help businesses get the most out
of their Pinterest accounts, without losing the kinds of boards that made Pinterest
unique in the first place.
15 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
You'll want to be complete and thorough when you add your information to your
profile. You can go back and verify and edit at a later date, but definitely make
sure that it's complete and describes you and your business thoroughly.
Along those lines, you'll also want to make sure that you include a profile picture
(just like on any page, really). If you're branding yourself, it's best to include a
picture of you - not your logo. People really do prefer to see whoever they're
doing business with.
Be sure to complete the "About" section thoroughly as well. Include keywords
related to your business niche to make it easier for people to find you online.
One specific area of completing your profile includes your website. When you add
your website to Pinterest as a business entity, you'll see a note to click to verify
16 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
your website. Once you click that button, you'll get a set of 3 instructions to
verify your website. The first one is to download a tiny bit of HTML code to your
computer's download folder. Then you'll need to upload it to your website's root
folder, usually done through your web hosting provider's FTP program (not
through your Word Press dashboard). Once you get it uploaded, return to
Pinterest and click the button to verify. Pinterest will verify that you've put that
file in your website files, and will add the little checkmark next to your website
that tells the world you are in fact the owner of your website.
Once you finish setting up your account, go back and verify that you have
optimized your profile under settings. Things to consider include making sure you
include your company name, company description, logo and a link to your
website. This is important so please do not skip this step! Make sure that the
slider button for ‘hide your Pinterest profile from search engines” is checked to
the OFF position. You definitely want to be indexed by the search engines! Include
keywords in your profile that pertain to your niche so that you can be ‘found’
when someone searches for those keywords.
17 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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The Pinterest Layout
The website allows users to express their interest through ‘pins’. The pins can be
in the form of images, videos, gifts and discussions. There are many categories for
users to choose their interest from. Here are some of them.
Film
Music & Books
Education
Fitness
Food & Drink
Art
Cars & Motorcycles
Travel & Places
Technology
Wedding & Events
These are just some of the categories users can
pin their graphics under. Users are encouraged
to name their own individual boards. You may
consider naming your boards with keywords
that revolve around your niche as users can
search board names by keyword.
TIP: Consider naming
your pinboards with
keywords that revolve
around your niche as
users can search board
names by keyword.
18 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
Board Organization. Use the “Rearrange Boards” button to move the boards that
are the most popular or most relevant to your brand to the top. When people
click through your profile you want to catch their attention with your best ‘look’.
The old saying “always put your best foot forward’ applies here!
How You Name Your Boards. Make sure that
you name your boards so that the topic is clear
and contains keywords that are relevant to your
brand. You can also have cute or quirky named
boards to showcase your personality and
authenticity.
Build At Least 5 Boards With 5 Pins Each. There
is no rule on how many boards you can have but
I suggest 5 boards with 5 pins each because that
is the ‘view’ that people have when they come
to your site or to use designer term ‘above the fold’. After those first 5 visible
boards, people will have to scroll down to see more. When someone clicks on
your profile, you want to give them a good first impression. You want them to
know that you are active, engaging and have great content. The most recently
pinned image on each board is the default cover for that board. You can change
the cover image by hovering your mouse pointer over the image until the “Set
Board Cover” button appears and clicking it.
TIP: Use the “Rearrange
Boards” button to move
the boards that are the
most popular or relevant
to your brand to the top
of your profile.
19 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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No Empty Boards. Don’t create an empty board until you have images to put in it.
Empty boards make your profile look inactive or incomplete.
Getting Followers
Pinning away is basically useless without an audience to see your pins, but don’t
let this stop you from establishing your profile and boards! With the following
steps, you’ll be on your way to building an audience in no time!
On Pinterest, having followers (the total number of followers that is visible from
your profile) is important but the number of people who follow your specific
themed boards is also important. Sometimes people will follow a thematic board
before they will follow a personal profile.
FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW those who have similar interests and/or are in your
niche to ensure that as many people as you can have exposure to you and your
boards. You can start by searching Pinterest for keywords around your product,
service or industry. For example, if you are in the travel industry, you might
search for words like ‘vacation’, ‘travel’, ‘Hawaii’ (other hot travel spots), ‘hotel’,
‘destinations’, etc. You can follow boards or people, based on what your search
yields.
Follow back those who follow you. If you are on your personal profile page, you
can see the number of followers directly underneath your name. If you click on
20 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
that number, all those that follow you will appear and you can follow anyone who
you are not currently following.
Mention other users. You can mention others in your comments or pin
descriptions to get the attention or to recognize someone specific. A ‘mention’ is
very similar to Facebook and Twitter. Type the @ symbol before starting to type
the name of the person. A drop down box will
appear and your choice should be displayed
there for you to select. One quick note on
this…you can only mention users who are
following you on at least one board. When you
mention someone using this method, they will
get an email and the @mention will be linked
back to their profile.
Repin others. This is just like a retweet on
Twitter or a share on Facebook. It is a great way
to share valuable content and to recognize
someone else. This also encourages them to
follow you in return. Obviously, you want to
make sure that what you repin is of value to your
audience or meets your board’s content theme.
If you repeatedly repin content from the same users, Pinterest will update its
“repins from” card in your profile (located to the right of your basic profile
TIP: A repin is a great
way to share content
that is of value to your
own audience and meets
your board’s content
theme.
A like is a way of
attracting attention of
another user to
encourage him or her to
follow you.
21 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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information) to reflect the top three users whose content you repin, to help you
discover new people to follow as well.
Like other people’s pins. You might want to like other pinner’s pins that may not
be useful to your audience or your board content instead of repinning them.
Anytime you like someone’s pin, it will show up in their activity feed. This may
grab their attention and get them to follow you.
Use the # or hashtag to define keywords for search results. This works exactly as
it does on Twitter in the sense that you can use a hashtag to define keywords in
your pin description. For example, if you want to be found under the keyword
‘travel’, use #travel in your description. This makes it easier to be found and will
create more followers.
Add a follow button to your website. Add a Pinterest social media icon to your
list of social media connections on your site. You can get Pinterest icons by
visiting this link http://www.pinterest.com/goodies.
Pinterest Has a Mobile App! This is huge as it allows you to browse, pin, repin
and even take photos to pin right from your iPhone! Search www.itunes.com for
‘pinterest’ and you will be able to download the app and start using it
immediately!
Pinterest also has a mobile-friendly web-based interface (Pinterest Mobile)
allowing it to run well on many different smartphones, whether iOS, Android, or
22 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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Windows. While not a replacement for the full version of Pinterest available on a
traditional computer, it is optimized for looking great in any smartphone browser.
This has been a general overview of starting up a Pinterest account and the basics
of working with it. We will now explore this amazing new social media platform
and its benefits to business in the next chapter.
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PART II: Using Pinterest for your Business
The very idea of using a photo sharing social network for business might seem a
little strange to you at first. However, businesses have been using social media
websites extensively for their promotion and growth for quite some time now. It
should come as no surprise that enterprising business owners have seen the
potential benefits of Pinterest right away.
The main reason why businesses look to social media websites is for promotion,
online marketing and direct engagement with their customers. Branding plays an
important role in creating an online presence for any business. In effect, a
business brand is a recognizable entity that real people can connect and trust in
the online environment. Through Pinterest, any business, from one-person
entrepreneurial efforts to multi-billion dollar corporations have the tools
24 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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necessary to create a brand, connect with their audience and boost their reach on
the internet.
Pinterest is among the best options you have for branding because it is visual in
nature. Pinterest is a photo sharing website which means that images play a huge
role in interacting with users there. The Internet is becoming a visual playground.
People’s time is very limited these days and they want information that they can
quickly absorb and run with. This is one reason that photo-sharing sites are hugely
popular online. By putting up interesting pictures related to your business and its
products, you can create a powerful brand image for yourself and provide a way
for your prospects to connect with your business, products and services.
Today, the average internet user would say that there is an overload of social
media websites. Yet, in its brief history, Pinterest has managed to flourish. There
is every reason to believe that this trend will continue and Pinterest will become
an ongoing place of connection for individuals and businesses alike.
Does Your Business Need Pinterest?
Before we get to how you can use Pinterest for your business, there is an
important question to consider: is Pinterest right for your business? It is probable
that you are already using Facebook and Twitter to promote your business. Using
another social network may sound overwhelming right about now. One way to
25 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
gauge whether Pinterest is worth your time and effort is to determine the market
segment you can target through this new and rapidly expanding social media
platform.
The users of Pinterest are a diverse group.
Generally, social networks attract people of
all ages, from different walks of life and from
across the world. Students, their parents and
even their grandparents use Pinterest. In
fact, 80% of Pinterest users are evenly
distributed over the 25-54 year age range.5
The unique draw of Pinterest is that it brings
people together through the use of visuals instead of words. This makes it
different from all the other social media platforms out there.
There is little discussion or conversation on Pinterest. Most of the communication
takes place through the use of images. As they say, a picture can speak a
thousand words. Just imagine the impact of an interactive niche-rich collection of
images about the mission and message of your business, products and services.
5 http://www.vabsite.com/2012/02/pinterest-users-usage-trends-statistics.html
26 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
However, there is a possible drawback to this
unique feature as well. If your products and
services aren’t visually appealing, then Pinterest
may not be the right place for branding
purposes. With a little strategy, however, even
businesses without immediate visual appeal can
still find many opportunities to interact on
Pinterest. If you do not have visuals for your
business, products and/or services, I would
suggest hiring someone to make a collage of
graphics that would help you launch your branded presence on Pinterest.
One idea is to use the graphics in your blog posts and link to your content.
Everyone can do this! This is an opportunity for you to increase traffic to your blog
site.
In the next section, we will look at how different types of businesses can make the
most of Pinterest.
Businesses Selling Products
Before taking a look at how Pinterest can benefit your business, I want to point
out that the numbers speak for themselves and you definitely need to take a
TIP: Pin graphics from
your business blog and
website to your
Pinterest boards. This
naturally increases
traffic to your site.
27 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
really good look at whether Pinterest is a fit for your brand. In the final six months
of 2011, Pinterest grew by more than 6000%, and by the end of January 2012 was
receiving approximately 21.5 million visits per week. 6
What is the easiest place to start, right? Let’s cover the basics and then we’ll get
into some unique strategies for product-focused businesses.
6 http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/03/16/newly-redesigned-pinterest-profile-pages-go-live/-increase-by-4000-in-just-6-months/
28 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
Product Promotion
Since any web page can be “pinned”
to a board, you can attract people by
making it easy for your readers to
interact with their Pin Boards right
from your website. A ‘Pin It’ button is
easy to add to your web pages. When
a visitor clicks on the ‘Pin It’ button, an
image from that page along with a link
back to your page will be shared on a board the Pinterest user chooses. As a result
of that pin, many more people will see your product and website. You can get the
pin it buttons in the Pinterest Tools section or by clicking here.
You can also install a Pinterest browser extension directly to your own toolbar
that will allow you, with a simple click of your mouse, to pin any photo you find
anywhere on the Internet. If you use Google Chrome, click here to install the
extension.
As an example, Real Simple is a brand that has been using ‘Pin It’ buttons very
successfully. In fact, they have recently acknowledged the fact that the majority
29 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
of the traffic to their websites is generated through Pinterest; more than even
Facebook.7
Tracking Product Popularity
Tracking your most popular and photogenic
items is simple with Pinterest. Every time
someone re-pins one of your originally pinned
photos, you are notified. Additionally, tracking
traffic via tools such as Google Analytics will
show the effectiveness of product placement.
Simply putting up photos of your products is not
enough to generate interest and ‘repinning’ engagement though. One way
Pinterest supports innovation and creativity is with the way boards and categories
work within the Pinterest community.
7 http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/real-simple-pinterest-drives-traffic-facebook/231576/
30 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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Product Themes
‘Products I love’ is a standard board that is offered when anyone first signs up
with Pinterest. Yet the places where folks true favorite products show up are
more often in themed boards. Creating your
own thematic boards will start off a Pinterest
conversation. Members are likely to create
similar themes or boards. Or you’ll discover a
community theme you might not have thought of
yet by watching how and where they repin your
products.
For instance maybe you are a master gardener
and create amazing potted gardens. You might
think that gardening or gardens would be a logical board to start with. However,
when your amazing potted flowers show up in thematic wedding boards, you
have discovered an entirely new niche!
Product Testing
Involving the Pinterest Community in the design and implementation of new ideas
is another unique aspect of this social network. A strong segment of Pinterest is
31 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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the DIY and artistic communities. Pictorial recipes and DIY projects in pictures are
very popular. Show the manufacturing or creative steps you go through to
develop your products and you’ll have enthusiastic followers!
Customer Testimonials
Nearly without effort, Pinterest creates
customer testimonials for you. This is one of
the biggest reasons that every product-based
business needs to be engaging on Pinterest!
Run a contest and ask your readers/customers
to share pictures of themselves with your
products or simply collect the photos that are
already out there. Instantly you’ve gained marketable credibility no matter how
small or ‘just starting out’ your business is!
Exclusive Offers
One way to promote Pinterest engagement with your products is to create ‘Pin
offers’ that are exclusively for the people who are following you on Pinterest.
Create a special board where you put up such offers on a daily, weekly or monthly
32 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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basis. People like to feel that they are getting a ‘special’ deal that is not available
to others and this is a surefire way of getting repeat traffic to your boards.
Land’s End used Pinterest wonderfully to engage their fans. They launched their
‘Pin It to Win It’ campaign on their Pinterest page. This attracted many visitors.
This exclusive offer, for the people who follow their page on Pinterest, generated
a huge response!
Online Catalogue
One of the most obvious uses of Pinterest is selling products. You can set up a
board that is a virtual catalogue for your products. You can actually place price
tags in the description box which allow the customers to view details about your
products. When you add a ‘$’ sign to your pinned graphic, the products get listed
in the ‘Gifts’ section, making your products easily searchable from the main
Pinterest menu.
33 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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A word of caution for product-
based businesses
As a long time professional specializing
in personal branding, my opinion is that
the strength of Pinterest is in its
community atmosphere. Focus first on
generating engagement and then add a virtual
catalog after there is some interaction about
your products and brand. In other words, do not
lead with a sell, sell, sell attitude.
Pinterest touches on this in their Etiquette
section, recommending being authentic instead
of being hyper-focused on numbers of
followers. Most people and businesses who
have adopted this focus find that when they are
authentic, the issue of gaining followers
appropriate to their niche seems to take care of itself.
Marketing a product based business effectively on Pinterest is best accomplished
by not only pinning pictures of products and costs – though it can function nicely
as an online catalogue – but also by pinning images that promote the lifestyle that
their brand promotes.
TIP: Pinterest’s strength
lies in its community
atmosphere. Focus first
on building a favorable
brand image by
generating engagement
and connecting
authentically with your
audience.
34 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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The customer testimonial board listed above can
be a great way to collect images from your
customers that illustrate the lifestyle your brand
allows them to enjoy! Does your product save
them time or money? Help them feel more
energetic? Use a collaborative board and ask
your audience to pin images that represent the
money or time they have saved, or what they
can do with the extra energy they enjoy as a
result of your brand. This creates authentic
engagement with your customers and is a
unique way to leverage their loyalty to your
brand.
The bottom line with respect to marketing with
any tool (including Pinterest) is this: a business that is not able to create a
favorable brand image for itself will struggle to pry away customers from rival
businesses. In the online, social media driven marketplace, the strength of a
brand rests on its authentic connectivity. Focus on real world, visual
conversations with your products on Pinterest and you’ll be ahead of the game!
TIP: A business that is
not able to create a
favorable brand image
for itself will struggle to
pry away customers
from rival businesses.
In the online arena, the
strength of a brand rests
on authentic
connectedness with its
customers.
35 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
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Pinterest for Service Oriented Businesses
If your business is service oriented, the idea of using a visually-focused platform
may be tough to wrap your mind around as you may not be used to promoting
your business, products and services in a visual way. After all, you don’t have cute
products to put out there. You may be thinking, what photos will you lead with?
What will others interact with you on?
Inspirational visuals
One of the most popular and most often re-pinned segments of Pinterest that
bridges all users are inspirational or funny quotes set in beautiful visual graphic.
Maybe you have a stellar mission statement
or business values that portray your message
in the marketplace. Additionally, you could
easily make a habit of re-pinning others great
quotes or sayings.
In this respect, Pinterest is for photos what
Twitter is for quips and pithy sayings. The
addition of a graphic adds visual appeal, and the motivation grabs the emotions!
The strength of your presence as a company can be enhanced when you re-pin
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the quotes that showcase your personal or business values. You are honoring
other Pinterest members and they’ll remember your re-pin of their treasures!
Cute kids or animals
Sure, you may not be a dog groomer or a wild-animal wrangler but consider the
message behind these often-shared
photos. Warm feelings extend the
warmth of your brand and your service.
If you are in the niche of family services,
coaching or consulting; focusing on family
photos, kid photos or other connective
and community building pictures gives
your brand an emotional connection that blog articles or even Tweets cannot.
Recipes, DIY Projects, stories in pictures
Get creative. Are you a cake baker? Maybe you teach martial arts. Or you are a
financial advisor or SEO expert. Create a mini-class with step-by-step photos. Ask
your audience to take pictures of their favorite moves or recipes. Create a
collaborative visual discussion around your niche and you will have mastered
Pinterest as well as boosting the visible feel of your business.
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VIDEO: This is a great way to use videos on a Pinterest board as well! Pinterest
currently supports pins from Vimeo and You Tube. Maybe you have a speaking
business? Pin video clips of your most engaging presentations! If your business is
cleaning, people are regularly looking for tips on specific cleaning tasks, and a
video demonstrating how-to complete a particular kind of cleaning can be even
more effective!
The Bottom Line About Pinterest For Service Businesses
Don’t assume that because you are NOT in the business of selling products that
Pinterest is not for you. In many ways Pinterest is easier to interact with as a
service-based business owner. Granted, you may be forced to be creative and
more interactive. Don’t fall into the easy trap of just listing out all your products
and leaving it there. Remember, Pinterest is a social media platform NOT a listing
service!
The same kind of lifestyle branding that creates authentic engagement for
product-focused businesses works well for service-based businesses as well.
Maybe even better, since you are forced to think more clearly about what kind of
lifestyle your service allows your customers to enjoy.
The American Association for Retired People, or AARP, has done just that with
boards that reflect its vision of an active, engaged lifestyle for its members and
prospective members. It’s not an obvious membership drive, though. It’s a
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compelling vision that invites people to engage with the organization and learn
more through the power of images telling stories.
Start posting some inspirational pictures and re-pinning your followers’ favorite
visuals…you will be surprised at the increased engagement and interaction that
comes your way!
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PART III: Marketing with Pinterest
Creating a Brand Image & Online Presence
Let’s focus specifically on branding for a moment. As a successful entrepreneur,
you want to create solid results through branding your business. Here are some
ways Pinterest supports those efforts.
Finding Fans
Your fans are going to take the time to pin content from your website and about
your business on their boards. When you interact with their pins, re-pin and like
them as well as comment on their favorites, you’ve engaged in a conversation
with your audience. Whole Foods, whose Pinterest profile is shown above is a
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great example of a brand who repins followers’ pins often. The give and take
created by repining is a type of conversation with their customers, a conversation
that may have never happened without the visual interaction Pinterest brings.
This is a great way to create super-fans who rave about and share your products.
Listen To Your Customers
You will gain valuable insights into your customers’ interests through their pins.
Follow the people enthusiastic about pinning your content to their boards as well
as those pinning photos from the influencers in your market niche. Check out
other pages and boards they are showing interest in. Getting to know your
customers enables you to build products and services that will meet their needs.
By communicating in such a vibrant, visual way you will be interacting on a level
not provided by any other social media platform. In fact, there are people active
on Pinterest who wouldn’t tweet or FB if you paid them to!
Using the Activity View to Listen to Your Customers
Released in Spring 2012, the Activity View tab on your friends’ profiles gives you a
quick snapshot of their activity, what they’re liking, repining and commenting on.
This is a great tool for building deeper engagement with your followers. People
love to be made to feel important and valuable! Commenting on their repins and
likes is an easy, targeted way to do this.
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You can also use the Activity View to take a quick look at your own profile and
activity level to see if there are patterns you weren’t aware of. This feedback may
be useful in developing additional product lines or services based on ways your
followers are finding your content useful.
Crowd Sourced Promotion
You can ask your customers to promote your business. Ask them to ‘pin’ your
product pages and other landing pages to their boards. Offer a prize to the fan
that has the most pins related to your business. This creates a contest for your
fans to engage in and creates a bit of competition. Crowd sourced promotion
works wonders in the world of online marketing. Hemp Milk has been using
Pinterest to generate crowd sourced promotion. You can see in this image how
their fans can promote the brand through three actions; the repin, like and
making a comment. You can then repin the top boards to your own Pinterest
page, asking your audience to vote on a winner.
Using Images
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By creating an image-based marketing
strategy, you may discover a visual brand
that wasn’t apparent when you first started
your business. Using the collaborative and
interactive aspects of this platform the
images that are in line with your mission
and message will quickly become obvious.
Test out logo or specific branding images or
just collect a variety of related images to
test out your audience. It’s all possible with Pinterest!
With so many different social networks available, why should you use Pinterest? It
is a relatively new social media website so wouldn’t Facebook or Twitter be a
better option? The answer to these questions is in the next chapter.
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Why You Can’t Afford to Ignore Pinterest
Pinterest and other social media platforms can be a great boost for small and
emerging businesses. They can create a significant online presence and attract
customers. Yet, there are so many social networks around, each with its own set
of pros and cons. Sometimes it can be tough to decide where to invest our time
and energy. Recent developments around Pinterest make it clear to me that this
platform cannot be ignored!
Driving visitors to your website
In a January 2012 article, noted Social Media expert Brian Solis collected some
fascinating recent data about the explosion of Pinterest traffic and its power on
the web to refer members to other sites.
Of note, he commented on the various ways consumer brands are experimenting
with Pinterest, “thoughtfully assembling a curated lifestyle,” by allowing
consumers to “visualize and remix new possibilities.” This twist on lifestyle
promotion rather than pure product placement allows your audience to see
themselves using your product or service in new ways they may never have
considered before.
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His article included the following two infographics measuring Pinterest unique
visitors and referral traffic relative to other websites.8
8 http://www.briansolis.com/2012/01/pinterest-rivals-twitter-in-referral-traffic-pinteresting/
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It’s fascinating to note that while Pinterest still came
in below Twitter, it is by a narrow .01% margin.
Additionally, Pinterest drove more traffic than
YouTube, Reddit, Google+ and LinkedIn combined!
Is Pinterest Slowing Down?
There have been a few reports by tech writers in
recent weeks suggesting that Pinterest’s growth
slowed during the first quarter of 2012. For instance,
according to a digital analytics company comScore,
the number of unique visitors brought in from
February to March, 2012 grew at a lower rate than it
did compared to time from January to February 20129.
We’ve seen similar growth spurts and slowdowns for
many social media sites over the years, so let me
reassure you that it’s very normal for sites to
9 http://mashable.com/2012/04/12/pinterest-traffic-slowing/
“Scale is one of the least
important factors
marketers should
consider when
evaluating emerging
platforms, because it’s a
moving target.
Marketers should look
at other factors, such as
how relevant the
platform is to their
brand and how well
their brands can provide
value for that platform’s
users.”
-David Berkowitz, VP of
Emerging Media, 360i
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experience cycles of rapid growth followed by periods of slower growth as its new
user base solidifies.
Why is this a good cycle? Simply because it gives you as a marketer a chance to
market more effectively to the core audience attracted by this particular social
media platform.
Who is sticking with Pinterest?
Who is remaining as a user of Pinterest and how? 80% of Pinterest users are
female, making Pinterest one of the most successful social media sites in building
and retaining the interest of women. As Pinterest continues, if your product or
service is used or referred by women, it’s clear this is a marketing tool for you.
It is interesting to note also that 80% of pins on Pinterest are repins. This could be
huge for businesses – bringing interest in your product or service to a small group
of people could easily make interest in your business go viral10!
Because of the ease with which users can repin content that points directly to
your business’ blog or webpage and brings resultant traffic with it, it increases the
size of your marketing base, which is great news for a few reasons.
10 http://www.business2community.com/social-media/who-gets-you-more-business-leads-google-or-pinterest-0177826
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As your pins that point to your business’ website or blog are shared by more and
more users, this creates a greater base of people with links into your site. Instead
of having a few links into your company’s webpage from your company’s
Facebook or Twitter profile, links can come into your website via as many people
as repin your content on their boards on Pinterest. The more people who pin
your pictures, the higher chance you have of a pin (or product or service) going
viral.
The broad base of inbound links created by the re-pinning structure of Pinterest
provides a key form of safety to protect your marketing efforts in a worst-case
scenario. If for some reason your profile on Pinterest goes down, is blocked,
hacked, etc., the pins that your followers have repined on their own boards would
still exist, taking visitors to your company’s website or blog. If the majority of
your links from another social media site come from your own profile on those
sites, damage to that profile may negatively impact all of the links coming to your
business from your profile.
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Connect with Customers: Seek and Discover Users’ Interests
The goal for businesses who use social
media platforms such as Facebook and
Twitter is to extend their reach by getting
more and more people to follow and
subscribe to their pages. With Pinterest, it
works differently. People use this site to
browse for content related to their areas
of interest. If your business’ photos and interactions happen to be within their
circle of interest, the person is very likely begin a photographic conversation with
you.
Having thousands of followers is not helpful if they are not interested in your
niche or expertise. Pinterest gives you the opportunity to find interested
prospects in a very simple way. This means that you have a better chance of
developing long-term, results based relationships. Not only are such customers
going to stick with your brand but they are going to recommend your products to
other people as well.
Rent the Runway has been successful in segmenting its audience through
Pinterest. To target interested users, the brand creates different pin boards for
outfits related to different occasions. This makes it easy for members who are
interested in occasion-specific fashion to find them through Pinterest.
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By targeting interested users and giving them what they are looking for and
simultaneously expanding the options available to them, you are in a strong
position to build a particularly responsive follower base via Pinterest.
Picking Up Trends
Pinterest is a great place to check out the latest
trends that internet users are following. Much like
Twitter provides you a list of pages that are
trending, you can find out the boards that are
receiving the most pins. Since the trends are being
updated in real time, you get relevant and up-to-
date information. The ‘Popular” category is where
you will find the most popular and repinned graphics.
If you are unsure about choosing a theme for your board, a good idea is to look
into the latest trends. You will have an idea of what members are looking for and
you can adapt the themes accordingly.
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Link Building through Images
The main method of link building is through backlinks. Yet backlinks are boring
and hold little appeal for the average user. Pinterest provides you the opportunity
to carry out link building without having to use backlinks. You can use the images
that you pin to your board to build links to your website and also to other sites.
It is easier to get people to engage when the links are visually appealing. Since
every picture you share or that is shared by any of your fans links to your product
page or landing page, it is an especially effective method to build backlinks.
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Creative Examples of Pinterest Link Building
While link building via Pinterest can often happen through pure chance (followers
discovering compelling content and re-pinning, there are a number of creative
ways to build authentic follower engagement and increase their re-pinning
activity (link-building) at the same time.
PUZZLE CONTEST: Consider a contest run by Peugeot of Panama. They
designed boards on Pinterest featuring pictures of its latest models – with some
squares missing here and there. Followers were invited to hunt for the missing
pieces on the company’s Facebook page and website, repin the images to their
own boards, and share them with Peugeot. The first five to finish the game were
offered prizes.
PRODUCT PROMOTION: Cosmetics retailer Sephora offers another approach
to link building using Pinterest. They’ve added a “Pin-It” button to every product
on their website, as well as including boards from select company employees.
Not only does this provide numerous sources of linkbacks; it also leverages the
power of employee recommendation for a product, right from the shopper’s
home computer or mobile device.
SERVICE BUSINESS PROMOTION: A bold use of Pinterest by a service
company eliminated the need for linkbacks (and blog management altogether) by
moving its site to Pinterest altogether. Australia-based job agency Holler’s profile
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includes boards for current work, clients, press releases and contact info, as well
as relationship and culture-building boards related to office life11.
Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Pinterest
12
Good SEO boosts the online presence of a business significantly. Without having
to dive into the endless sea of keywords and link building, Pinterest provides you
11 http://www.fastcocreate.com/1680575/the-9-most-creative-uses-of-pinterest 12 http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvery/6344314863/
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a way to get good SEO easily. As mentioned above, the images link back to the
website where they originated. By having images pinned on Pinterest link back to
your sales page and website, you are effectively boosting your SEO.
The SEO can be invaluable if you have a new startup or small business with limited
financial resources. You can improve your page ranking without having to engage
in the SEO learning curve or hiring an SEO expert. Improving the page rank can be
a hard job, especially for a new business as it takes a lot of time to get the
required number of links and visitors.
Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Pinterest
SEO Opportunity for Link Building: As one of the fastest growing (aka most
popular) and largest social media sites at this time, Pinterest has strong domain
authority. By pinning something from your business website or blog, you increase
the chance it will appear higher on a search engine result page.
SEO Keyword Strategy: Google is now indexing Pinterest profiles and personal
boards. What does this mean for you? By doing SEO research into your niche’s
keywords and including those keywords in your profile, boards, and pin
descriptions, you are maximizing the ways in which search engines can find you.
Pin-It Button: As effective as Twitter’s “Tweet This” button and Facebook’s “Like”
or “Share” buttons, the Pinterest “Pin-It” button on your blog or website, coupled
with the effective and strategic use of graphics in your blog posts and website, is
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an easy and effective way to promote your business’s visibility. Additionally, as
your blog’s images are re-pinned, a rich network of links are built back to your
blog or website, boosting the SEO of your blog.
The Power of Analytics: When it comes to knowing what images or ideas are
driving traffic to your site, Pinterest takes the cake. This is because with Pinterest,
rather than seeing a general website source for traffic to your site, you can
actually see the specific pin or image that generated the referral click.
And speaking of analytics…
Show Me the Numbers: Finding and Using Pinterest Analytics
How do you know your Pinterest activity is worth the effort? There’s certainly a
lot of people raving about its reach, both among your friends and among the
“experts” on the web. You hear people say how you should be “pinning” and
“following,” and it’s easy to believe that it must be true.
But how do you know? What’s the value of your Pinterest traffic?
Monitoring the outcomes related to your Pinterest activity is critical to
understanding the value of your business efforts on Pinterest. Here are a few of
the tools that are useful in this regard.
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Google Analytics
Referrals Reports: An interface that is familiar to many from using it to
track standard website and blog traffic, Google Analytics can also be used
to track website referrals from Pinterest, by going to Traffic Sources -
>Sources->Referrals Report. If Pinterest does not show up in the list of
your top 10 referrals, then search for “Pinterest” in the filter window (the
one with the little magnifying glass) at the top of the results table. The
folks at Mashable.com have set up an advanced segment to make it easier
to grab only Pinterest traffic; it even includes advanced instructions for
those using the ecommerce feature of Google Analytics to analyze if
Pinterest users are more likely to purchase13.
Dashboards: Using Google Analytics’ dashboards is an additional way to
have a broad view of information related to your site’s activities. Some
areas to track on a daily basis might include daily visits from Pinterest,
origination platform (mobile versus desktop – and which kind of mobile
device), unique page views, time on site, and of course, conversion rate.
Multi-Channel Funnels Assisted Conversions: Say what? This is a
complicated term for a simple concept. Imagine someone clicks a link on
your Pinterest profile, goes to a product landing page, and converts to a
13 http://mashable.com/2012/03/13/pinterest-track-traffic/
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customer. Google Analytics will capture this worthwhile information in the
other reports we’ve mentioned. But what if that same person goes from
Pinterest to your site, then goes to a standard search engine, comes back to
your site and makes the purchase? Standard analytics will credit that
conversion to the search engine, not to your Pinterest profile, even though
it placed a partial role. Within Google Analytics’ Multi-Channel Funnels
report, the Assisted Conversions function will tell you how often Pinterest
assisted with (but was not the final source) before conversion to a sale, as
well as how often Pinterest was the final source before conversion to a
sale.
Multi-Channel Funnels Top Conversion Paths: Another option in the
Multi-Channel Funnels reporting section concerns examining the top
conversion paths leading to sales on your site. This report allows you to
see specific examples and pathways in which Pinterest brought users to
your site, who converted immediately, and who returned at some later
point to convert.
Google Reader
While most people consider it a way of monitoring blogs and news feeds,
Google Reader can also be set up to monitor your social media reputation and
activity as well. Pinterest does not have a traditional RSS feed, however one can
be set up through a site such as Feed43. Once data is gathered, you have an easy
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access point to gather information about what is being pinned (filter by keyword)
and when (what are your highest re-pinning times for your site).
Once you have information about your pins and what sort of activity they’re
generating, it’s time to ask yourself some questions about what it all means. For
instance, you might see that one of your pins has resulted in 1000 repins, but only
500 actual visits to your site. From this, you might reasonably conclude that not
everyone re-pinning your image is actually clicking through to your site. Just like
traffic from any source, you then have to decide specifically what you want to
accomplish with any particular traffic source (aka “pin”) and determine how to
guide your audience toward that goal.
Directing Traffic: Using Pinterest to Increase Click Throughs
There are some amazingly simple yet effective strategies for increasing
engagement and click through rates from Pinterest pins! For instance:
Smaller, slightly less readable graphics increase click-through. Why?
Because they’re intriguing yet slightly unreadable, people have a natural
tendency to click them to open a readable version.
If using infographics (also good for click-throughs because people want to
see the whole thing), headlines are critical to getting people to click
through.
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Calls to action are just as important to traffic originating from Pinterest as
from anywhere else. Make a targeted, specific call-to-action on your pin’s
landing page! Make sure your audience knows exactly what it is you’re
inviting them to do, read, buy, etc.
All of these steps for increasing click-throughs and conversions aside, it is
important to note again: Pinterest is not a place to directly push or make sales. It
is a place to build relationships with your audience, facilitate engagement with
your brand, and guide traffic to your business blog or website, where a happily
engaged audience will convert to being loyal customers.
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Demographics
14
According to Google, a whopping 82% of the users of Pinterest are female and
70% of them are under the age of 45, making Pinterest the premier social media
network that has been able to attract and retain female users.
14 http://marketaire.com/2012/02/01/pinterest-facebook-social-commerce/
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This can be a huge advantage for a business looking to target women. This would
be virtually any type of business! Research indicates that women are the
‘deciders’ about many products or services typically bought for their households.
While Pinterest may not be the best place to target men (yet!), women buy gifts
and make many shopping decisions for men. So don’t discount the power of
Pinterest for typically male products as well.
There are many social networks out there yet, it’s clear that using Pinterest as
part of your marketing strategy is a great idea. However, if your business is
female-centric, then Pinterest should be at the forefront of your online marketing
campaign.
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PART IV: Pinterest Case Studies - 7 Brands' Best Practices
Sometimes it's tough to take something new like Pinterest and figure out how to
make it work for you. Just to get you started thinking creatively about how to use
this platform to boost your business, here are 10 brands using Pinterest well.
1. David's Bridal
The beauty of a wedding certainly has the potential for generating a ton of images
for a visually based site like Pinterest. David's Bridal has taken this potential and
run with it, creating thematic wedding boards, color-coordinated boards, boards
for other wedding-related ideas, love quotes and more.
Pinterest is a great way for brands to provide inspiration featuring their products
for their customers.
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2. Hubspot
So you've got a service based business, or your products have more of an
informational appeal than the last example. Afraid your business doesn't have a
photogenic side? Think again! Data-giant Hubspot has made great use of
Pinterest to feature content including Ebooks, white papers, and other
informational products.
Posting a pin featuring an image promising highly desirable information and
connecting it to an opt-in form to get access to that information is a creative use
of Pinterest for the purpose of lead generation.
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3. Chobani
Proving that it's the content you share that makes your social media presence
interesting, not necessarily your product, Chobani's Pinterest account features
not only pictures of its different kinds of yogurt but recipes as well. In one board,
titled "Nothing But Good," (the company's tagline), there are no pictures of
yogurt at all, but many pictures of the lifestyle associated with the company's
branding.
Chobani has created a targeted approach to using lifestyle branding, providing a
wide array of images associated with the lifestyle and emotions the brand tries to
evoke. This is an example of the branding benefit that can be gained by knowing
your ideal customer, what their interests are and providing content that reflects
the interests of the whole person and their desired lifestyle.
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4. Whole Foods
I've mentioned them a number of times in this book, but their Pinterest presence
is really one that has set the standard for many businesses.
A few things to note about their Pinterest page: They've done a great job with
their company bio, stating clearly who they are and what they do, in a way that's
engaging rather than dry. Their boards feature the lifestyle achievable to those
who are their ideal customers without beating you over the head and spelling it
out. Who's likely to be interested in Whole Foods Markets? People with an
interest in healthy living, cooking, and gardening for starters, and these are first
and foremost on the Whole Foods Pinterest boards, without having the company
name or logo all over the place at all. It's a way of using images to evoke a mood,
and Whole Foods clearly does this well.
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5. Oreck
Yes, the famous 8-lb vacuum cleaner. How does a vacuum cleaner company
create interesting boards? By creating collections of stunning, beautiful floors (a
great subtle reminder of what their product accomplishes), and a board titled
"Furry Friends," also a reminder of the promise of what their product does
without focusing on the actual act of cleaning.
Providing valuable content is a smart marketing strategy facilitated by Pinterest.
Additionally, information that is likely to be useful and valuable to their customer
(cleaning tips, inspirational quotes, interior décor ideas) are provided as well,
creating a site that provides value and excitement to their audience beyond the
perception of a boring old vacuum cleaner!
6. Mashable
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While Pinterest is seen as primarily the playground of women (at least in the
United States), Mashable is one of the companies poised to change this
perception. Known for its great visuals and infographics in its posts and reports,
Mashable's Pinterest page takes full advantage of their visual product line and
branding, featuring boards of the techie toys and infographics reports the
company is well known for reporting on. This is a great example for other
companies that might perceive their product or service as not Pinterest friendly.
Mashable has used Pinterest to make information visually appealing, a smart
marketing strategy on a visual platform.
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7. Martha Stewart Living
Could there be a brand more perfectly suited to a visual platform?
Without overtly emphasizing their brand name throughout their images, the
Martha Stewart Living boards are filled with images related to the kind of content
that draws people to the Martha Stewart brand of magazines, products and more.
Crafts, recipes, home decorating and more are some of the boards featured. Of
note - a seasonal board for Halloween is visible but not yet front and center as of
this writing (September 2012), creating interest for those starting holiday
preparation early but not eclipsing end of summer and early fall themes either.
Lifestyle marketing is one of the easiest ways for a brand to tap into this visual
platform.
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8. Oberlin College
Who should tell the story of a brand? The marketing department? Oberlin
College has challenged this idea, creating collaborative Pinterest boards that are
pinned to by students, staff, faculty, and alumni. Access is maintained by a social
media coordinator, and enables the story of the college to be told from a number
of different perspectives. A wider range of collaborators ensures the message is
broader than just the marketing department, giving the college a way of being
more transparent, especially to prospective students.
The practice of transparency is a great way to set your brand apart from
competitors on Pinterest.
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9. General Electric
Think lightbulbs, airplane engines and high end medical machines can be made
interesting on Pinterest? With a succinct mission at the top of the page,
"#Pinning things that inspire us to build, power, move and cure the world," the
General Electric Pinterest page does a great job of featuring products that might
otherwise be thought of as uninteresting to the general public on Pinterest.
One of their most popular boards? A repository of some of their most advanced
engines and technology, temptingly titled, "Badass Machines." Just naming a
board can make the difference in how your audience views your product line!
GE's Pinterest boards feature quotes related to innovation and scientific
achievement, motivation, and inspiration related to supporting people battling
cancer - a disease for which their medical equipment offers treatment.
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10. Marketo
How would you develop a Pinterest board for a software company? Marketing
Software company Marketo has approached their Pinterest boards from the
perspective of their ideal customer, providing content to inform, educate, and
entertain. Boards feature subjects such as Don't Stop a Meme-In, Marketing
Humor, Kick A$$ infographics, and more.
Pins and boards that reveal something of the company culture behind a
company, when the actual products may not be particularly photogenic, is a great
strategy for creating boards of content that get pinned and repinned. Memes
especially are a frequently shared medium, so including a meme board is a great
move on the part of Marketo.
71 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
Giving Your Business a Boost with Pinterest
We have explored the viability of using Pinterest for branding your business.
Among the social media websites currently in use, Pinterest is a unique asset
when you are seeking to create and establish a visual brand.
At present, Pinterest is in its infancy. As it progresses, the effectiveness of
Pinterest as a marketing presence in the online world of social media will, without
a doubt increase exponentially. More and more businesses are going to make use
of this photo sharing social media platform for branding and community
interaction. The strength of this unique platform lies in its simplicity. By
connecting items, photos and interests instead of people, Pinterest has
revolutionized social media. Take the opportunity to begin experimenting with
this simple, yet strong platform today.
72 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
About the Author
Kim Garst is a Mompreneur, Social Media and Personal Branding Strategist,
Speaker, Coach and Trainer. She was recently name by Forbes as one of the Top
50 Social Media Influencers, #2 Social Media Blogger by Social Media Examiner
and Kred.com named her as one of the top Social Media Bloggers.
Her systems help the average business owner quickly master social media to
generate extra-ordinary results for their business. She has been working online
successfully for almost 20 years and has built a number of 7 figure businesses
during that time.
73 The Quick and Easy Guide To Branding Your Business and
Creating Massive Sales With Pinterest
Currently she shares her experience with large corporations, small business
owners as well as new and established solopreneurs.
She is a devoted wife and the mother of two amazing young men.
Her motto is ‘you can do it’!
A note from Kim…
I would love to hear what you think of this book, questions you may have,
feedback or simply some suggestions and ways that YOU use Pinterest. I want to
hear from you!
Web: www.kimgarst.com
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/kimgarst
Facebook: www.fb.com/kimgarstsocialboom
Twitter: www.twitter.cm/kimgarst