Pinterest is a social network no business should ignore. Pinterest has 70 million registered users, with 20 million of them pinning, repinning, or liking pins in June 2013 alone. The fast-growing network also provides a lot of opportunities for social media marketing. Pinterest gets 41% of e-commerce traffic from social sharing. Facebook still has higher social commerce conversion rates, but shoppers coming from Pinterest spend almost twice as much as those coming from Facebook.
Getting Pinterest’s vast population of active users to notice and promote a specific brand requires a sound marketing strategy. The following tips can help social media marketers develop an effective Pinterest campaign.
Promote the Idea behind a Brand, Not Its Product Catalog
It can be tempting to focus entirely on sharing a brand’s own products on its pinboards, but this type of blatant self-promotion is rarely effective. Pinterest’s co-founder and designer, Evan Sharp says, “For most consumer brands, the idea behind your brand makes sense on Pinterest.”
Focus on the essence of a brand and the lifestyle it promotes instead of flooding pinboards with product photos. Pin images related to the brand’s specific industry, or behind-the-scenes photos of a company’s production processes.
Whole Foods Market is a good example of a brand that promotes its products on Pinterest effectively. The company’s Pinterest page showcases several themed boards that feature their own photos and relevant repins from other users.
Encourage Users to Pin from the Brand’s Website
Getting customers to pin product photos on their own pinboards is more effective than relying on self-promotion. Add “Pin-It” buttons to product pages to make it easier for visitors to pin and share the products they like.
Some brands have taken this strategy to a different level by creating contests that encourage users to share product photos. Running contests on social networks is always a great way to expose a brand and improve user engagement.
Sephora got several of its Pinterest fans to share their product photos through the company’s “Color Wash Sweepstakes.” This campaign required users to create “Sephora Color Wash” pinboards and pin color-themed photos of the brand’s products onto them.
Use Pinterest to Learn More about Customers
Pinterest users reveal a lot about themselves through their pinboards. What a user pins or repins can tell marketers what inspires them, what products they want to buy, and what sparks their interest.
Pinterest Analytics is another interesting feature that helps businesses learn more about their target market.
To start using Pinterest Analytics, the company’s account should be linked to a verified website. The Site Metrics section of the Analytics dashboard shows a lot of important information, including:
- Pins and Repins: The average number of pins and repins from a website
- Reach: The average number of people who saw the website’s pinned content
- Visitors: The total number of people who visited the website by clicking on pinned content
The Analytics dashboard also contains sections that display the most recent, most repinned, and most clicked content from the brand’s website.
Pinterest is a powerful social platform that increases your brand’s reach and helps your website get more online traffic and conversions. We can help you create visual content your customers will love to pin, or even manage your entire social media campaign for you. Contact us to get started.
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