Saturday 17 March 2018

10 Pro Tips for B2B Marketing on Pinterest


We think of Pinterest as a lifestyle social network, chock full of party ideas, crafts, home decor inspiration, recipes, and fitness routines. But Pinterest is so much more than that. It’s become an asset to marketers who want to show off their visual content and drive traffic to their sites.
And here’s a notable benefit of Pinterest marketing. According to this infographic, the half-life of a Pin is a whopping 3.5 months. That’s 1,680 times longer than the half-life of a Facebook post. And don’t even get me started on the 24-minute half-life of a Tweet. Which means that the effort you put into your Pinterest presence will pay dividends for a long time.
And the value of Pinterest marketing isn’t limited to B2C businesses. Pinterest can supply fresh traffic and leads to B2B businesses as well. In this post, I’ll share 10 tips for B2B Marketing on Pinterest.

1. Pin a Variety of Visual Content

Pinterest is for visual content. That’s why so many B2B businesses often think Pinterest isn’t for them. They feel like they don’t have enough—or in fact any—visual content to share.
So, first of all, if you don’t have any visual content, it’s time to get cracking. Content marketing is the future of marketing, and the sexiness of visual content is undeniable.
But don’t wait until you have a fresh bank of visual assets before you dip your feet into the Pinterest pool. Trust me, you have more visual content than you realize. Here are some ideas to get you started:
  • Product images. Post your product images and link back to your site’s product pages.
  • Quotes. Create graphic quotes that would inspire your target audience. Canva makes the job quick and easy.
  • Blog posts. Pin your blog posts to drive people back to your site.
  • Events. Pin photos of company and industry events.
  • Employees. Show off photos of team members. Let your unique company culture shine through pinned photos of your inter-company social events.
  • Marketing materials. Pin the covers of your e-books, white papers, and brochures—with links to where the materials can be downloaded.
  • Presentations. Put your decks to work for you. Create a board for each presentation and pin key slides to the board.
  • Industry-related topics. Share infographics and other pieces that are relevant to your industry.
  • Tips and recommendations. Be helpful to your prospects and clients. Curate tips and recommendations to make their lives easier. Create boards on books you recommend, great blogs for them to follow, podcasts, and apps.
  • Targeted boards. Create specific boards that cater to the needs and interests of individual industries and your different personas.

2. Balance Quality and Personality

When you create a new board, aim to make it the best board on that topic, and include a wide variety of quality pins. But while you target quality, don’t be afraid to show your personality. Quirkiness and humour can be very effective at making you stand out on Pinterest.

3. Use Pinterest to Find Great Content

Don’t limit your Pinterest presence to your own content. Round out your boards with content that your audience will enjoy, from other sources.
Don’t have time to scour the Web for that content? Follow relevant Pinners to fill your feed with quality Pins that you can conveniently re-Pin to your boards.

4. Use Great Images

Attention-grabbing imagery is key on Pinterest. Make sure you’re using the optimal image size for your Pins, board images, and profile images.
Use stunning photography, beautiful fonts and place subtle branding in the corners of your images. And make it easy for your site visitors to pin your content right from your site. Make sure that all your posts and pages contain at least one Pinnable image.

5. Write Quality Copy

Of course, great imagery that your Pinterest audience wants to click is key. But don’t forget to make your copy work for you too. Think of your descriptions as ad copy. Make them engaging enough to earn a click. And add compelling calls to action to help convert visitors to your site.

6. SEO Your Boards and Pins

Pinterest can be an asset in your SEO efforts. The more people re-pin your site content, the more backlinks your site earns. And social signals can improve your rankings.
To help people find your Pins on both Pinterest and Google, optimize your profile, boards, and pins. Search Engine Watch offers up some great advice here on how to do that.
But how about the Pins that are created directly from your site? You can’t always count on Pinners to enter a keyword-rich description on those pins. Many won’t enter a description at all. Give Pinners a hand by enabling Rich Pins, which automatically pull some of the post content into the description.

7. Get the Data

To help you decide what new content to create and post to Pinterest, you need to understand how your current content is performing. And for that, you’re going to need to get the data. Here are three great sources of analytics data for Pinterest.
To start with, access the analytics data for your Pinterest business page here. You’ll find a variety of engagement insights about your pins.
Next, remember that not everyone pins from Pinterest. Find out what content people are pinning directly from your site by visiting pinterest.com/source/example.com. (Substitute example.com for your domain.)
Finally, use Google Analytics to monitor engagement and conversion metrics for your Pinterest traffic.

8. Research Your Ideal Client

Are you trying to get a better understand of who your ideal client is as a person? Pinterest can provide a wealth of data. Just check out the boards of your clients and people who have repinned your pins. What else are they pinning? What insights can you glean from their boards?

9. Research Content Ideas

If content creation is a priority for you, you’ll hit occasional droughts in content ideas. (It happens to the best of us, believe me.) Pinterest’s guided search is effective for unearthing content ideas and curation opportunities around a topic.

10. Get Inspired by the Greats

Why reinvent the wheel when you can follow the lead of other great brands? Check out these great Pinterest business pages to see how it’s done:

11. Bonus tip: Collaborate with Clients and Partners

Ok so this isn’t really a marketing, so consider it a bonus. Pinterest is a fantastic tool for collaborating with clients.
I use it whenever I build a visual asset for a new client – whether it’s a video, presentation, infographic or Website. So that I don’t waste time building a piece my client won’t like, I strive to get into my client’s head before I begin. I try to get a sense of the design styles that resonate with them.
Sure, I could have them fill out a client brief. But that exercise feels too esoteric to some of my clients. What’s worked brilliantly for me instead is to create a secret board on Pinterest, and add my client as a contributor. My client then spends time Pinning images, photos, colour palettes, fonts, and websites they love. Before long, I know exactly what they’re after and can deliver on their vision.

Over To You

Have you been using Pinterest in your B2B marketing? If not, why? If so, have I missed any key points? I’d love to hear from you. Please share in the comments.



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2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tips!
    Might convince me to try out Pinterest at some point

    Internet Marketing

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  2. The credit for my successful Pinterest account goes to PinPinterest. I used to spend a lot of time on Pinterest and still, I was not able to get a decent amount of followers. For the first time, I used PinPinterest for my Pinterest account automation, and it became the savior of my sinking account. Within a few weeks, I got a lot of active followers, thanks to PinPinterest.

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