pinterest e-book: all aboard the pinterest train - using pinterest for marketing

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Whether you’re already Pinning like crazy and suffering from Pinsomnia or just exploring how Pinterest might relevant for your business, somewhere in this 40-page e-book, you’ll find ideas, answers and a bit of Pinspiration on how Pinterest is helping businesses just like yours take social media to the next level on the fastest-growing new social media platform.In this complete e-book on using Pinterest for social media marketing, you’ll learn:What makes Pinterest so addicting?How does Pinterest work for marketers?How to use Pinterest in your marketing.Pinterest tips & tricksHow to use Pinterest in promotions and contests.Using Pinterest to drive e-commerce salesUnique uses for Pinterest in marketing

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Pinterest E-Book: All Aboard the Pinterest Train - Using Pinterest for Marketing

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Page 2: Pinterest E-Book: All Aboard the Pinterest Train - Using Pinterest for Marketing

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Pinterest

Social media marketing has been stuck in a rut. If you are an active participant you can probably relate. The attempts at inno-vative new networks (ahem...Google+) are uninspiring and the tried and true net-works are losing their luster. Even the most active businesses on Facebook and Twitter are struggling to increase their fans and following. It’s time for some-thing new.

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USAGE STATS

1. Pinterest currently reports 10.4 million users

2. 97% of Pinterest users are female

3. Unique visitors to the site increased by 429% in Q4 of 2011

4. Pinterest accounts for 3.6% of referral traffic

5. The average Pinterest user spends 1 hour 17 minutes on the site each month

1. Twitter: 36 minutes/month

2. LinkedIn: 17 minutes/month

3. Google+: 6 minutes/month

SECTION 1

Perk Up With Pinterest

The Pinterest craze is sweeping the Internet at an alarming rate. Not only are new subscribers piling up by the millions, users are spending an astronomical amount of time on the site. A recent stat showed that Pinterest generates more monthly usage than Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google + com-bined!

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ADDICTION

If you’ve seen a social pin board, then you probably know why Pinterest’s stats are so high. Pinterest is incredibly addicting. The beautiful display of images on your screen is captivating and full of endless ideas. As long as you keep scrolling, the ideas keep coming. Ideas for anything: recipes, books, decorat-ing, DIY projects, clothing, inspirational quotes, and so on. You can see how one could easily get sucked in to the “Pinter-est Portal.”

Believe it or not, Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD) is a real affliction that many people suffer from, according to US psy-chologists. Facebook is one of the few social networks that gen-erates more usage than Pinterest, weighing in at a whopping 6 hours 33 minutes a month for the average user. However, the addictive nature of Pinterest, combined with the growing popularity and increase in content, could result in an uptick in usage and a diagnosable disease of its own.

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THE PINTEREST MOVEMENT

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that’s the case, Pinterest must be blushing pretty hard right now. Not only are many websites stealing the Pinterest “signature pin board look,” but there have already been several competitor networks cropping up. Gentlemint, for example, is essentially Pinterest for guys. Claiming to be “a mint of manly things,” Gentlemint is identical to Pinterest in terms of functionality, but with a predominately male target audience.

And then there’s Juxtapost, which is extremely similar to Pin-terest but with a few small differences. Like Pinterest, Juxta-post “lets you view all your favorite things, side-by-side” with the pin board layout. One key difference with Juxtapost is that you have the option to make your boards private. Pinterest does not currently offer this option. Overall, the premise is the same; collect things you see on the web and share them with your friends.

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Comments

Pinboard

INTERACTIVE 1.2 Juxtapost

Male-specific content

Pin board Layout

INTERACTIVE 1.1 Gentlemint

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The clean layout and simple concept of Pinterest is what makes the site so appealing, to both competitors and users. You may recall a similar movement a few years back when so-cial networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster battled it out for a position on top of the social network podium. Only time will tell which network will win this pin board battle but right now Pinterest is way ahead of the game.

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SECTION 2

Pinterest Defined

PINTEREST DEFINED

For those of you who haven’t yet had a chance to explore Pin-terest and are sitting there with eyes glazed over, let’s rewind and start from the beginning. In the words of the maker, “Pin-terest is a virtual pin board that lets you organize and share the beautiful things you find on the web.”

Imagine you are browsing the web for a new recipe to try for dinner tonight. In the process, you come across all kinds of in-triguing recipes. Of course you can only choose one to make tonight, so you “pin” all of the recipes to your “recipes” pin board on Pinterest, and revisit them when you’re ready. This same strategy can be applied for anything on the web. Find a cool DIY project, pin it to your boards! Looking to buy a new coat? Pin your favorite options and compare them all side by side from your Pinterest board.

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HOW IT WORKS

1. Set up your pin boards

2. Pins link back to the original site from which the image was taken

3. Users Pin content from the internet to their boards

4. Users Repin their friends’ pins to their boards

5. Users can “like” and comment on Pins

SECTION 3

How it WorksHOW IT WORKS

Pinterest is like a virtual magazine full of all kinds of images and videos. When a Pinterest user sees something they like and want to save, they “pin” it to one of their own pin boards. A pin board is like a virtual bulletin board or folder. Each im-age or video links back to the original website from which it was taken so users can get back to the source if necessary. You can’t really obtain a lot of information from a thumbnail im-age. So when you see a pin of a recipe that you want to know more about, simply click twice on the pin to go directly to the website where the recipe lives.

The social aspect of Pinterest comes into play when you start following people and sharing your pins with your friends. There are two ways to pin items to your board:

1. Repin something that someone else has already pinned

2. Install the “Pin It” button on your web browser and Pin images you find on the Internet

When you’re first starting out on Pinterest, set up a handful of board categories to focus on. As you progress and find more content to Pin, you can break your boards up into more spe-cific, narrowly-defined categories.

Much like Facebook, users can “like” and comment on any Pin. Social media is all about interacting with your customers, so it’s important to respond to comments on your Pins.

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REPIN

Pinterest has a feed that shows you pins from the people you follow. You can also view other people’s boards, just as you might view someone’s Facebook profile or page. When you find a pin on your friend’s board that you like, click “Repin” to pin the image to your own board.

After you click the “Repin” button, you will be able to specify which board you want to pin the item to and write your own description of the pin.

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See Something You Like?

INTERACTIVE 1.3 Repin Example

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PIN IT

When you create your Pinterest account, one of the first things you should do is add the “Pin It” button to the book-marks bar in your web browser. Pinterest does a great job ex-plaining how to do this on their website. Once you have the button installed, you can pin anything you find on the web that has an image associated with it.

When you find something, say a recipe, you want to pin, click on the “Pin It” button that you installed in your web browser.

If there are multiple pin-able items on the page, you will be asked to select which item you meant to pin.

Make your selection, provide a brief description of what it is you are pinning, and choose which board you want to pin the item to.

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Pin It Button

INTERACTIVE 1.4 Pin It Example

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CHAPTER 2

How to Use Pinterest for Marketing

So Pinterest is obviously a hit with con-sumers and it seems to provide signifi-cant value to its users, but what does this have to do with marketing your business? Like most of the social networks out there, Pinterest was not created with mar-keting in mind. But where there’s a cap-tive audience, you can bet there’s an ea-ger marketer just around the corner find-ing a way to take center stage.

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THE BENEFITS OF PINTEREST

Have you had your light bulb moment? Are the gears turning fast and furious? For many businesses the value of such a so-cial network is obvious and the possibilities are endless. For other businesses, it may not be inherently clear how to best si-phon the value out of Pinterest, but rest assured you’ll have some solid ideas by the end of this book.

There are tons of benefits to incorporating Pinterest into your marketing strategy, but here’s a list of a few of the big ones:

• Link-building to your website

• Viral marketing

• Market research

• Create a brand image

• Share company culture

• Connect with your customers

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GET STARTED

1. Request an Invite

2. Set up Your Profile

3. Add the Buttons

4. Create Your Boards

5. Promote

SECTION 1

Get StartedGET STARTED

Request an Invite

Getting started on Pinterest is relatively simple. Since the net-work is still in beta, you must first request an invitation from Pinterest. You should receive an email with an invitation a few days after you place your request. Or if you know someone on Pinterest, ask them to send you an invite.

Set up Your Profile

There isn’t currently a separate business profile for Pinterest users. All profiles feature a profile picture, about section, link to your website, and of course, your boards. Fill in your profile as completely as you can, using a clear image of your logo and a clever spiel about your business.

Add the Buttons

There are two Pinterest buttons to incorporate into your web-site or blog. Incorporating the buttons into your website is sim-ply a matter of copying and pasting a couple of lines of code into your website’s content management system. Once again, the HTML code for these buttons is provided by Pinterest.

The “Follow Me on Pinterest” button should be added next to your Facebook “Like Us” button and your Twitter “Follow Us” button in your website.

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The “Pin It” button should be added next to anything that is “pin-able” on your website. That means blog posts, portfolio pieces, and especially items for sale.

Create Your Boards

Now it’s time for the fun part! Before you go and spread the word about your new Pinterest profile, make sure your boards are populated with lots of pins. Pick a few categories to focus on and as you have more time you can always expand. Make sure to have a nice balance of promotional and non-promotional boards. You don’t want all of your boards to con-tain pins of your company’s products or portfolio pieces. Cre-ate a few boards dedicated to business-specific content and then get creative with the rest.

For example, if your business is a restaurant, create one board with recipes that you think your patrons might like to try mak-ing themselves. Dedicate another board to useful kitchen tools. You see how easy it is to branch out and get creative with Pinterest?

Technical tip: Be sure to use high resolution pictures when pinning your own content. Thumbnail pictures are limited to 192 pixels. Choose high quality pictures so that users can clearly make out your pins.

Promote

Pinterest is inherently viral in nature, meaning if you pin something that people really like, it won’t take long for that pin to gain a lot of exposure. That being said, having a lot of followers ensures that your pins spread like wild fire. Gaining followers on Pinterest is much like gaining fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter. It takes time and requires your ac-tive participation.

To start off, you can try to gain followers by promoting your Pinterest profile on other social networks. Leverage your estab-lished fan base to spread the word. Encourage Facebook fans and Twitter followers to check out your boards. You can share new Pins with Facebook fans by checking the “Facebook” box before you Pin something.

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CHAPTER 3

Pinterest Tips & Tricks

Ready to become a Pinterest Power User?! If you’ve been zoning out up until now because you already know how to use Pinterest, grab yourself a cup of cof-fee and get comfortable because you’re going to want to pay attention. Starting, now. These tips and tricks separate the leisure Pinners from the pros and the con-sumer Pinners from the cut-throat mar-keters.

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HOLD A CONTEST

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Hold a ContestPINTEREST CONTESTS

Contests are always great for getting your followers involved and for attracting new followers on the social networks. As with any contest held on a social network, it’s important to consult the contest rules and terms of use. Write out the de-tails of the contest on your website, blog or Facebook page, not on your Pinterest profile. Pinterest doesn’t give you very much room for verbiage, plus this is a good way to spread the word about the contest.

Technical Tip: You can allow any follower to pin to your boards. For more interactive contests, set up a board desig-nated to the contest, and grant your followers the ability to pin to that board.

1. Select the board you want to allow users to contribute to

2. At the top of the board click the “Edit Board” button

3. You will be asked, “Who can Pin?” Select “Me + Contribu-tors”

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1. Pin it to Win it

2. Caption Contest

3. Repin Contest

4. Photo Contest

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PIN IT TO WIN IT

There are a couple of different ways to hold contests on Pinter-est. One of our favorites is the “Pin it to Win it” contest put on by children's furniture and decor retailer, Rosenberry Rooms.

Contestants have to create a pinboard containing their dream kid’s room or nursery using Rosenberry Rooms’ products. The winners receive products from their boards. This contest is brilliant because it not only gets followers to interact with Ro-senberry Rooms on Pinterest, but it also gives people a reason to spend lots of time looking at their products and sharing their products with friends.

CAPTION CONTEST

People love to give their two cents. Pin a funny picture and ask people to add a caption to the picture. Try to incorporate your product or services.You decide what the funniest caption is and reward the winner with a prize.

RE-PIN CONTEST

The ease of entry into the re-pin contest is particularly appeal-ing to users and it’s a good way to spread content fast. Desig-nate a board that followers can contribute to. Ask followers to pin their favorite product offered by your company to the board. Whoever has the pin with the most re-pins wins the contest.

PHOTO CONTEST

The photo contest is an oldie but a goodie in the realm of so-cial media contests. Ask followers to pin a picture based around a theme to one of your boards. For example, a Photog-rapher could hold a “Cute Baby Contest” and have people pin a picture of their baby to the board. Ask people to vote on their favorite baby picture by “liking” the pin.

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CUSTOMIZATION IDEAS

1. Price Your Products

2. New Product Promotion

3. Categorize Your Boards

4. Pinterest Exclusive Promotions

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Drive E-Commerce SalesAlthough there is not an e-commerce component built in to Pinterest, there are some tricks to help facilitate the transition from the network to your website. If used correctly, Pinterest can basically act as your virtual store front. Pinterest allows you to display items by category, shed light on new product lines, and even price items.

PRICE YOUR PRODUCTS

Make it known that your pins represent products that are for sale by including the price of the item in the description of the pin. Anytime there is a dollar sign in the pin description, the pin is flagged with a price tag and automatically gets catego-rized in the “Gifts” section of Pinterest.

Tech Tip: When pinning a product that you want to include a price tag, highlight the description of the item along with the price before clicking the “Pin It” button. The highlighted text will automatically appear in the pin’s description.

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PINTEREST EXCLUSIVE PROMOTION

Reward your followers on Pinterest by offering them exclusive promotions. Offer Pinterest followers a discount on one of your most popular products. Or, you could offer a new prod-uct exclusively to your Pinterest followers.

Tech Tip: Install the “Follow Me on Pinterest” button on your blog or website. Encourage your website visitors to click the button to follow your boards and become eligible to receive the exclusive Pinterest promotion.

SHOWCASE NEW PRODUCTS

Pinterest provides you with a lovely electronic display case from which you can showcase new products in an aestheti-cally pleasing way. Create a separate board specifically for your newest product line. And don’t forget to include price tags!

CATEGORIZE YOUR

BOARDS

As you become more in-volved with Pinterest, break down your boards into more specific categories. For exam-ple, a retailer could start out with a board dedicated to “Women’s Apparel,” and eventually break that board into smaller more specific categories. Other categories could include “women’s acces-sories,” “women’s tops,” “women’s bottoms,” “dresses” and so on.

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Price Tag

Description

INTERACTIVE 3.1 Pricing Your Products

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UNIQUE USES FOR PINTEREST

1. Electronic Portfolio

2. Show Company Culture

3. Market Research

4. Drive Traffic to Your Website

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Unique Uses for PinterestOkay so obviously Pinterest is a hit with retailers, but what about those businesses without a tangible product to show-case? There’s still a place for those businesses on Pinterest, it just takes a little bit more creativity. Think outside the box and beyond the four walls of your office. Consider your cus-tomer base and the things they like. Think about the people that make up your business and the type of culture your busi-ness embodies. Brand name recognition may be the thing that draws followers to your Pinterest profile, but these creative, non-business related boards will be your ticket to entertaining and retaining followers.

ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO

For designers, artists, and stylists, Pinterest is a dream come true. It’s a great way to showcase your work and promote your business. For example, ThreeOwl Photography has created a board for each type of photography package they provide, in-cluding senior portraits, landscape photography, and kids pic-tures. It gives people a feel for their style of photography and

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makes it easy for people to share their work with their follow-ers.

SHOW COMPANY CULTURE

Businesses that don’t have a tangible product or service to pin definitely want to pay attention to this one. You can use Pinterest to give fol-lowers an inside look into your company and give your business a persona.

If your company exudes a certain lifestyle or culture, create boards that reflect that. For example, Anytime Fitness has boards set up for healthy recipes to promote a healthy lifestyle.

MARKET RESEARCH

Much like with Twitter, Pin-terest allows you to follow people back. It’s a good idea to follow a handful of your followers and pay attention to their pins to get a feel for their tastes and preferences.

Chances are, the people who are frequently pinning and Repin-ning your items are going to be your best customers. Follow these loyal Pinterest followers, study their boards, and con-duct your own Pinterest market research to find out what your customers like. Take that information and try to apply it to your own business.

Repinning your followers’ pins is an easy way to interact with your followers and makes them more excited about interact-ing with your brand.

DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE

Your activity on Pinterest helps drive traffic to your website. Pins that link back to your website are passed around among circles of friends and beyond. Anytime someone wants a behind-the-scenes look at a pin, they must visit the website the pin was originally taken from.

The more subtle way that Pinterest drives traffic to your web-site is with SEO. The number of external links to your website has an impact on your search engine ranking. Each pin that links back to your website counts as a link and improves your score.

Tech tip: Always make sure that your pins include the URL of the web page your pin is coming from. As long as you pin items using the “Pin It” button from the original website, the source link will be included in your pin. When users click twice on your pin, they will be taken directly to the web page the pin was taken from.

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HOW TO FOSTER INTERACTION

1. Follower Boards

2. Respond to Comments

3. Integrate Pinterest into Other Social Networks

4. Incorporate a QR Code

SECTION 4

InteractThe beauty of social media marketing is that it allows you to actually interact with your fans. It allows you to get your mes-sage across without irritating the consumer. Consumers actu-ally want to see what you’re up to on Facebook and it’s fun for them to contribute to your boards on Pinterest. As a marketer, you should embrace this unique opportunity to interact with your customer base and encourage participation any way pos-sible.

FOLLOWER BOARDS

Creating specific boards that followers can contribute to is a great way to encourage followers to interact with you on Pin-terest. You can grant any follower the ability to pin to your boards. For example, Drake University has a board called, “Pin Your Pride,” which al-lows alumni to pin pictures of themselves wearing their school apparel. Any business could follow this concept and encourage fol-lowers to pin pictures of themselves using their fa-vorite product of yours to the board.

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RESPOND TO COMMENTS

Another easy way to interact with followers on Pinterest is to respond to the comments people leave on your pins. Just as you would respond to comments on your Facebook wall or Twitter, it’s important to respond so that followers know you care.

INTEGRATE INTO OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS

We mentioned the importance of promoting your presence on Pinterest on your other social networks in Chapter 2. The more followers you have on Pinterest, the quicker your pins will spread and the more traffic will be drawn to your website.

There are tons of clever ways to recruit Pinterest followers by leveraging your followers on other social networks:

• Share your boards with your Facebook fans

• Let Twitter followers and Facebook fans know that you now have a profile on Pinterest

• Use Facebook Ads to promote your Pinterest contest

INCORPORATE THE QR CODE

Have you incorporated the QR code into your marketing strat-egy yet? Take it a step further and think of creative ways to incorporate QR codes into your Pins. When Pinterest fol-lowers scan your codes you can direct them to a landing page where they can retrieve a coupon, make a reservation, or enter a contest.

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CHAPTER 4

Businesses Leading the WayIt hasn’t taken long for businesses to find interesting and innovative ways to make use of Pinterest for marketing. Busi-nesses of all shapes and sizes: B2B, B2C, service-based, retail...you name an indus-try, you can bet there’s an example on Pinterest. Sometimes all it takes to spark an idea is an inspiring example. So to get the gears turning, here are a few exam-ples of companies getting creative with Pinterest.

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RETAIL

Burberry

The British designer clothing brand, Burberry has found tons of great uses for Pinterest. They have boards for different prod-uct lines, celebrities wearing Burberry, Burberry magazine cov-ers, and even Burberry weather.

Rosenberry Rooms

Rosenberry Rooms is a retailer of children’s room furniture and decor, and happens to be a Pinterest rock star. They have already made an appearance in the book (see chapter 3) for their great contest idea, but beyond that, Rosenberry Rooms has come up with an infinite list of ideas of things to pin. They have boards dedicated to different room themes, DIY projects, organization, baby shower ideas, and a board targeted specifi-cally at fashionable moms.

• New product offerings

• Gift IdeasStyle tips

• Celebrities endorsements

• Collections or product lines

• Lifestyle

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AUTOMOTIVE

Volkswagen

There is so much room for creativity for the auto industry on Pinterest. Volkswagen is just getting started on Pinterest and has populated a few boards on their profile. Volkswagen has created boards to show off their vehicle models, participation in auto shows, and fan photos, featuring pictures of their happy customers with their VW.

Many people choose a vehicle based on lifestyle preferences and what stage they are at in life. Going forward, VW could break up their boards into categories based on the target driver for each car. For example, they could create a board with vehicle options for moms and a board filled with vehicles for new drivers. They could also branch out to include boards showing the type of lifestyle VW owners lead.

• Display vehicles

• Lifestyle

• Consumer boards

• Going places

• Clever commercials

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RESTAURANTS

Panera Bread

The chain restaurant, Panera Bread has established itself on Pinterest with a wide array of boards dedicated to different menu items, recipes, kitchen tips, seasonal offerings, and their involvement in the community. Panera’s image portrays a business focused on health and well-being, so they have a board dedicated to inspirational quotes called “Make Today Better” and one called “Everyday Oasis,” with pins of peaceful and calming spots to enjoy coffee and relax.

• Seasonal foods

• Recipes

• Menu items

• Products for the kitchen

• Kitchen tips

• Community involvement

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Panera’s “Savor Good Food” board showcases recipes that feature Panera’s bakery items

GALLERY 4.1 Panera on Pinterest

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HOSPITALITY

Hotel Universo Lucca

The Tuscan hotel, Hotel Universo Lucca has found plenty of creative ways to market their brand on Pinterest. Aside from the obvious pictures of the hotel rooms, Hotel Universo has dedicated boards to tourist attractions, events in the commu-nity and events in the hotel, Tuscan cuisine, and a user gener-ated board of pictures pinned by their followers.

• Hotel rooms

• Views from the hotel

• Things to do in the area

• Favorite local restaurants

• Celebrity guests

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Company Culture

Activities in the Com-munity

Rooms

INTERACTIVE 4.1 Hotel Universo Lucca on Pinterest

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EDUCATION

The Teaching Bank

The Teaching Bank, an open market place for teachers has used Pinterest to share lesson plans. Their boards are broken down by subject matter and grade level for teachers to easily find appropriate curriculum. The Teaching Bank also features a board with other teacher resources and one with blogs for educators.

Drake University

In addition to the clever alumni board we mentioned in chap-ter 3, Drake has found a number of different ways to market the University with Pinterest. From study inspiration to dorm room decor, to study abroad opportunities, Drake’s pin boards cover everything.

• Lesson plans

• Study tips

• Educator resources

• Dorm room ideas

• Campus events

• School pride

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HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Anytime Fitness

Anytime Fitness is a gym franchise that uses Pinterest for more than just workout ideas. They have boards dedicated to health food, health blogs, inspirational quotes, and success sto-ries. With a gym, not only can you promote the activity of exer-cising, but also the whole “fit lifestyle” that goes along with it.

• Workout routines

• Yoga poses

• Healthy recipes

• Inspirational quotes

• Before and after shots

• Workout apparel

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The “Anytime Health Recipes” board features healthy reci-pes for customers to try at home.

GALLERY 4.2 Anytime Fitness on Pinterest

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POLITICS

Ann Romney

Running for office is all about projecting an image of yourself and letting people know what you stand for. Pinterest is a great way to build your brand’s persona, and in the case of politicians, we’re talking about your personal brand. Presiden-tial candidate Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney has recently set up a Pinterest profile to help with the campaign. Mrs. Rom-ney features boards for patriotic ideas, campaign updates, and family life.

Think Progress

Think Progress is a political analysis website that sheds light on political news. Think Progress isn’t afraid to call out candi-dates for controversial behavior, and uses Pinterest to do just that. For example, they have several boards dedicated to the excessive spending of Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. They also feature a board with the candidates’ high school pic-tures, and one board with political infographics.

• Political agendas

• Campaign schedule

• Patriotic ideas

• Family life

• Candidate comparisons

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HOME IMPROVEMENT

Sherwin Williams

Pinterest is perfect for sharing DIY projects and ideas for the home. Sherwin Williams has capitalized on that niche with boards dedicated displaying different color schemes for differ-ent rooms. There are several boards dedicated to kids paint colors alone!

McKay Flooring

Flooring company, McKay Flooring uses Pinterest to display their flooring products and to relate to followers on other home-related topics. For example, they have a board featuring different types of wood, one board for DIY projects, and an-other board with ideas for the home.

• DIY Project ideas

• Room ideas

• Decorating tips

• Color schemes

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PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Taylor & Taylor Law Firm

It takes some pretty progressive lawyers to incorporate Pinter-est into their marketing strategy already. The uses for Pinter-est in the professional services industry may not be inherently obvious, but Taylor & Taylor Law Firm has come up with some pretty clever ideas for their boards. First of all, they give you an inside look at the culture at their law firm, with staff pictures, recommended books, and insightful quotes. They also throw in a few fun boards that have nothing to do with law, just to keep people entertained.

• Staff pictures

• Office ideas

• Recommended books

• How-to videos

• Company culture

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The board entitled, “Quoted” features the firm’s favorite quotes.

GALLERY 4.3 Taylor & Taylor Law Firm on Pinterest

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

With Sympathy Gifts & Keepsakes

With Sympathy Gifts & Keepsakes is an online retailer of gifts and keepsakes to help people console a grieving friend or fam-ily member. But the business goes beyond the retail portion to include advice advice on getting through the difficult time fol-lowing the loss of a loved one.

With Sympathy Gifts & Keepsakes uses thought leadership to market the business, and Pinterest is a great thought leader-ship platform. With Sympathy Gifts and Keepsake’s Pinterest profile includes boards with inspirational quotes, ideas for starting family traditions and making memories.

• References

• Infographics

• Quotes

• Ideas for activities

• Events

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B2B

KI Furniture

KI Furniture is debunking the myth that B2B businesses can’t reach their target market on social networks. KI is a furniture manufacturer that distributes to education, corporate, health-care, and government markets, and they have a flourishing presence on Pinterest. KI has created boards to feature their product lines, interior design inspiration, and ideas for the of-fice. Their boards speak to their audience, even if that audi-ence is made up of other corporations.

• Product lines

• Uses for products

• Industry references

• Inspiration

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The “Business Environments” board features KI’s office fur-niture line.

GALLERY 4.4 KI Furniture on Pinterest

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FOOD

Chobani

Who knew that Greek yogurt could inspire so much creativity on Pinterest? Chobani dove right into the Pinterest scene with a prolific spread of inspiring pin boards. “Chobaniac Crea-tions” showcases recipes that incorporate Chobani yogurt, while “A Dollop’ll Do Ya” showcases ideas for substituting Cho-bani for sour cream. There are also boards dedicated to nutri-tion and fitness, which speaks to their health-conscious cus-tomer base.

Gary Vaynerchuck

Gary Vaynerchuck, the founder of Wine Library TV has started using Pinterest to market wine. Gary’s Wine board fea-tures wine from his wine e-commerce site, Wine Library. Each pin includes a price tag and links back to the website so peo-ple can easily place an order in a couple clicks. Many of his pins are “Pin and Win” contests where followers can re-pin for a chance to win that particular wine. All of Gary’s pins gener-ate a long chain of comments, which is a sign of a healthy, ac-tive Pinterest presence.

• Recipes incorporating your product

• Product displays with pricing

• Give-away contests

• Kitchen products

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CHAPTER 5

The Pinterest Conflict

Although Pinterest is still in its infancy, the social network has not been without controversy and conflict. Every day you can find a slew of new blogs addressing the social network, with at least one arti-cle pointing out flaws and potential mal-feasance. Although we personally don’t see these conflicts materializing into Pin-terest show-stoppers, it is important to know about them and stay informed.

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TERMS OF USE

The conflict with Pinterest’s terms of use is derived from copy-right issues. In the terms of use, Pinterest states that you are only supposed to pin images that you own the rights to. Fur-thermore, by pinning an image, you ultimately give Pinterest the rights to do with that content what they wish. Now, for businesses pinning images of their own products, this copy-right issue is not a factor as long as you’re okay with other peo-ple pinning your property.

Pinterest has since attempted to address these copyright is-sues by providing a line of code that can be embedded into websites in the event that the web site owner does not want their content pinned.

Disclaimer: That being said, The MarketingSavant Group does not claim to be an expert in the field of copyright law. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the terms of use and consult your attorney with questions or concerns re-garding your use of Pinterest.

HOW PINTEREST MAKES MONEY

The other source of controversy with Pinterest is their model for generating revenue. It has been brought to the attention of the general public that Pinterest attaches affiliate links to pins that link back to merchandise. When a user clicks on a pin with an affiliate link that results in a purchase, Pinterest col-lects a percentage of that sale. While this money making strat-egy is common and completely legal, there seems to be quite a

bit of rhetoric surrounding Pinterest’s transparency on the topic. Either way, the network has to make money somehow and it appears that Pinterest has chosen the least intrusive route possible.

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CHAPTER 6

Get On Board the Pinterest Train

Anytime you start something new it’s im-portant to start with a clear vision and a solid plan of action. Hopefully this book has sparked some ideas for using Pinter-est to market your business, but be sure to think it through before you dive right in.

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I. Lay out your goals

A. Drive website traffic

B. Increase online sales

C. Increase exposure

D. Build awareness

II. Have a clear direction

A. Think about your target

B. Plan out themes for your boards

III. Follow Through

A. Keep up with your boards

B. Promote your presence

C. Interact

There are so many clever ideas for marketing your business on Pinterest. Borrow some tried and true strategies that you see other brands using, and try to come up with your own. Each business is unique, so what works for one business may not go over so well with another. Since you know your business bet-ter than anyone, you will be able to come up with the best way to showcase your brand on Pinterest.

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