How to Make Pinterest Work for B2B Marketing

Pinterest has 100 million active users and is one of the top 5 fastest growing social networks. Of those pinners, 93% of them shopped online in the past six months. However, when people think Pinterest, they think of the B2C side of marketing, and completely ignore what it can do for B2B marketing. Pinterest tends to be associated with creating your dream wedding, that perfect DIY project for your BFF, or that delicious recipe for those Loaded M&M Oreo Cookie Bars you’ve been dying to make.

Pinterest is indeed a marketing powerhouse, and it is far more than a digital scrapbooking site. It’s visual content marketing made easy! B2B marketers, get ready to be excited about pinning.

THE MISCONCEPTION ABOUT PINTEREST AND MARKETING

Home decorating, cute puppies and DIY scarves. What do your searches look like on Pinterest? Only 39% of reported B2B marketers use Pinterest, with the biggest misconception being that it is not suitable for B2B marketing. Well, it’s time to put that notion to rest. Some popular ways B2B folks are using Pinterest:

• Showing off all of the awesome visual content made
• Sending traffic to their website with specific links in each pin
• Growing company reach by building Pinterest following
• Including landing pages in pin’s – optimizing for lead generation

#DYK only 39% of B2B marketers report using Pinterest? Read THIS: Click To Tweet

Pinterest has major B2B potential. That awesome infographic you made for your company’s blog? Pinterest. Have a big event coming up in your industry? Slap the details on an image and it’s Pinterest ready. In fact, Pinterest serves a whopping 1.5 trillion recommendations annually and over 14 million articles are pinned per day. And who says Pinterest isn’t for B2B?!

GETTING STARTED

Many of the problems that B2B marketers face with Pinterest is the lack of visual content. Get creative with some different ways to make your content fun and exciting. The number of people who see your pins will be far greater than the number of followers you have, so you need to make your pins attractive. Here are some great board examples for you to get started:

• Infographics board: this is obvious. Pinterest is all about visuals, and what more perfect than infographics? For example, when you type ‘social media’ into the search bar, 5 out of the first 7 pins are all infographics!

• Products/services board: here you can offer your services, some expert advice and industry information. This board does not have to be boring! Be entertaining and helpful at the same time. For example, HubSpot does an awesome job of showing their services as well as being helpful with their ‘Templates & Tools’ board:

• Blog post board: can we say relatable? People relate to blogs on so many different levels. Use this opportunity to push out your blog content, targeting a broad audience. For example, here is a pin we saved from the Triage blog that can relate to just about anyone!

• Employees board: people like to know about people. Write fun stories about all of your employees and post their pictures to the board. For example, with the Red Branch Pinterest, we created a board that all of our Instagram photos upload to! It’s a great way to showcase your company culture.

Still feeling discouraged? Check out all of these companies who are KILLIN’ IT with their B2B Pinteresting:

Check out these #B2B brands killin' it on Pinterest and how you can too: Click To Tweet

• HubSpot: They rock the use of Pinterest. They have board ranging from merchandise, all the way to infographic and free eBooks. Everything clearly aligns with what HubSpot is all about.
• Hootsuite: Useful advice is they way to go on Pinterest, and Hootsuite takes advantage of it. They show a fun side using their owl mascot on Pinterest, as well as showing their global reach and offering awesome social media advice.
• Intel: Pinterest has been working wonders for their SEO strategy. Intel has created visually enticing content on their Pinterest, and has led to a 48% increase in monthly engaged viewers!
• Cisco Systems: Cisco does a great job of producing fresh content on a regular basis. They use their boards to showcase what they’re all about, and all relate to how we connect.

LINK YOUR PINS

The goal is to drive quality traffic to your website. Using Pinterest to solely enhance your brand won’t cut it as B2B marketers. Make sure to link your website to every single pin you put out there. If you’re pinning a blog post, link your blog. If you’re pinning your products/services, link the pin to your products page. While only a few of your pins may go viral, linking all of your pins will allow the most traffic to your website.

PINTEREST GROUP BOARDS

A group board is like a regular Pinterest board, but instead, it includes many different pinners. For example, you have a really cool marketing infographic you want to get out there. You can use the website http://pingroupie.com/ and type in marketing infographic.

From here, you will see there are 3 different group boards for this topic. All with 1000+ followers! You will request to join this group, and upon being accepted, pin your infographic to the group. All of the group’s followers will see your pin, creating quality traffic to your site.

PROMOTED PINS

Promoted pins typically perform well, even after the campaign ends. With promoted pins, you can target which users you want to see your ad, and results can show to be very promising. However, when using promoted pins, you will need to have tested the pin you plan to promote beforehand. Make sure this pin performs well, you don’t want to waste money on a dud pin! Publish content that will stay valuable and fresh for months at a time.

Remember to keep your followers engaged on Pinterest. Stay away from boring pictures and use the description box to entice a large audience. A staggering 70% of users engage with content on Pinterest, so start using Pinterest to further your B2B marketing efforts now!