Pinterest – Great for business to consumer marketing, how about business to business?
Facts and Stats
- Launched in March 2010, and valued at $3.8 billion last year, Pinterest has over 85 million unique monthly users globally. Its mobile app is popular with three quarters of users accessing the site through this method.
- According to Comscore MMX the UK has 2.5 million users, 1.5 million of which are female.
- Growing rapidly, Pinterest was the fastest social network to hit the 10 million visitor mark, a 1/3 of the time it took Twitter to do the same.
- 80% of Pinterest pins are re-pins and less than 20% of pins contain faces.
- With over 4.4 million followers, retailer Nordstrom is the number one brand on Pinterest. The brand has flagged up items in their stores that have attracted the most attention on Pinterest and has quoted that “Pinterest shoppers tend to spend more than users referred from other social media”.
- Figures show that consumers referred to a site from Pinterest are 10% more likely to buy.
Exactly how does Pinterest work?
The Pinterest concept is quite simple, its an online pin board, where users can create boards and collect ideas for their business, projects and interests. Pinners create and share images of their favourite products, articles, blogs and website content. It helps inspire people, helps them plan what they want to achieve and provides an insight for brands as to what their audience is interested in and what’s trending.
Facebook focuses on what has just happened, Twitter about current news and events and Pinterest looks forward, what you would like to happen, planning for the future.
Unlike other social networks sharing is focused around topics rather than users/friends. Pinterest users interact with each other through liking, commenting and re-pinning others content.
Pinterest also offers more marketing potential than other social networks. Pinterest drives more traffic to websites than Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube according to some reports. One in five Pinterest users purchase an item they have seen on the site – with an average price per purchase twice that of Facebook buyers.
Businesses can ensure they have a ‘verified account’, linking it with their company website. ‘Pin it’ buttons are available to add to websites to enable visitors to share content they find. ‘Rich Pins’ have been introduced which contain extra information, for example the new ‘place pins’ include a map, address and phone number. ‘Article pins’ include headline, author and story description, helping users find and save research and resources to share. There are also ‘product pins’ which include price information and where to buy details.
Is it really for B2B (Business to Business)?
Considering if Pinterest works for your business.
Although Pinterest facts show a focus on female friendly content such as women’s clothing or interiors products, there are many success cases for B2B as well as B2C (Business to Consumer).
Businesses can use Pinterest to share presentations, white papers, articles and videos, not just images. As an example, Constant Contacts (a company that helps small businesses with email marketing) have over 20,000 followers. They have achieved this by creating boards that attract their idea clients profile/interests – boards not just about email marketing but business quotes, social media tips etc.
With thought and strategy, companies can leverage sales and web traffic from an active Pinterest account. Even though Pinterest is a visually dominated platform text remains important. You can use group boards and interact with popular users to help attract a wider audience to click through to your content.
Pinning resources to help users find relevant information within your field can ensure users come to your account for reliable, useful information to aid their research. Becoming an authority in your field will help build a fan base.
Setting up a business account – 10 steps to get you started:
- Ensure your website content is easy for visitors to pin, tweet and post no matter what type of device they use. Add a ‘Pin it’ button to key areas of your website including your blog.
- Do not use link shorteners for your pins such as bit.ly links, these will be flagged as suspicious links by Pinterest and could have an impact on traffic figures and conversions.
- Ensure you have an equal mix of pins, re-pins, blog pins, i.e. don’t just focus on pinning and promoting your own content and products.
- Use keywords in text, in pin descriptions, board names, business profiles etc so search engines and target groups can locate your Pinterest information.
- Utilise the Pinterest free web analytics tool, to help you understand your most popular pins, re-pins and content. Track activity to feed into your future strategy.
- Use Pinterest to build relationships with influencers in your sector by following them, commenting on their content and re-pinning their posts.
- Create boards with content that will be of interest to your target audience and give insights into your business.
- Keep up to date with engagement on the site, answer questions and comments pinners add to your posts.
- Post from a range of media – videos from YouTube, slides from Slideshare, links to podcasts, audio from Soundcloud for example to make your boards more inviting.
- Brand your pins, add your logo to images, so when they are shared your logo is circulated too.
If you would like help to create or manage a business Pinterest account, give Front Page Advantage a call today.