Leveraging Pinterest for B2B Marketing - 6 Practical Tips

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Leveraging Pinterest for B2B Marketing

6 Practical Tips


Pinterest, the hottest social media site of 2012 has caught the Internet world by storm. Pinterest today occupies an enviable position right behind Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, in the list of Top 10 Social Networking sites.


1. Use Pinterest as a repository for your visual assetsPinterest can easily serve as a repository of your best visual assets. Needless to say, share things that are only worth sharing and not every image/video your company has produced. The biggest advantage Pinterest provides is that it automatically links back to the page that houses the collateral you have picked the image from- so you are creating valuable backlinks, and making it easy for people to follow the link.


2. Use Pinterest to humanize your brandJust because you are a B2B company, does not mean your pinboards should be just about your products, or demo videos. Let your brand’s personality come through in your pinboards. What is the culture of your company, what causes do you believe in, who are your top executives, what are their hobbies, how are you giving back to society, what are the interesting places in and around your corporate HQ, who are your customers?


3. Use Pinterest to demonstrate practical use of your productsShowing how your products can add value in a real world scenario is more effective than just posting product pictures or screenshots onto your pinboards. You can also subtly demonstrate though images who will benefit from your products. For instance: if your product is targeted towards banks and financial institutions, pinning imagery that represents challenges they face, is a subtle way of showing that your solution can mitigate such challenges.


4. Use Pinterest to collaborate with employees, partners, clients, prospectsDon’t ever forget that at the heart of it, Pinterest is a ‘social’ network, and as with any social network, success depends on effective engagement and collaboration. Creating a pinboard and allowing your employees, partners and clients to add relevant images makes them feel more connected to your brand. Also,the images added can give you an idea what matters to your prospects/

clients/ employees.


5. Use Pinterest to go beyond brand promotionThe key to success on Pinterest is to move beyond self-promotion. Make your pinboards about a topic/subject, rather than making them about your company. Remember however, to give your pinboards, a consistent identity. If you want to come across as an edgy, be edgy; want to come across as trendy, be trendy…ooze a distinct personality and stick to it! Let your Pinterest profile tell your brand’s story in pictures, and also project to the world the kind of brand you are.


6. Use Pinterest as part of your overall marketing strategyOne thing Pinterest will do is get marketers to rethink their marketing strategy, not just in terms of written collateral but also in producing high impact and shareable visuals. For eg: if your blog post does not contain a relevant image, you cannot share it on Pinterest. This means that you will now have to focus on visual branding to be successful on Pinterest. Visual collateral like infographics, videos, whitepapers, cheat sheets will be more effective and that’s what you need to focus on.


Oktopost is a platform for social media lead generation. We manage scheduling posts to LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Pages, and Twitter, using multiple social profiles, and track all activity from clicks to conversions.


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Leveraging Pinterest for B2B Marketing - 6 Practical Tips