Part 2 of 3: The Marketer’s Pre-Pinterest Checklist
Growing a successful brand presence on Pinterest is not unlike growing a successful garden; both require planning, diligent care and most importantly active, strategic cross-pollination in order to bloom.
For businesses, a thriving Pinterest space inhabited by a fervently connected community relies on a steady supply of visual content and creative user engagement to share it throughout the platform. And like any flourishing garden, while future blossoming may occur somewhat organically, in the beginning it won’t plant and grow itself. Before laying roots on Pinterest, brands need to consider the landscape of the fastest growing social networking site in history and what they can add to it.
- Determine What to Share
What face do you want to present on Pinterest? Is your target market there (and if they’re female, they likely are)? What do they want to see? How will you show it to them? Plan to consistently deliver visual, informational and high value content
- Share It Multiple Ways
In order to showcase different facets of your brand and create a rich (but not overwhelming) page, create individual pinboards to align to your brand’s various aspects.
- Share Your Products/Services
Use pinboards featuring your company’s history and successes to display product images with descriptive captions linked to online ordering pages if possible. If your offering is only available offline or is limited to services, pin photos of your clients, employees, corporate activities such as tradeshows, partners and other images connected to your brand’s message, then use the comment box to engage your audience.
- Share Your Company’s Personality
Pinterest’s reliance on the sensory experience of exploring imagery means users may initially pin content almost reflexively, without much (if any) conscious analysis. For this reason, it’s considered more “emotion-driven” than other social networks, and is therefore the perfect forum in which to display as much of your brand’s personality as possible. Share who your company is and what matters to you by pinning content related to causes you support, industry and other business organizations to which you belong, corporate philosophies, etc. Gut-reaction filtering will ensure deepened connection with simpatico prospects.
- Share Your Expertise
Build trust with users by translating published articles, white papers, research and other thought leadership activity into compelling infographics linked to your corporate site or blog where additional strategies, tips and how-to advice is available.
- Share Your Users
Grow your database with highly targeted contacts by driving traffic to opt-in pages using linked images of giveaways, samples and contests.
- Share a Unique Interaction with your Brand
Broaden your brand’s perspective beyond your immediate offering and expertise to include peripheral but nonetheless brand-relevant content; this will help create a multiple-touchpoint interaction with users that will help cement their connection to you.
While you’re engaging prospects, engage with the greater Pinterest community by liking, repining and commenting on their pins. Follow other Pinteresters, or specific pinboards that add something to the experience of your brand. And take advantage of the “social” part of social media: share your ideas and views wherever possible to further entrench your Pinterest foothold.
