If “Pinning” is not part of your B2B social media strategy because you have the misconception that Pinterest is not a valid medium for B2B marketing, it’s probably a good time to reconsider. With the recent data supporting the platform’s influence, it is no surprise B2B leaders like HP, IBM, Microsoft, and Hubspot are boarding their way to successful customer engagement.
As the traditional workplace cultures change, with millennials constituting the majority of the workforce, you want to stay relevant with your target audiences – people researching B2B products and services for their business.
And although Pinterest should not be the primary focus of your B2B marketing social strategy, you can feel confident that your added social efforts will not be in vain. Several organizations are finding that Pinterest is lapping the traffic they’re generating from other platforms like Google+ and YouTube.
Used strategically, Pinterest can be a great addition to help you strengthen your brand identity, boost traffic to your website, and emphasize your position as a thought leader in your industry.
Here’s How:
Think Like Your Audience
Many B2B companies do not think of Pinterest as a platform they can post their products on because they believe they are boring and their services do not offer the eye-catching/engaging visuals that B2C brands have at their disposal. But this is often because they have not thought about all of the unique ways they can create relevant visual content. All companies either provide a product or a service that are meant to impact the lives of their audience in some way. So by considering what your buyer personas value, you have valuable insights into what content to post.
For example, a software company understands their users value the importance of time management, so they create a board titled “Productivity Hacks to Work Smarter Not Harder” or “Tips to Boost Productivity.” They can also add some boards that focus on their audience’s lifestyles. If time management is essential at work, it is likely the same at home. So boards like “18 Breakfast Recipes on the Go” creates a valuable relationship between consumer and brand, especially when you invite your audience to add their own pins to it.
In addition, don’t forget of the all the content you most likely already have that you can turn into visuals to post: Whitepapers, Case Studies, e-books, articles, collateral, etc. You can post the graphics that accompany the content, create images for the quotes and statistics included in the assets, or turn the content into infographics to make it even more visually appealing.
Show Off Your Personality
To shatter the stereotype of B2B businesses being boring, Pinterest is a great platform to use to give your consumers a behind-the-curtain look at your fun company culture. By posting photos from team building events or office holiday parties, you can prove that your company isn’t just another boring corporate entity. In fact, 65% of buyers find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising. So having the ability to showcase what your company is all about while making your consumer feel like a valuable insider helps build your brand awareness.
HootSuite currently has a board, “#HootsuiteLife” with 8,638 followers for users worldwide to “Get a taste of what Hootsuite is all about, from our culture to the latest activities.”
Share & Repeat
In addition to pinning breaking news and highlighting other influencers in your industry, when you share pins and boards with your business partners, you do double-duty by driving traffic to all sites, increasing audience engagement, and strengthening your position as a thought-leader.
Overall, Pinterest is a great place for all users to discover ideas and inspiration and although, statistically, it may not give you the same level of engagement as LinkedIn or Twitter will, it still serves as a worthwhile platform to experiment on.
Let us know if you have added, or are planning to add, Pinterest to your social media marketing efforts in the comments below. And as we create a home for ourselves on Pinterest (because we like to practice what we preach) give us a follow and let us know what you think – especially of Bloom’s Resident Interruption Coordinator’s board.
