Can B2B Businesses Really Succeed on Pinterest? Oh So Pinteresting OSP Episode 063

According to stats and surveys, Pinterest, due to its fast growing and massive user base, is able to drive more referrals than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined (Source: Shareaholic). Can B2B businesses, which are often not very visual, gain traction with Pinterest as well as B2C businesses?

The fact that Pinterest is focused on sharing visual images may be quite challenging for B2B companies to target the right audience. So, how does a B2B company take advantage of the power of Pinterest? Can B2B Businesses Really Succeed on Pinterest?

Pinterest is often thought of as a site for crafters and hobbyists. In the past few years, Pinterest has grown to serve an even larger customer base and has become a tool for curating and discovering a wide range of information and resources in many different categories.

In this episode, Azure Collier from Constant Contact explains how thinking out of the box helps B2B marketers reach out to their customers on Pinterest. She tells us how this can be done successfully by sharing information through graphics, community boards, re-pins, and a lot more.

Azure is the Social Media Education Developer for Constant Contact which is known for its email marketing services. Azure and her team have come up with many unique techniques for growing their Pinterest account and educating their customers.  She shares a tip for growing an email list by pinning images from within emails to Pinterest.

Constant Contact’s Pinterest account was started around 2012 and has now a current number of followers of around 23, 475 with 115 boards and 5, 838 pins. It’s filled with curated information not just from the company itself but, from different reliable sources as well – useful, helpful, and educational information for their followers.

In This Episode

Why Using Pinterest can be an Advantage for B2B Businesses

Pinterest can be a great way to organize information from your website. It helps to categorize and narrow down things which can be more attractive for customers as contents are a lot easier to search. Since Pinterest is a visual platform, it may be helpful to know that 40% of people will likely respond better to visual information than just plain text (Source: Zabisco).

Creating Visuals for Sharing Across Social Medial Channels

Visuals can be a powerful tool in getting your readers to become customers. And, it doesn’t have to be expensive. Azure shares with us free graphic editing tools such as PicMonkey and Canva to help create and edit images or infographics, not just for pinning on Pinterest but, for sharing them across all other social media channels as well.

What Constant Contact is and How they Use Pinterest to Reach Out to Their Customers

Constant Contact is a great example of a B2B company who has found success with Pinterest. It’s known for its email marketing services and business marketing support services. Azure and her team have been able to  able to create interesting, sharable images to share on Pinterest which has attracted a large Pinterest following. They’ve been successful sharing a wide variety of information by filling their boards with graphic-rich tips, articles, quotes, and a lot more. Azure also talks about how they use seasonal boards for collaboration on Pinterest.

Since Constant Contact also does events planning, they’ve created theme boards for different types of events. They give people a taste of these events by posting photos of them or key people in the events and linking them back to the event page itself.

Create a Board about Your B2B Company

Azure tells us this could be a great way to showcase all your social media buttons where people can connect with your company, making it easier for them to find everything about you all in one place. You can include in the description area your FB page, Twitter handle, your link to your signup form for email newsletter and all other places where you can be found.

How Often Should You Be on Pinterest?

Azure recommends to Constant Contact clients that they pin a minimum of 5 pins a day.  It doesn’t matter how much more but, the important thing is you’re building a presence out there by pinning a little bit every day and spreading those pins throughout the day. It would be best to have a list of different sources or content you want to pin and have them shared at different times of the day when your ideal clients are most likely to be online.

Azure recommends using Diigo, a free bookmarking tool that can be helpful in saving content for pinning later.

Links Mentioned:

Constant Contact

• …on Pinterest
• …on Twitter (@constantcontact)
• … on Facebook

Pic Monkey

Canva

Diigo

Azure  Collier

… on Twitter (@azurecollier)