Pinterest, as with other social media sites, isn’t just about attracting potential customers and landing sales. It’s also increasingly about brand recognition and establishing yourself — and your brand — as an authority in your industry. But to do that, you need to get creative.
After all, anyone can pin pretty images to the online pin board. So, stand out from the crowd with these five tips that focus on using Pinterest in a creative way.
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Engage Customers
Social media is about building a community and communicating with customers, current and potential. Plus, the more you engage with customers online, the easier it’ll be to retain those customers going forward. Pinterest makes engagement easy. Not only can you create group boards, but you can invite people to “guest post” to your board as well.
To invite guest posters: after you create a pin board, click edit and then, in the ‘who can pin?’ section, type the names of those people you’re inviting. You may want to preface the invitation with a direct email so they know why you’re inviting them to pin with you. Additionally, you can cross-promote your group board on other social media sites to attract new Pinterest followers.
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Create Multilingual Visuals
If you want to extend international reach, use Pinterest to connect to a global base of potential clientele.
To do this, create pins that feature text in a foreign language. For example, if you’re a hotel, you can list room amenities in other languages superimposed over a great photo of the room. Just be sure to confer with someone who speaks the language to translate each and every word. If you just use an online service to translate, you may not capture all nuances of the language and deter potential clients rather than attract them.
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Think Outside the ‘Board’
While it’s important to utilize industry keywords in board titles and captions, there’s more you can do to stand out. Create boards that think outside of the box with your boards, without disregarding what your company is about; rather highlight other aspects of your company.
As an example, let’s look at the Pinterest profile of a wild animal control company – Havahart. They sell products to get wild animals under control, and their Pinterest page highlights natural — but creative — tangents to their business, like gardening tips and tricks.
They also have an animal welfare board with the tagline, “A board full of helpful tips and information for: keeping your pets safe and healthy, helping animals in need, and sharing heartwarming and inspirational stories about amazing animals!” These pages aren’t highlighting their products. Rather, they’re showcasing other things their consumers would find of interest.
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Tell a Story
Since Pinterest boards feature a series of images, create a board dedicated to telling a story. Perhaps one story can talk about milestones in the history of your startup, or show your mascot in a variety of different locales. Just be sure to keep the images in the correct order so the timeline makes sense, even as the story continues on and you add images to the board.
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Humanize It
Put a face to your company through your Pinterest page. In other words, by personalizing your company and creating boards like “who we are” with pinned images of each employee, you’ll be showing that you’re more than just a product or service. You can also share images from events or activities that your company has participated in, making the company more “human” and “real.”
Pinterest is a great place for beautiful images, but the kind of images you choose can say a lot about your company. Start getting creative with your page, and you’ll discover even more benefits from using the social media site.
Savannah Flynn is a public relations specialist for WebpageFX, a full-service Internet marketing, web design and web development agency offering integrated web solutions for medium to large sized businesses across the globe. She has a passion for online marketing and PR.
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