If your company deals mostly in business-to-business (b2b) transactions, you may not think that there’s anything a site like Pinterest can offer you. After all, on the surface it can appear that Pinterest is more like a turbo site for the Etsy crowd – perfect for artistic types who are selling handbags or home decor items. But if you’re looking to up your b2b marketing game, Pinterest has a lot to offer you, too.
In marketing we talk a lot about giving brands that “human” factor. Even if your business is dealing with another business, they’re still going to want to know who the people are behind the brand. Pinterest gives you a great chance to show various aspects of what your office dynamic is really like, which is a lot better than the stuffy staff headshots that adorn most websites. Having some candid shots of daily life in your office can give your company image a much warmer feel that will attract others to you.
You can, of course, create pinboards specifically for your products and services. Be careful, though, of huge amounts of self-promotion. As you’ve probably discovered with other social networks, the audience will be turned off if there’s too much highly-focused pushy marketing. Pinterest is a very fun social network, so have fun finding ways to bring relevant content to your audience without being so blatant about the message.
Infographics related to your business can be a great way to drive home a point while giving valuable information. Videos can be turned into pins, so you can also share videos that are relevant to your industry, or even videos from your own YouTube channel. If you already have visual content on your website, such as photos that accompany your blog posts, create a pin for each one and group them into their own pinboard. You may also want to make a pinboard for any data charts you can make available, or pin the covers of your companies digital assets – whitepapers, ebooks, and so forth.
Don’t forget to put a link to your Pinterest account from your company’s website, and link each of your pins back to a specially-created landing page so you can assess how well your pinboards are performing, and welcome your Pinterest followers to your site in a more personal way.
