Pin It, To Win It

By now, I’m sure you’ve figured out that Pinterest is a no-brainer for companies who sell clothes, jewelry, furniture or other really cool “visual” items, but it’s not as clear cut for B2B or tech companies. Yet, despite this uncertainty you can’t ignore the social network’s rapidly growing user base. The million dollar question becomes how do you come up with a Pinterest strategy that fits B2B?

Well, Rebecca Corliss offers up some great tips in her post on the Hubspot blog. A little crunched for time? Then don’t stress, below are some of the highlights that I’ve summarized for you to quickly get on your way.

Find Your Most Visual Content Believe it or not, you are producing visual content all the time. I realize that the biggest challenge for B2B companies is that by their nature they are probably not selling a product or service that is visual by nature, however it’s important to think outside the box a little and find images that align with your company’s image, fit on Pinterest and are fun to share.

1. Published a white paper or ebook lately? Pay dirt! Take a screen shot of the cover and add it to a board that’s a collection of ebooks for people to read. Corliss makes a good point by stating “If the covers of your ebooks aren’t normally very visual, make a point of giving them a better design from on to make them pin-friendly.”

2. If your company has a corporate blog, then odds are you probably have some pretty interesting visuals residing there. Corliss recommends start using clear, beautiful images from your blog posts with the point of pinning them to your pinboards moving forward.

3. Infographics, they are super viral and the rage right now. If you have any company or industry data to visualize, odds are it’ll be a huge hit!

Increase Referral Traffic When leads are your bottom line, using Pinterest solely as a way to “enhance your brand” isn’t going to cut it. As with any social network, it’s important to drive traffic back to your website. To make sure you are maximizing you’re efforts, make sure that all your pins link back to your site. If you are uploading a photo instead of pinning something, be sure to choose a link that makes sense, and including that in the pin’s description. According to Corliss, “With this strategy, each link becomes a micro traffic source.” Also, it’s a good idea to expand the number of corporate pinboards as you start creating more visual content.

Optimize for Leads Now that you are optimized for driving traffic back to your website, it’s a good idea to try and convert some of that traffic to leads. According to Corliss, “There are two ways you can make sure your Pinterest Traffic is converting for your business to support your lead generation efforts.”

1. A great idea is to start pinning images that would normally be gated. White papers and ebooks are excellent examples. In the description of the pin, be sure to include a link to the landing page to download it.

2. Corliss writes that sometimes “it might not make sense to include a landing page link in a pin’s description (for example, if you’re pinning an image from a blog post). In cases like that, add more calls-to-action to your blog to increase the likelihood of conversion from there.”

I hope these few tips help you get starting making the most out of your corporate Pinterest account. These are only some of the many suggestions that Rebecca Corliss offers up. Curious to learn more then check out her article on the Hubspot Blog.