6 Brands that are doing Pinterest right
In the world of Pinterest, there are many unknowns. Various businesses are unsure of how to harness the power of Pinterest because most people consider it to be social media for women who cook and do crafts. There is a common misperception that all “pinners” pay attention to is recipes and do it yourself projects, while that may be true from some (like me) it is not true for all. People plan weddings and look for ideas on how to remodel their houses; people create wish lists for themselves, in the form of boards, whether that be a fashion board or a board full of jewelry from online shops. Some use this platform as inspiration for art in its many forms like photography or tattoos.
You will ultimately be surprised at the businesses that have earned successes through their Pinterest use. I pulled the following examples from Pinterest Success Stories on Pinterest for Businesses. Feel free to check out the page for further information.
I chose the six that I believe to be representative of different sectors of business including the obvious food and recipes and ranging to electronics, home improvement and an even more surprising business success.
1. Etsy
To kick things off, I bring you Etsy: an online store collaboration that invites sellers to join in order to sell their unique products to the world of Etsy buyers.
The brand stays true to its values of facilitating positive seller-buyer relationships, which they portray on their site as so:
Their goal in using Pinterest is to resonate with the Etsy community while maintaining a balance of inside and outside pins in order to stay authentic with their brand.
Etsy has various managers across the world working with their Pinterest boards that are instructed to promote what’s already trending in order to reach audiences outside of their own. The site uses guest pinners like popular bloggers or individual sellers to keep things fresh and popular.
Etsy seller, Rachel Ball, uses Pinterest as her brand’s lookbook instead of spending excessive amounts of money creating a tangible piece that will be thrown into the recycle bin. Not only does she save money, but she knows what people are favoriting and repinning, so she can run her business accordingly.
Here are Etsy’s top five boards:
You notice there is only one board that is blatantly filled with Etsy products: “Etsy Finds.” The others have specific value to each type of audience, hitting the “DIYers,” the gift givers and the wedding planners.
2. Kraft Recipes
Kraft’s Pinterest success is to be expected when you consider the main use for many pinners is recipe discovery. The piece that pinners don’t consider is what media professionals do; Jennifer Feeley Associate Director of Digital Strategy and Channel Activation for Kraft Foods said, “Pinterest has become a powerful tool for us to garner real-time insights, mine data and influence content creation, curation and amplification.”
As a pin becomes popular with your audience, you can “fan the pin flame” immediately promoting trending products on different platforms in different ways because you already know that it works.
As a food company, Kraft’s goal is to make it so it’s audiences can discover and share achievable meals, while also focusing on event and holiday pins in order to attract pinners with a purpose.
Here are Kraft’s current, top five boards:
You’ll notice that Kraft varies its boards just as Etsy does, hitting multiple audiences and focuses with some holiday focus, an alcoholic focus and “quick and easy” everyday.
3. Nordstrom
The brand that most shoppers have come to know and love has been with Pinterest much longer than most, making the company Pinterest royalty. With 4.4 million followers, Nordstrom engages thousands with each pin and generates millions of impressions, which leads to higher site traffic and better sales for shop.nordstrom.com.
Nordstrom’s goal is “to give customers a personalized and relevant shopping experience,” which just happens to be what Pinterest is good for. By creating boards for every sub-category of the department store, while also bringing in bloggers, highlighting trending fashion and providing pinners with tutorials, the Nordstrom Pinterest hits every type of audience they target.
The social media team calls it “customer-centric content,” and it doesn’t stop with the Internet. The store’s merchandising carries through it’s top pins and trending products by using the Pinterest logo on signs and products so that the customer knows the product is in high demand, and thus more enticing.
Nordstrom even produces exclusive posts before the Holiday catalog and product lines are released, in order to give its pinners a VIP experience because they now have more information than the average customer.
This company had truly exploited what Pinterest is good for — visual marketing, trend tracking and personalized customer experiences.
4. Lowe’s
We all know the Lowe’s slogan: “Improving Home Improvement.”
Staying true to its brand, the Lowe’s Pinterest page and boards are dedicated to “helping customers do it themselves,” while also highlighting various product lines like patio furniture or grilling devices during the summer months.
The store’s most popular pin is a “Create Your Own Colorful Doormat” project that has thousands of repins, but it also has boards dedicated to Gardening Tips and Father’s Day Gift Ideas that are extremely popular this time of year.
Lowe’s enhances its online presence by taking cues from Pinterest, if one pin or board is doing extremely well on impressions and repins, it will be featured and reproduced on other media channels like Facebook and Twitter. These popular and trending topics also influence further campaign and product ideas.
5. Sony
The electronics company chose to use Pinterest in order to engage the “life-style oriented audience” that the platform provides. It’s message is that technology, whether we like it or not, really is a vital part of the audience’s lifestyle.
Sony shows its importance through the use of unique boards highlighting new products, creating interest through vintage advertisements, showing brand differentiation with unique gadgets, and even focusing on user experience with its “Shot with a Sony” board.
You’ll notice that this board showcases products in a useful way. What are people using the camera and phones for? What kind of photos do these cameras have the ability to take? And why do consumers care?
The company created its Pinterest engagement via visually heavy emails that increased email engagement, click-through rates and Pinterest subscribers, which simply proves how visual marketing attracts audiences of all shapes and sizes.
6. Bank of America
Last, definitely not least, probably the most surprising, we have Bank of America!
A bank using Pinterest to gain website traffic and enhance a campaign?? It’s not something the casual pinner would expect, but it worked.
The Bank of America “Better Money Habits” campaign targeted Millennials who were heading into the real world to start lives of their own. The campaign was trying to meet the needs of an audience who may need some advice; so the company took to Pinterest, creating boards for different life moments including vacation planning, home buying and wedding preparation.
This page is everything the bank posted — 7 boards, 102 pins and 2,693 followers, but it worked.
Utilizing Pinterest for what they refer to as a “visual search engine” with fewer constraints than other platforms, the campaign took advantage of the long descriptions that Facebook provides and the promotional posts that businesses can use on Twitter while enhancing their message with attractive, attention-grabbing images.
Every post that Bank of America created lead the pinners to the “Better Money Habits” page reaching more than 6 million people and obtaining 29,000 repins campaign wide.
Talk about an unexpected consequence!
So, What Have We Learned?
1. Take advantage of knowing and understanding what pins are trending and why. You can use this information to further promote products or ideas on other platforms and as a brainstorming base for further campaigns.
2. Put “Pin It” buttons on your website — every company above (excluding Bank of America) has added this feature, making their products more visible in the digital world, thanks to their users.
3. Create pins focuses on events and holidays for the “Pinners with a purpose.” (We appreciate it, I promise!)
4. Showcase pins in stores and on your website, cross-promotion never hurt anyone.
5. Send a dedicated Pinterest email to your targeted list, make sure it is visually appealing and I guarantee you will get click-throughs!
I hope this insight to what other businesses are doing will help you in your brand’s media campaign!
