Five ways Pinterest can drive revenue

All businesses can now benefit from Pinterest – even B2B companies! Read on to find out more.

Pinterest, the image-centred social media platform that acts as a virtual pin board for users to collate new thoughts and ideas has been one of the highest growth platforms over the past few years. According to Sharaholic, it’s better than Facebook at inspiring purchases, and converts 69% of visitors compared to Facebook’s figure of 40%.

Pinterest has a reputation of having a great B2C presence, especially in the retail sector. But those who work in a B2B environment shouldn’t be put off, they should also be capitalising on the platform to increase brand awareness, product sharing and revenue.

Here are five ways to become a Pinterest pro:

1. Be the expert.

You can pin brochure images, ad campaigns, stats, PR coverage, infographics, ebook sections and webinar images that all position your business as the expert in your field. An added bonus is that every image you pin to your boards can link through to your website, boosting conversions in the process!

2. Engage with the community

Try to get other people to share your content with ‘re-pins’ and ‘pin-its’. This will increase the chance of prospective customers seeing your content. Another way to communicate is through the comments on other industry-specific pins – this will promote your brand if you have interesting and insightful things to say.

You could also try allowing customers to pin to a few of your boards – it’s a great way to promote brand advocacy by giving them a sense of empowerment in return.

3. Create timeless pins

A pin is not just for Christmas! They stay on your boards forever until you remove them. Try to plan them in coherence with your content strategy to gain the most exposure. If you do want to pin things in relation to seasonal offers, try creating separate boards away from your timeless messages.

4. ‘Pin it’

Any image you have on your website that you feel is worthy of social traction needs a ‘pin ‘it option for easy sharing. This will encourage users to share your content to their own audience. You should also ensure that the reverse is covered – link all of your pins back to your website!

5. Don’t forget the caption

Prospective customers will be searching on terms to find new ideas about their chosen subject. Remember to use these captions to best describe your product/service using the applicable keywords. This will help convert those prospects into paying customers.

Read and comment on the original Guardian article.