Marketing with Pinterest - How to Make Pinterest Work for Your Brand

Pinterest is making waves in social media circles, and gaining visibility fast - here's how you can take advantage of that interest with some exposure for your brand.
2/8/2012

For those of you not yet familiar with Pinterest, it's a social media site along the same vein as Twitter, Facebook and Google+ - but with a unique twist. Pinterest is entirely focused on images. They call themselves "an Online Pinboard," which is pretty accurate - but the impactful part for social media is that when users pin whatever image they enjoy or wish to share, other users can comment on the image, repin it, or like it. Users have their own pinboards that other users can follow, and pins are also grouped into categories for browsing.

Here are the steps to follow to start making Pinterest work for your brand:

Not all brands will be a great fit for Pinterest, but most should be able to take advantage of this opportunity for exposure if done correctly. To participate, you have to have images to share that others will be interested in sharing. Retail brands can work well if you have unique items or images to share, or can produce pictures showing your items used in creative ways. Service-based brands can also see good results with a little creativity - create and share some images showing great results or creative uses of your services.

Simply posting a bunch of pictures linking to your website isn't going to get you anywhere. As with all social media marketing campaigns for brands, you will only get visibility if you interact with the community. This means you need to comment on other pins you enjoy that are complimentary to your brand or category, repin others' pins, and follow some people and categories.

Again, think of other social media marketing techniques. Nobody wants to share and repin ads, and they really don't even want to look at them. You have to make sure you're offering useful content - and Pinterest is about ideas. If you can give people ideas about great uses for your products or services, they will respond and share those ideas, giving you great exposure. If you're simply posting bland images of your products without original ideas, you will be ignored.

As with any social marketing efforts, it's essential that you are prepared to commit some time to Pinterest of you're going to make it work for you. You have to add content slowly over time, and build relationships with Pinterest users. Content can go viral and build your presence quickly, but dumping large quantities of content at once and then tailing off is not the way to engage your audience.

Marketing with Pinterest can be a great way to get exposure to your brand and links to your website, as well as engage your potential customers in a positive way. Follow the steps above - determine your fit, be social, don't be too promotional, and be persistent - and you'll see success with your Pinterest marketing.