Give It A Second Thought: Social Media Marketing With Pinterest

By Author: avax seo
Total Articles: 18
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There was a lot of buzz about it when it first exploded onto the social media scene. Pinterest continues to pull in new users, but many marketers are still scratching their heads about it. How can you use social media marketing strategy to make Pinterest work for business?

The quick take opinion
The important question is, does it really have a business value? Marketing Profs cites a recent survey indicating there are mixed feelings about that. Businesses describing themselves as “active” in social media responded to the question “Is your business using Pinterest?”
Here are the results:

No, and we aren't considering it: 40.38%
Yes: 30.77%
No, but we are considering it: 28.85%

This could be that many businesses don't see the value in Pinterest for their brand, or that it doesn't cater to their particular customer base. It could be that they haven't figured out the best marketing strategy for it.

Honestly, it isn't for every business, but it has done well for home décor, fashion, food, and crafts. That doesn't mean that a services company couldn't find a way ...
... to use the site to it's advantage. Just consider the typical “pinner”, mostly females between 24-54, and decide if this is your target.

One strategy
Perhaps the best way to look at Pinterest is as a compliment to your other social strategies. We talk a lot about cross-channel marketing, so why not include Pinterest?

Marketing Pilgrim highlighted one companies use of Pinterest with email. CheetahMail added a Pinterest functionality to some of their campaigns. This allowed consumers to link products in a promotional email directly to their Pinterest boards. Essentially, these consumers were helping the companies by spreading the word to folks not included in the email campaigns.

These Pinterest mailings generated 11% higher open rates for the emails, and 25% higher click rates than with other mailings.

Measuring success
As with any other social media marketing strategy, determining success requires paying attention to certain analytics. After all, simply being “pinned” isn't enough to tell you what's happening with consumers. Look at these analytics to help determine the usefulness of your campaign.

Clicks per pin
Re-pins per pin
Average visit duration

There are a few tools you can use to manage and track success in these areas.

Pinerly: This is specific to Pinterest and allows you to track your campaign, and even schedule pins.

WP Pinner: This WordPress Plug-In also allows scheduling, keeps track of performance metrics like clicks, likes, and re-pins.

Cyfe: This tool monitors metrics and analytics for all online services. You can add a Pinterest widget to help you track performance there.

So while Pinterest remains a hot social media marketing tool for some businesses, remember that it has a very targeted audience. Think of ways to use this channel in conjunction with others to see the best results.

Have you tried Pinterest for your business? Do you have a broad social media marketing campaign in place? Contact our social media marketing Atlanta and we can help you build an effective strategy.