Most businesses these days understand the power of social media marketing. However, a recent study found that only 1% of businesses use Pinterest, the visual content-sharing site that is quickly growing in popularity. For a business looking for new avenues to take its B2B online marketing to, marketing on Pinterest is a largely untapped resource waiting to be utilized.

Pinterest Lets you Redefine your Brand

While it may not have the legacy of older sites like Facebook, Pinterest has a vast, quickly-growing audience that is hungry for content. Because Pinterest is largely built around sharing visual content, it provides the perfect forum for posting pictures, videos, and infographics that can then be widely disseminated. The site is also a great place for reposting articles, blogs, white papers, reports, press releases, and other online content you’re already producing for your B2B online marketing. Using this material for Pinterest marketing will net it an even bigger audience than before.

Posts on Pinterest can be Keyword Optimized

Pinterest revolves around the use of “pins”, which allow users to post content they like on their own personal “boards.” Not only can these boards have keywords attached to them, but so can the individual pins. When you “pin” your content, you can add keywords relevant to your business and the individual posts. Because Pinterest works much like a search engine, (in that users search the site by keyword to find posts), this allows businesses to make the material they post on the site easily searchable under the terms they want.

It Easily Converts to Referral Traffic

Much like how Pinterest makes finding content simple by allowing keyword optimization, the site also makes it easy to convert your Pinterest audience into referral traffic. Each “pin” on your board can also have a URL directly attached to it, making the main site easily reachable. Pinterest also has what are known as “rich pins”. These are different posting options for different type of content. For example, an article pin allows you to include a headline, author bio, and summary for every article that uses that type of pin.

Pinterest Boards Appear at the Top of the Search Engines

One of the benefits of having your content become popular on Pinterest is because the site’s popular “boards” often appear very high on search engines. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites that content stays contained just to the sites themselves, Pinterest marketing material has a good chance of being found by online searchers who have never visited the site before. B2B online marketing performed on Pinterest has a much wider reach than many other online marketing methods when there is some strategy applied.

Create Easily Sharable Content

Taking the time to do Pinterest marketing will also give you a large amount of content that can then easily be posted to other social media sites. Pinterest is designed to make its content highly sharable. When a user pins something to one of its boards, they are automatically given the option of posting it to Facebook and Twitter as well. By using Pinterest, you can create a central online hub of B2B online marketing material that can then easily be spread across all your accounts, making social media marketing that is much less time consuming and easier to coordinate.

Expect to see Pinterest become a more and more popular marketing tool in the near future, as more businesses realize the potential for Pinterest marketing to expand and revitalize their B2B online marketing efforts. The businesses already taking advantage of the site are the first to reach a potential goldmine of resources to help them get their content in front of their target customers.

Traditional media, such as television, billboard and print advertising, where companies continually repeat the main message about a brand, used to work well in the past; however, in today’s mobile world, this old type of marketing only serves to alienate consumers, becoming less and less effective over time. Nowadays, consumers want to interact with brands before they buy; they want to be able to handle them, even if it is virtually – and rich media makes that possible in a variety of interesting ways.

How Rich is Rich Media?

With rich media, shoppers can engage with a product by interacting with it. By giving people the power to take a virtual test drive, and then instantly purchase the real thing, businesses can build stronger brands, drive sales, and increase customer loyalty. Engaging copy can drive up to 20 percent higher click through rates. By incorporating rich media, such as video and images directly into creative ad units, brands can provide users with more opportunities to respond. Attractive, high-quality photos work well for product presentations, but one problem to watch out for is long loading times, so be selective. Better images typically produce better results, but if they take too long to load, your customers will run right to your competition.

Use rich media to showcase all the special features of your product. For example, if you sell electronics, you can use images that show functionality. You can also use rich media to zoom in on a product, turn it in all directions, and vary views. Be consistent, and match your product images to the design of your website. Make sure to optimize rich media for both mobile and tablet devices of all types, creating a balance between quality and image compression.

Integrating social media extends a marketer’s reach and encourages more consumer engagement. For these reasons, more and more companies are sitting up and paying attention when it comes to social media. In fact, a study by BloomReach shows that companies spend an average of 8.4 percent of their marketing budget on social media. Clearly, people are hooked on the rich capabilities of their mobile devices, and this phenomenon is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Rich Pins

While Facebook certainly drives the most traffic, Pinterest brings the dollars. According to BloomReach, traffic coming from Pinterest converts 22 percent more often and spends 60 percent more than traffic coming from Facebook.

What this means for businesses is that Pinterest needs to be the focus of many of their marketing efforts. Pinterest is making that easier with their release of “Rich Pins”. Rich Pins let businesses put the information that drives sales – like price and a link to their web site – right in front of their customers’ eyes; instead of making them drill down to find that information.

Before Rich Pins, a food and wine magazine, for instance, would often pin a picture of a gorgeous, elegantly plated dish. But that’s all Pinterest users would see, and they may or may not be interested enough to click on the image and learn more. With a Rich Pin, the magazine could include a few ingredients as well as a link to the recipe, helping Pinterest users to decide that it’s worth their time to follow the link.

For now, there are four types of Rich Pins: Article, Product, Recipe, and Movie.

Article

In addition to the traditional Pinterest image, Article Pins include the title, author, and a brief description. This lets pinners know right away if they’re interested in repinning the article to read later, rather than just clicking on the image only to find out they’re not interested after all. An auto manufacturer, for instance, could pin an article about fuel-efficient vehicles. By itself, an image from the article could mean just about anything; adding the title and description lets pinners know that it’s an article about choosing a fuel-efficient vehicle.

Product

The most important thing about Product Pins is that they include real-time pricing and stocking information. So instead of posting a photo of the latest smart phone and hoping pinners dig deep enough to get to their website, a retailer could include their logo, their web site, their price, and how many they have in stock. With Product Pins, pinners don’t have to work so hard to find what the business wants them to see.

Recipe

Pinners will often notice a great-looking recipe but assume that it’s too hard, too expensive, or requires ingredients they don’t have. Recipe Pins put that information right out front, including things like ingredients, cooking time, and serving information. Pinners have enough information to decide, “I can do that!” without having to click any further. Once they’ve decided they’re interested in the recipe, they can click through to see all of the steps.

Animations

Movie Pins include not just an image from the movie, but ratings, cast, and reviews as well. Like with other Rich Pins, Movie Pins give pinners more information for less work. And more information for less work leads to higher conversion rates.

How to get Rich Pins of your own

According to Pinterest, the first step in using Rich Pins is to add some meta tags to your web site. If you don’t know how to do that, there are many developers who deliver rich media for online shops. Once your site has been properly tagged, it’s just a matter of running Pinterest’s Rich Pin Validator and applying for your Rich Pin to be included.

Several studies have shown that Pinterest users tend to be in more of a buying mode than Facebook users (who are more concerned with building relationships). A lot of people on Pinterest have already decided to buy, but they demand instant information to help them figure out what to buy. Rich Pins give customers the information they need to make that one additional click that takes them to your website.

About author:

Mathilde Chenel is in web marketing. She enjoys integrating technology into innovative marketing strategies using social media.

Pinterest is one of the most popular photo-sharing websites at the moment, with millions of users from all parts of the globe. Every day, countless visitors log in to share theme-based image collections with friends and family. Perhaps the ability to create breathtaking collections based on events, hobbies and interests is what draws many users to the service. You can take advantage of this platform to promote your brand. Social media has never disappointed when it comes to internet marketing, especially where the following is huge. But how exactly can this work out?

It is always an added advantage to have a page with some of the most used social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. However, the reality is that such avenues are slowly getting flooded by marketers. It is high time you stopped being mainstream and started meeting prospective clients where your competitors least expect. The ability to share photos more effectively will give you the perfect opportunity to sell your brand in ways mere words can’t. There are many ways to go about this but this guide will walk you through 4 smart ways to use Pinterest as a marketing tool that will never disappoint.

1. Share your Best Business Images

Social media marketing is all about making your good side shine brightest. If you are keen on using Pinterest to market your business, you need to start looking for the best visuals around your business premises. Whether it’s your products, service delivery, location or interests that bring out the best of your brand, this is the story you need to sell online. If you run a travel company for instance make sure you upload photos from your best destinations.

In as much as Pinterest is quite a new service, there will definitely be competition from other enterprises. Irrespective of how established your business is, you only have photos to tell the story here. Make sure each and every photo uploaded is of the highest quality, taken by a professional photographer.

2. Start Running Photo Contests

In Pinterest, users are always competing to assemble the best pin-boards based on their interests. You need to leverage this unique feature to make your brand sell. One of the most effective ways to use Pinterest as a marketing tool is to introduce competitions among users. This will always create excitement among your followers and keep them interested. Consequently, your business will get some positive publicity and remain relevant.

However, you need to come up with a very creative team to oversee the competitions. You will end up looking very cheap if you keep reinventing the wheel by copying what other businesses are doing. Come up with unique photo uploading competitions that will set you apart from the rest of the crowd. You also need to introduce unprecedented rewards and not the redundant gift hampers.

3. Incorporate Other Social Networks

The best part about social media marketing is that you have the freedom to use as many networks as possible. However, trying to be everywhere is not a good idea as you will appear to be desperate. You need to take advantage of other more powerful social tools to enhance your publicity on Pinterest. This could simple involve sharing information about promotions to the thousands of friends your business has in Facebook.

Many businesses also make sure their Twitter followers are ever informed of any developments on Pinterest. For such approaches to be effective, you need to concentrate your efforts on followers who are likely to re-pin your pictures. If there are any followers who display keen interest, take advantage of the command they have on social networks.

4. Create Obvious Purchase Links

The sole purpose of pinning up photos and running attractive promotions is to ensure you make sales. This is why obvious purchase links must have a place among the 4 smart ways to use Pinterest as a marketing tool. Make sure that your Pinterest account offers direct links from which followers can purchase the advertised products or services.

If the process from picture to purchase is not smooth, many users will be pissed off. Majority will simply postpone placing an order to a time that may never come. As much as Pinterest is all about spreading your message through photos, it adds nothing if it doesn’t prompt followers to place orders.

Author Bio:

Rahul Makhija has been in the internet marketing industry for more than 6 years. For more information you can visit web development. He is an expert on SEO & PPC tactics and in his free times likes to read and understand about human behavior.

If you haven’t heard of Pinterest yet you better climb out from under the rock you have sleeping under and take a little peek at society. Pinterest is a wildly successful new bookmarking tool that takes a whole different and creative spin on allowing the community to showcase things they like via links.

How to pin on Pinterest

First you have to sign up for an account. Currently there is a short wait for some new accounts so you will have to be patient until they respond back and email you a confirmation link. Once you get your account up and running you are going to see an “add” button in the top right hand corner of your computer monitor.

When you click on this button you are going to get the following screen where you are going to see an “add pin” icon. You are going to want to click that.

Next screen you are going to want to paste the URL to the link you are trying to pin and show the world.

After you submit your URL you are going to see this screen which is one of the more important ones if you want others to see your pin.

First, you are going to want to make sure the image you are choosing is the right one. Images are important if you are serious about click through rates. Next, you will want to choose the board or category to pin the content to. You can also create a whole new board if you plan on pinning more related items in the future to that specific topic. Third, you want to add a description describing your pin so others see what your pin is all about.

Then hit the big ole red “pin it” button and you are done pinning! Fun huh?