Pinterest Marketing Bible

The Definitive Guide to Marketing Your Brand and Products on Pinterest

Copyright © 2012 Leon Cho

All rights reserved.

All logos and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

V1.0

For Tina

my inspiration for everything

Contents

Introduction

What?! Yet another social network?

Whether you’re a community manager, CMO, social media expert, blogger, brand marketer, or selling your own jewelry online, you’re probably suffering from the dreaded condition known as ‘Social Media Fatigue.’ The last few years have brought an explosion of new social networks and tools. You’re still juggling Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Digg… and now everybody’s suddenly talking about Pinterest.

There’s no denying that social media has completely transformed marketing. But you’re right to be reluctant to jump on the bandwagon for every new social network. That is, of course, unless it’s really can help you achieve things you can’t already do with all the other social media. It would be worth your time if the new social network allows you to reach a large and still underserved demographic, deliver your brand message in more emotional ways, or automatically target the affinity groups that will be most passionate about your products. And it would definitely be worth it if it can drive meaningful sales and traffic.

Yes, Pinterest can do all of these things. If you’re reading this book, you are one of the first to recognize that Pinterest is not just a “me too” social network. It works in completely different ways that are appealing to women and families, is centered around visual images rather than text, and has users who have self-identified their interests and are actively looking for your products rather than the other way around.

Don’t let the lack of overt advertising on Pinterest fool you. There is a lot of marketing already going on within Pinterest if you know where to look for it. Pinterest is already generating meaningful traffic and sales for those brands, companies, and individuals that know how to market effectively in this new model. In many ways, Pinterest’s design makes for a better marketing platform than other social networks.

And don’t worry, the customers will be there too. According to Hitwise data, Pinterest is already one of the top 10 social networks and has passed Google+ in visits. The users are some of the most engaged on the web with the average site visit lasting a staggering 15 minutes. Famed investor Ron Conway has compared Pinterest’s user growth to Facebook in 2006.

To allow you take advantage of this opportunity as quickly as possible, we’ll cover all aspects of strategy and tactics. Once you truly understand why Pinterest is different and how it works, we’ll put together a quick strategic brief for your business that won’t compromise your ability to remain nimble. Then, you’ll learn specific tactics including board organization, pin content and copy, getting followers, and tools.

With this information, you’ll have a great head start on Pinterest which is quickly becoming an essential marketing channel for anyone working or using social media and online marketing. Once you have this foundation, you’ll also be able to join the Pinterest marketing community on PinBliss.com as we learn and share together.

CHAPTER 1:
UNDERSTANDING PINTEREST

What Exactly Is Pinterest?

Pinterest has been described many different ways including an online pinboard, visual bookmarking, a personalized magazine, and visual scapbooking. I like to compare Pinterest to a real-world cork board or bulletin board that you hang in your room. Every time you find something particularly inspiring or beautiful on the web, you take a photo of it and pin it up on your cork board. Your board becomes a place where you collect and organize all the wonderful things you find on the web. Of course, you’ll want to organize your photos too. You might group together photos of all the design ideas for your dream house, all the wondrous electronic gadgets you wish you had, and photos of flowers that you want to draw on for inspiration in planning your future wedding. Over time, your corkboard is neatly organized to capture many of your interests and dreams.

Now imagine that everyone in the world has their own corkboard in their room. Pinterest gives you the ability to not only manage your own board but also to see everyone else’s board. You can find other people who have the same hobbies and interests that you do and draw from their board for inspiration. You can even directly copy their pins and put them on your own board to make it more complete.

Already, this sounds very different from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But we are going to see how profoundly different this really is from other social media. We’ll study in detail why this appeals to a different audience and how it opens up entirely new ways of marketing brands and products. The opportunities are very big but so are the potential traps and pitfalls which we seek to avoid by deeply understanding this new model for social networking.

Can Pinterest Be Used for Marketing?

You may have noticed that Pinterest is remarkably ad-free. It doesn’t appear to have many of the typical forms of online advertising like banner ads on the site, sponsored links in the search results, or images marked as ads in your scrolling feed of images. When you scroll down your feed of Pinterest images, you rarely see a brand logo or name anywhere. In fact, the only hint that some sort of marketing might be happening behind the scenes is the “Gifts” menu that allows you to search for gifts by price range.

Pinterest is such a fundamentally different model that most Pinterest users are unaware that marketing is happening on the site even when it alters their perception of brands or influences a transaction. In reality, Pinterest is perfect for marketing precisely because Pinterest users don’t feel bombarded by overt advertising. They voluntary share their interests and are self-motivated to reach out and discover great new products and services that match their interests. Because they choose it rather than having it aggressively pushed at them, they don’t feel they are being sold anything. The early adopters of Pinterest who are able to understand the new model are reaping the benefits. Do not be fooled by the lack of display ads -- there is a lot of marketing already happening on Pinterest.

Here is how Pinterest is being used for marketing:

• Brand Awareness. Through photos and videos, you have the opportunity to showcase your brand values and your products. As we’ll see, there are fewer privacy concerns on Pinterest so your photos will reach more people since Pinterest users are willing to share exciting pins with total strangers. Also, Pinterest users see pins based on self-selected interests so your images touch a targeted audience that will be more likely to be passionate about your brand.

• Sales or affiliate commissions. Yes, people are already directly selling products on Pinterest. When you see a pin with an image of a really cool product or service, you can click through to a web page. Typically, this link will take you to a web page where you can get more information or make a purchase. Even affiliate links work on Pinterest so it’s possible for you to earn commissions using Pinterest to distribute products for other companies as well.

• Product testing/evaluation. Pinterest has the potential to be a giant focus group. Since Pinterest is so visual, you can share photos of multiple concept designs to ask for comments or just to see what people share the most by repining.

• Drive traffic. Pinterest can work together with your other social media initiatives and websites to help you drive traffic. You can link images on Pinterest pins anywhere – including to your Facebook page or your website. For the time being, links from Pinterest are even “do follow” links that can boost your search engine ranking.

How Is Pinterest Different From Other Social Networks?

There must be something different about Pinterest. After all, with so many choices for social networks including Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Path, and Twitter, why are so many people willing to sign up for yet another social network? We’ll also see that Pinterest has attracted more women than men. What is it that makes Pinterest so special?

• More Emotional. The first thing everyone says about Pinterest is that it’s “visual.” That’s the most obvious difference. But what they’re really saying is that Pinterest connects on a more sensory, emotional level than the other websites and social networks that are covered in text. When you go to Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, you see pages of words. Since you are mostly reading, visiting those sites is a cerebral experience where you have to absorb and think about information. Pinterest is visceral. We instinctively react to the colors, shapes, and stunning beauty of photos. You will see that this difference is one of the keys to how we market effectively on Pinterest.

• Less social anxiety. At first, it may seem like a negative rather than a positive that Pinterest is less social than other social networks. After spending some time on Pinterest, you’ll realize that there is not a lot of conversation on the site despite the ability to write comments. The interactions between users are largely done by sharing images and video rather than talking about them. But with the conversation gone, so is the social anxiety. There’s no pressure to remember birthdays, respond to messages in your inbox, or comment on a friend’s subtle cry for attention. There’s no relationship drama being played out in public. Pinterest connects people in a new way through interests rather than dialogue.

• Feels safer. Because you are sharing your interests on Pinterest and not your personal life, there are far fewer privacy concerns. Other Pinterest users can see from your profile that you are passionately interested in cooking and shoes – not review embarrassing photos from that party two years ago when your friend had way too much to drink. This creates the potential for you to connect with more people because you don’t mind sharing your Pinterest boards with complete strangers.

• Goes at my pace. Many social networks give you a real-time stream of what’s going on right now. There are tweets on live news as it happens, Foursquare check-ins broadcasting where your friends are right now, and Facebook status updates from the party still in progress. This means that you also have to check Facebook and Twitter all day long to keep up even if it’s while you’re on vacation, at the dinner table, or in a meeting. Pinterest doesn’t have the same expiration date on its content. People are sharing their interests rather than live news. This makes Pinterest a much more relaxed experience where you don’t feel rushed or guilty if you don’t come back for a few days. As you’ll see from the engagement statistics, Pinterest users are still extremely active on the site but they don’t feel stressed by the urgency of using it.

• Outlet for creative expression without the work. Everyone needs a creative outlet but not everyone has the time or creative genius to author masterful works of art from scratch. However, everyone has an opinion. If you ask someone truly passionate about cooking, you’ll hear strong views on the absolute best kitchen gadget, the indisputably right way to cut an onion, or the only authentic way to make lasagna. All of us are happy to share our expertise and passions with others and even if we don’t have time to create, we can curate.

• Aspirational. Most social networks serve as a way to express yourself. But while Facebook is where you express who you are now (and who you were in the past), Pinterest is very much about who you want to be in the future. Although every user can create and categorize their boards any way they want, some of the frequently seen boards contain images for a user’s dream home, perfect wedding, or fantasy travel destinations. Your Pinterest boards are not necessarily so much a reflection of who you are now as the person you will be someday.

Why Marketing on Pinterest is Different

Now that we understand how Pinterest is different from other social media from the perspective of the Pinterest user, what does this mean for marketing? We’ve seen that Pinterest works in a fundamentally different way than Facebook and Twitter. It’s more emotional, anchored by interests rather than conversation, and more aspirational. These differences open up some completely new ways to approach marketing that would not work in other marketing channels.