I’m sure by now you’ve at least heard of Pinterest. If not, feel free to zip on over to the site and I’ll see you in a few days after you’re done creating your holiday dinner menu for the next 5 years and completed redecorated your home 3 times over.
Pinterest Is a virtual bulletin board of all your favorite ideas and finds. Yes, it’s great for finding recipes, DIY projects, and the latest fashion trends, but companies are now jumping on to the Pinterest bandwagon. It’s a great way to showcase your company culture, products, research customer segments and increase brand recognition.
For small businesses, this can be especially difficult. In order to utilize Pinterest effectively, marketers must focus on the concepts of people’s lifestyles, encourage users to share their interests and find like-minded individuals. Take a look at some of these small businesses that get it right on Pinterest:
Mr. Rooter
Waco, Texas plumbing franchise
Mr. Rooter uses Pinterest as a retention tool to help keep the company top-of-mind when a customer needs plumbing work. With Where in the World is Waldo boards to fix a leak and plumbing trick boards, Mr. Rooter understands and pins to their customers’ needs.
Project coordinator, Rachel Florence says, “We just want to keep out name on their minds so when they need a plumber, we’re the first thing they think of.” It’s really all about name recognition.
Tamara
Suttle Castle Rock, Colorado, Licensed Professional Counselor
What Mrs. Suttle does right is pin often and pin right. Her boards are for her followers and she is a great resource to her community. She has boards offering advice in every facet of counseling as well as Connect To Me board, allowing her followers to easily connect to her if they want to learn more about her services.
Yala Designs
Ashland, Oregon Bamboo and silk bedding and apparel
Yala Designs uses Pinterest for customer research. Their “Your Yala Apparel Ideas” board allows followers to post images of products from other companies they want Yala Designs to make.
This board alone has over 1100 followers and 200 pins. Social media manager Lauren Sarget notes, “We never know for sure how well they will be received until tradeshow season. Pinterest is the perfect venue for us to get ideas from the public rather than guessing at what we think they will like.” User boards are not only great for customer research, but they’re also great for engaging and building relationships with users, which is key to your social marketing efforts.
Easy Lunchboxes
Tarzana, California Environmentally friendly lunchboxes for all
The California-based company’s main goal was to increase sales without looking desperate.
To avoid over-promoting, CEO Kelly Lester created a user board for others to show they use her lunch boxes. The “Easy Lunch Box Lunches” user board lets other users promote the product. So what you’re saying is you do half the work for twice the results…Genius! Lester even said, “Google analytics is showing me that 56% of the visits to my site generate from my Pinterest boards.”
