Creative Ways Brands Can Leverage the Power of Pinterest

Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann once compared his social-sharing website to the bug collection he kept as a child. Lucky for him, today’s internet users share his love of collecting things. As of June 2013, Pinterest had 70 million users, according to Paris-based social media research firm Semiocast, social media marketing strategy and with its latest $225 million funding round in October 2013, the valuation increased to a whopping $3.8 billion.Businesses have a lot to gain from Pinterest (and social media in general): new customers, more engaged customers and sales. According to a June 2013 report by market intelligence firm Visioncritical, four in 10 social media users have purchased an item online or in store after “favoriting” or sharing it on Pinterest, Twitter, or Facebook. Nearly half (47 percent) of Pinterest purchasers say they pinned and purchased something after simply stumbling across it on the site -- not because of a focused search for the item.Clearly, Pinterest is winning the hearts and pocketbooks of today’s consumer. Are you taking full advantage of it? Here are five out-of-the-box ways to entice followers and pinners on one of the most popular and visual social networking channels in use today.This way an organization can tap into its employees' vast networks without overcomplicating things. Such activity can drive more conversations and awareness for the business in the long term. The cost for the tool starts at $9 a month for 1,000 shares, a price point ideal for a small business.Seamless relationship management is a challengetoday since professionals interact with one another across many different platforms, including email, LinkedIn or Facebook. Nimble is a tool for small businesses, social media marketing entrepreneurs and other professionals seeking to more effectively manage their relationships with one dashboard.The tool aggregates content from email, social networks, existing contacts and elsewhere to provide the insights necessary to build relationships with clients and connections. The tool cost $15 a month a user and offers unlimited messages and full access to all its third-party integrations.

Develop visuals in languages other than English

Recreate your most popular visual content in Spanish, German or another predominant foreign language to embrace non-U.S. or UK-based customers. marketing by social media Inspiring quotes, brief tutorials and advertising taglines all make great pins that let your international customers know you care. Before pinning anything, run it past a native speaker of the language to make sure the wording is accurate. (Online-translation technology is still too buggy to be trusted with something as important as your branding.)Streamlined invoicing, calendar management, call-to-action options and client management can save a marketing team valuable time. vCita is a platform offering all these features to users for integration with their existing tools like Gmail, WordPress, PayPal, Constant Contact and more.Calendar management with vCita enables users to schedule an appointment right on a company's website without their having to send messages back and forth via email. The call-to-action functionality adds a widget to a website so that visitors to a site can be converted into potential customers, by alerting them to services, letting them to pay for an offering and schedule appointments through the automated system. Creating content on a regular basis is important for a business so it can grow its customer audience, increase interactions, builde trust and drive sales. The Hemingway app can help improve this editorial content without taking up too much of a staffer's time or requiring the help of another editor.The free app reviews written content and identifies sentences that are hard to read, too lengthy, excessively using adverbs or similar words or phrases or passive construction. best social media marketing Paste text into the app and it highlights any issues. Are you struggling to find your audience on social? Knowing when to post and on which platforms can make a huge difference in connecting with your audience.According to the infographic below by online payroll service SurePayroll, Saturdays are best for Pinterest and you shouldn’t even bother with Tumblr before 4 p.m.

Ask people to show you things

People love to talk about themselves, so ask customers to pin images of something related to your industry. social media marketing 2014 A fitness club may ask followers to post pictures of favorite workout gear, while an office supply company might invite followers to share photos of their workspaces. Don’t forget to cross-post your picture requests across other social media channels to entice looky-loos and new followers.Of course, what works well for one brand could work terribly for another. Be sure to use analytical tools like Facebook Insights or Topsy for tweets to keep an eye on what resonates and what doesn’t.There’s been an interesting development in brand marketing over the years that has changed the focus on how we interact with our customers, leading to what is now called “content marketing.”As our marketing-techniques vehicles evolved, it then became important to establish a dialogue with our customers. Engaging in a conversation was the goal, because that meant you were getting in deeper with your customers. Hopefully, you were getting in much deeper than your competition. Getting noticed was no longer enough, now you had to engage in order to generate a sale.Content marketing is once again taking our marketing to another level, with the goal of going beyond getting noticed or creating a dialogue, to the goal of getting shared. Effective content marketing is designed to be shared, taking your brand efforts far beyond just a one-on-one dialogue with your customers.By creating content that is meant for sharing, we are gaining access to the customer’s network. There is no better marketing than an endorsement from a family member, how to social media marketing friend, colleague, etc., which is why when developing content you must have sharing in mind.Back in the day, marketing was all about getting our customers to pay attention to our brand. We would develop advertising, create collateral material and even build websites so that we could get noticed. When a customer absorbed our brand information, it was a win, one that, if all goes well, led to a sale.