I’m a B2B Company, Should I Be Using Pinterest?

Too many social networking sites!!! I agree with you, Jessica. Before we jump in to any social networking sites, we need to understand the demographic.

I have a customer who runs a beauty salon business in Malaysia. And her social media marketing campaign fail because most of her customers are lawyers and doctors. And they don’t even use Facebook, Twitter, Linkeind, etc.

But once she changes her marketing strategy to email marketing and youtube. It works for her.

From my opinion, understand your market is the very first thing to do so that you won’t waste your time to keep registering and managing new social networking sites.

Hey commenter No. 8, I think you might be the perfect type of business to be on Pinterest, since fashion is a highly pinned category. Not everyone will be able to afford your clothes but that doesn’t mean people won’t pin and repin to spread your products; think of all the high fashion on Pinterest that many of the people in the majority demographic seemingly wouldn’t be able to afford.

Does that mean they won’t buy it someday? No. Does it also mean you’re not reaching your target market? No. There will still be people who will be interested in your products or at least the images that represent your brand.

You sell Western wear, and I seem to remember seeing somewhere that the majority of the demographic was in the Midwest area. You’d have to verify that, but it would seem that would be your target market.

Do some research before you start uploading images. Find out what the most pinned images are of fashion and analyze their elements so that you have ideas of what’s working for others. Most important, have some goals in mind of what you want to accomplish from Pinterest, then track your progress.

Thanks for your comment!

@ comment No. 7 (I’d love to address you by name) — You’re right that having too many networks can dilute your focus. Each social medium needs to have goals and content strategies or it can be simply a waste of time. Thanks for reading.

Jessica

I think it makes perfect sense. As a small business, we spent a lot of time looking for suppliers online. Pinterest definitely is going to be helpful.

Any suggestions on what to put on Pinterest for small businesses like us? Would love to know what you think. For example, we sell western show clothes ( heartlandshowapparel.com) and we target the price range $100-500. It’s challenging to reach customers on a small budget.

I think Pinterest can be very helpful for all kinds of companies in terms of customer acquisition, but another key thing that should be noted is do they already have a presence on other social media platforms? If they are already on many different networks then it can be difficult to manage more and more platforms, and this could result in the company losing sight of what they were aiming to do on that social network in the first place.

@Shashank. Thanks for the comment. I agree with you; while Steve’s approach is a clever way to think ahead for SEO purposes, and perhaps it can work with certain businesses, images have to be engaging and interesting visuals as rule No. 1. You bring up a good point, the demographic could change. Or maybe it will remain niche — which is very good for some businesses, not so great for others.

@Thao, valid point — and on the flip side, even if the B2B had something really great to pin, it doesn’t mean you are going to buy their services someday. And you’re right, if people are passionate about your brand perhaps because you’ve done a great job building community elsewhere, it could spill over into Pinterest. I agree with you that not all mediums have to work for every business. Best not to be reactive.

Hi Jessica,

No offense to Steve, but I have to say personally I don’t feel very enthusiastic about the idea of repining turbine pictures. Pinterest is amongst the few Social Media that’s not for everybody. It makes sense for certain business, like fashion, and other business that have loads of pictures and photography to share and spread.

For certain other products that are more technical/ specialized stuff, Pinterest makes no sense, at-least not with the current demographic. As Pinterest evolves it remains to be seen, how it adds value to itself, and maybe in time it might become more attractive for other B2B ventures too.

Even if I’m interested in a B2B product or service, it doesn’t necessarily mean I would find it worthwhile to pin. From the demographics (and from checking it out myself), it looks like people pin their hobbies or products they’re really passionate about. Unless your audience is passionate about your B2B offering, it’s unlikely to be pinned. As Jessica says, you need to engage people, so make it worthwhile for them to pin. Sometimes it might not be pin worthy at all. And that’s just fine. There are many other avenues to engage with your audience that might be a better fit.

Hey Steve,

Thanks for your comment — appreciate it. That’s clever, I totally get where you’re going with that. And thanks for sharing with us.

I do have a question though. Where’s the engagement component? How do you make it creative enough for people to want to pin and repin things that aren’t so glamorous like turbines?

I know that was a hypothetical example and you were really saying to think B2B tech, but I’m sure there is a turbine company out there wanting to know beyond the SEO tactic you just laid out, how do you get people engaged on Pinterest?

And even for a B2B tech — it has to be creative enough to get people sharing, right?

More thoughts?

Jessica

Think B2B tech…

like turbines…

(hypothectical exampple)

turbines r us is a b2b company..

they sell wind turbines used in industrial manfacturing.

they have 5 models…

they have 2 categories of turbines.. type a and type b.

for pinterest.. two categories.. 5 models in each..
for each model we have.. a model number, a type designation (a or b)
images for each representing the following:

anterior view
posterior view
and line drawings for 4 different fitting connection points.

so 6 images for each.. x 5 models.. = 30 images.. x 2 types.. = 60 images..

……
associate ISO 81400-4:2005 numbers with all images if turbines are compliant with standard… then….

next version of google goggles that uses ISO codes instead of UPC codes.. will identify image with turbine.

make sense?