Who’d have thought that the online equivalent of a corkboard and pins would have revolutionised how brands are marketed? And yet the social media phenomenon that is Pinterest is changing the way brands are marketed online for good – especially to its predominantly female audience. So what exactly does the channel offer for marketers and how are businesses using it imaginatively?

1) A new twist on the old

Of course mood boards to illustrate a marketing concept is nothing new for anyone in a traditional marketing department, but how to translate that into a useful and meaningful campaign that means something to their customer audience has always been the hard part. Now however marketers can not only push out their own versions of their mood boards but see the concepts, items and ideas that inspire their customers too – their own moodboards as it were.

2) Extended customer reach and learning

For brands looking for yet another channel to market themselves this offers huge opportunities to reach the customer – especially given they can do it by exploiting the emotive visuals that they spend thousands of pounds on rather than necessarily having to continuously come up with new creative.

3) Getting creative and competitive

Launching their own branded profiles is just the starting point for brands looking to increasingly interact through the medium. A number have developed promotional strategies around Pinterest which help to boost followers and repining, particularly by tapping into users’ competitive spirits.
In March last year airline BMI launched a Pinterest Lottery which encouraged users to repin a variety of images from boards it had created for a chance to win free flights.
Fashion retailer Lands End Canvas Pin It to Win It competition encouraged users to repin images from its site and the company later introduced a one click “Pin It” button on its product pages to allow users to share their fashion finds from Lands’ End Canvas onto their own Pinterest boards.

4) Inspiration is key

Although contests help to drive footfall Pinterest also helps to inspire. Fashion brand Topman is using its Pinterest pages to post everything from its 2013 lookbooks and images from its fashion shows to its latest high profile openings. For would be dieters the daunting prospect of calorie controlled meals is dismissed by the mouthwatering food imagery on Weightwatchers Pinterest site.
Ikea meanwhile is using the site, amongst other methods, to share Ikea inspired DIY projects – both giving customers great new ideas for how to use their products and building on their customer base network.

5) Completing the customer picture – literally

Pinterest gives marketeers a wider scope and the chance to really get under a consumers’ skin to understand what drives and inspires them enabling them to not just market the product but also selling the whole concept and lifestyle that is behind that product too – a subtler but more effective tactic in winning longer term buy in.

6) A celebration of uniqueness

Pinterest requires brands to think laterally and to celebrate their uniqueness, but also to celebrate their customers – using the boards for a two way conversation with their customers in the same way as they should be doing on any other social network. Pinterest allows the personality and essence of a brand to literally ooze out onto the page.

7) A new voice amongst the noise

When a picture can say a thousand words then not having a story to tell through Pinterest means your voice and your brand won’t be heard amongst the noise of your competitors. Can you really afford to not have a Pinterest strategy?