Published on: 05 March 2019
Last Updated on: 04 September 2024
Pinterest is one of the most popular social media platforms that widely makes use of images. The site it full of amazing photos and you could be wondering how you can use it to promote your brand. Here are some tips on how to use Pinterest for business.
1. Add Save Button to Your Website
If you would like your visitors to act, you must allow them to do so with a lot of ease. When you add a save button to your site, people will be able to pin your content with a single click. This will take place even if you have not installed the Pinterest browser. It will significantly increase the number od content that pinners save from your website. If you choose the automatic buttons, there will be a clickable Pinterest save button on all the images that are on your site. You can also use hover buttons that only appear when a person hovers the mouse over the images. The last option is to add the Pinterest save button to a particular image on your website.
2. Pin Consistency
Pinners suggest that you pin at least one thing every day especially during the peak season. For most U.S-based brands, the peak times are in the evenings and over the weekend. The other element that Pinterest highlight to be crucial is consistency. In case you want to post huge number of posts during the week, it is good to divide them up so that you can post a few each day instead of posting all of them at once. If you want to create pins that will coincide with an upcoming event, season, or holiday, be careful to start posting them approximately 45 days in advance.
3. Pay Attention to Great Visuals
Pinterest is a largely visual platform and hence you have no choice but to create high-quality imagery. Make sure you have clear, well-composed, and well-lit photos. In case you lack the skills, the time or the tools to create the images by yourself, we have thousands of stock photography sites that have high-quality photos that you can use. Think of the most creative ways of showcasing your brand and products visually. From recent studies on the performance of 50,000 pins that are promoted, Pinterest discovered that lifestyle images tend to outperform the product images. For example, style and fashion pins displaying products that were in real life use had 30% more clickthrough and 170% higher rates of checkout that the ones that were showing the product alone.
4. Don’t Neglect the Words
Yes, Pinterest is a highly visual medium but you cannot create serious engagements with great visuals alone. Make good use of the description field by telling viewers what they will exactly get by clicking through the linked content that is on your website. Use relevant keywords so that your pins can appear in the search. However, do this in a helpful and natural manner and don’t practice keyword stuffing.
5. Use Rich Pins Where Appropriate
The term rich pins refer to enhanced pins that utilize metadata that is pulled from your website to offer additional information on what pinners will get by clicking on a certain pin. You can find Rich Pins for articles, products, recipes, and apps. Therefore, you will get them for almost all the content you would like to pin or expecting other users to pin from your site.
6. Go Social
Pinterest is a social network and not a billboard. Therefore, people will not engage with your pins unless you get engaged yourself. Follow accounts or board from the non-competitive but relevant brands within your niche. Be keen to actively like and also engage with pins that are related to your industry. You may also involve your brand evangelists and employees. You can invite these individuals to contribute to your Pinterest group boards.
7. Improve Results by Using Analytics
Pinterest analytics offers critical insights about the kind of content that performs well on your network. Therefore, you may tweak and advance your Pinterest for business outcome over time. You will be able to observe the most popular pins and the ones that drive the highest amount of traffic. You can focus on the specific metrics that are particular to your specific business. You will also view the boards where your pins are included in and this will help you to understand how people are thinking about your products and business. You will get some new ideas on the best way to position your efforts on Pinterest. You will also get some tips on the interests and demographics of people who are interacting with your pins. It will give you valuable insights that will assist you to precisely target your strategy to the right audience.
8. Try the Pinterest Promoted Pins
Pinterest ads or promoted pins is an excellent way to allow more people to see your pins. It also helps in creating new exposure to your brand. Promoted pins can give you an exposure that go beyond the payment you make. To know a promoted pin on interest, you will find the word ‘promoted’ below it. However, when a pinner saves the promoted on their personal board, it will become the regular organic pin. Therefore, it strips off the promotional label.
9. Make the Pins More Accessible
Pinterest is highly super-visual and relies heavily on images to establish meaning and context. Therefore, users who have low visibility, certain disabilities, or need screen-readers will struggle to use this platform. Therefore, you have to pay more focus on the text. You can use several strategies to make your pins more accessible. It is a good thing to connect with a long list of members from your target audience. Your primary goal should be to make your content accessible to all users. One strategy would be to add context through the descriptions. You can also use strong typography and incorporate color contrasts. Lastly, make sure that you use large texts so that people with visual problems can read with a lot of ease. This article should have answered your questions on how to use Pinterest for business.
Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.
Social media has been the cornerstone of B2C marketing for a long time. However, when it comes to B2B marketing and sales, it is only fairly recently that social media channels have started to dominate.
And while most B2B marketers now realize the enormous potential of this type of marketing, only true experts have figured out that simple presence on social media is far from enough. To raise awareness of your business, you need to be social on social media, which is, after all, very logical.
In other words, you need to initiate relationships, interact with people in a personal way and absorb your customer’s feedback. But apart from this, you also have to showcase your expertise in a humble way, listen to the voices and trends in your industry and keep an eye on competitors.
Marketing your business on social media can help you generate leads, improve website traffic, increase sales and create a brand identity with your target audience.
That being said, the sooner you realize that investing time and money in social media is necessary, the better results you will get. However, this type of marketing, just like crafting a Sales Enablement Strategy, takes time and skills.
Let this article be the first step on your journey to improving your B2B social media marketing. In it, you will find out the reasons why social media is essential for B2B sales and the tips on how to improve your sales through social media channels.
Why is social media so important?
Have you heard of social validation? Social validation is a basic human necessity and its presence has but skyrocketed thanks to social media.
According to the Content Marketing Institute’s report from 2017, as much as 83% of B2B marketers use social media as their preferred marketing channel. And even though increased brand awareness is one of the main goals of social media campaigns, it is far from being the only impact of this type of marketing.
As the matter of fact, social media is right at the top when it comes to the factors making the biggest impact on purchasing decisions, closely following industry analysts and web search. Therefore, it is obvious that social media is essential for B2B sales.
If you want to increase your B2B sales, you need to use the following social media platforms:
Facebook
Without a shadow of a doubt, Facebook is the number one platform. It is important for creating a community, marketing, and advertising, as well as influencing decision makers.
LinkedIn
As a platform originally intended for business purposes, LinkedIn is as influential as Facebook in some segments.
Twitter
Twitter is the final element of the social media triad, but slightly less important than Facebook and LinkedIn.
You may be wondering why Instagram and Snapchat are not on this list. And indeed, these two platforms, especially Instagram, are great for marketing. However, they are more effective for B2C marketers.
Benefits of social media marketing for B2B sales
To give you a clear picture of how social media can increase B2B sales, we will list some of the main benefits of social media marketing.
- Firstly, it builds brand awareness and visibility.
- It serves as an effective distribution channel for your business’ ideas, content and offers.
- You can create PR opportunities, brand loyalty, SEO, as well as positive web mentions by building brand advocates.
- Social media marketing drives new leads into the funnel when combined with whitepapers, fact sheets, eBooks and other content offers.
- Have you tried to use social media to increase the number of email subscribers? If you want to add more people to your mailing list, this will do wonders for your business.
- Moreover, this type of marketing is great for B2B customer feedback program and understanding the needs of your leads, customers, prospects, and advocates.
- Social media marketing can greatly improve your SEO results through third-party links, mentions, and interest in your content.
- You can build trust with your buyers by educating them and helping them understand the major factors that influence their purchasing decisions.
- Social media is perfect for B2B loyalty rewards programs and customer care.
Challenges of B2B social media marketing
There are always two sides of a coin. In spite of the numerous benefits of B2B social marketing, there are also certain challenges that B2B marketers face on a daily basis when it comes to social media.
When in Rome…
If consumers use social media for connection and entertainment, your message needs to address these requirements.
In other words, you shouldn’t slip into business jargon on Facebook or post silly memes on LinkedIn. Apart from that, you should try to establish a deeper connection with your customers by finding out what they read, what they comment on and who they follow.
This will help you better understand your prospects and existing customers, and tell them what they want to hear and how they want to hear it.
Being present 24/7
When your audience needs guidance or asks a question, you should be there for them. It is all about responding when they reach out for help.
The challenge here is to anticipate such moments and be ready to shine. Create a list of tips, reviews, product demonstrations, and video tutorials, and promote them through paid search and social advertising.
For this and similar reasons, you should constantly use social media for real-time marketing, an increasingly popular method which allows you to engage with your customers instantly.
Cherishing your influencers
Finding your perfect influencer and starting a conversation with them is one of the keys to a successful social media campaign.
To choose the right influencer for your brand, you need to study their audience, understand why they engage, what is their reach, style, and many additional aspects.
Getting serious about selling on social media
Once you have put in a lot of effort toward entertainment and connection, you need to sell. After all, that is the main goal of each business.
To grow your website traffic and nurture leads, you need to match your marketing efforts and sales goals. When you engage with the knowledgeable, empowered and well-connected customers, you practically close the gap between the social world and the business world.
The elusive ROI
Oh, the infamous ROI… This is definitely among the top challenges for all marketers, not only in the B2B field.
To get a satisfactory return on investment, you always need to give your customers new and fresh content on social media, as well as attend to their needs and join conversations with influencers. Then, when everybody starts listening to what you have to say, seize the moment and make the final move.
It is all about timing. With the right timing, you can sell everything, even ice to Eskimos.
The future of B2B sales
Everybody is wondering what the future of B2B sales will look like. So far, we can identify three main trends.
The buying process will become easier
In essence, a more open approach to purchasing is obviously emerging, as well as a multi-channel unified experience closely resembling the B2C experience.
Moreover, along with those two, the need for highly personalized interactions will result in increasing buyer trust and lead to more data becoming available.
The focus will shift to long-term customer value
Businesses will have to focus on customer needs and customize their selling approaches, Also, adding value to products and services will be an indispensable part of every sales process.
In addition, selling will become more intelligent. In other words, sales teams will need to educate customers about their needs and engage with stakeholders and decision makers to discover and highlight those needs.
Data and analytics will play a major role in creating customer value
The days of guessing in sales have long gone. To create value for customers and interact with them effectively, social media marketers will have to use data and analytics through:
- science and sales
- AI and the virtual experience
- sales and the social business
In many of these strategies, social media will play an important role. From the multi-channel approach and market intelligence to education and connection, B2B sales will be impossible without social media platforms.
Finally, from a technical point of view, it is evident that outsourcing social media is becoming increasingly popular. This is a strategy that can be very effective, especially for small businesses. However, if you decide to do this, we advise you to be careful and avoid the most common social media outsourcing mistakes.
How to Sell More on Social Media
Now that you have learned why social media is so important for the B2B sales process, you probably want to know how to use social media to increase sales.
Here are the five useful tips on how to sell more and better on social media.
Choose the right social network(s)
Not all the platforms will work for all businesses. When choosing the best social media channels for your business, you need to consider several factors:
- your niche
- your audience
- your goals
For example, according to a study by Google and Millward Brown Digital published in 2015, the number of decision makers aged between 18 and 34 years increased by 19% in only two years (from 27% in 2012 to 46% in 2014).
This is why you need to find out the favorite platform of your customers and tailor your message to them, the network and your brand.
Remember – no business jargon on Facebook or crazy memes on LinkedIn.
Be active on LinkedIn
Whatever other networks you choose, keep in mind that LinkedIn is a must. When it comes to B2B marketing, this platform is essential and you can’t risk not using it.
To shine on LinkedIn, you will have to be very active. This means that you should:
- use LinkedIn’s Saved Search feature in order to create a search based on your ideal customer profile and be notified each time such a person signs up
- join and participate in LinkedIn groups to build your network and referrals
- connect with potential customers to start conversations
Contribute to existing conversations
This goes for all the social media networks you are active on. When you contribute to conversations about your brand and interesting topics in your industry, customers see this as adding value.
The best way to do this is Twitter and its search function, but you can use other networks too.
Share relevant content
More and more B2B buyers search for information on services and products on social media. Your answer to this should be simple ‒ sharing relevant content.
This is another way to add value, and you can do it by providing white papers, product sheets, case studies, webinars, comparison worksheets and so on.
In addition, you can share useful blog posts, infographics, tutorials and other types of content. In a nutshell, you can share anything that you think could help your customers.
Use the right tools
Finally, using social media for marketing purposes without different kinds of tools is practically impossible. There are so many aspects software tools can improve and so many ways they can help you rock your campaigns that not using them is a real waste of time.
Using effective social media marketing tools will help you find more relevant content, schedule your posts, measure and analyze the effectiveness of your campaigns, as well as use that data to improve your future campaigns.
Wrapping up :
Social media networks are becoming an essential part of every B2B sales process. However, in order to sell more on social media, you need to understand all the benefits and challenges of this process.
This is definitely not a one-time activity. Rather, think of it as of a long journey that includes a lot of small steps. It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock your B2B social media campaigns.
But if you take all the steps that we listed, you will find that the results will follow. This is one of those journeys that you have to enjoy if you want to reach your destination.
Read Also :
Social Media Marketing: Six Trends To Keep Your Eyes On
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Instagram boasts 2 billion monthly active users, making it the fourth most-used social media platform. In recent years, this platform quickly became a goldmine for both individuals and businesses. However, to become noticed, you need to have a visually pleasing and perfectly curated feed and produce top-quality content.
There is fierce competition on this platform, so we understand why many brands are struggling to make Instagram a part of their marketing strategy.
Instagram is not the place to "wing it." If you want to generate buzz and attract more followers on this platform, establishing an effective marketing plan is crucial for achieving greater business success. In the article below we present our best marketing advice that can help make that possible.
Increase Your Following
If you are just beginning on social media or want to grow your already established online brand, then you need to know that attracting new Instagram followers requires a strategic approach.
Whether you have trouble creating engaging content or attracting new followers, there is a solution that can greatly help you improve your profile and grow your following organically. For example, look for the best Instagram growth service in 2023 that can help you reach out to your audience in an organic way, attracting only followers who are interested in what you have to offer.
Optimize Your Profile
The first step in optimizing your profile is to craft a compelling bio that accurately represents who you are or what your business offers. This mini-bio should be concise yet informative. It should highlight your unique selling points or the value you provide to your followers.
Understanding your audience and customizing your content is key to an effective Instagram marketing campaign. Research and identify your followers' interests, preferences, and demographics, and then use this data to produce content that resonates with your target audience and keeps them engaged.
Another important aspect of optimizing your profile is using relevant hashtags strategically. Incorporate hashtags related to your niche or industry in both your bio and captions. This will make it easier for users interested in those topics to discover and follow you.
Post At The Right Times
Engaging your Instagram audience requires more than simply posting captivating content; timing plays a critical role in increasing reach and engagement on this popular social media platform.
By strategically posting at optimal times, you can ensure that your content reaches the maximum number of users when they are most active and receptive. This means higher chances of likes, comments, shares, and ultimately conversions.
To determine the best times to post on Instagram, it's essential to understand your target audience's behaviour and habits. Use Instagram analytics to identify peak activity periods when your followers are most likely to be online. This data will provide valuable insights and help you figure out when you should schedule your posts for maximum impact.
Moreover, consider factors such as time zones and demographics if you have a global or diverse audience. Tailor your posting schedule accordingly to cater to different regions and time zones effectively.
Use Instagram Stories And Reels
With features like Instagram Stories and Reels, businesses can take their Instagram marketing strategy to new heights. Instagram Stories, for instance, allow you to connect with your audience and engage them in an authentic way, building relationships that will increase customer loyalty.
Instagram Stories was designed to allow brands to showcase their individuality by sharing interesting photos and videos, as well as resharing Reels with their followers, promoting their products or services. Whether you want to promote your small business or online store, using Instagram Stories is a foolproof way of building brand recognition.
On the other hand, Instagram Reels provide an opportunity to create short-form videos that capture audiences quickly. With editing tools like music overlays, text captions, and special effects, you can produce captivating content that stands out in your followers’ feeds. By leveraging trending challenges or creating original content that aligns with your brand values, you can increase visibility and reach a wider audience.
When used strategically together in your Instagram marketing strategy, both Stories and Reels have the potential to drive engagement, increase brand awareness, and ultimately boost conversions.
In Closing
Crafting and implementing effective Instagram marketing strategies is crucial for businesses to engage their audience and achieve success. By leveraging user-generated content, sharing Instagram Stories and Reels, and engaging with followers through comments and direct messages, you can build a strong online presence and foster meaningful connections.
Remember to consistently analyze your performance metrics and adapt your strategies accordingly to ensure continuous growth and engagement on the platform. With these strategies in place, you can harness the power of Instagram to drive brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and ultimately achieve your business goals.
Additional:
Instagram Advertising For Beginners
6 Best Practices When Buying Instagram Followers
Picuki Reviews – Popular Instagram Editor & Viewer
Advancements in technology have influenced the way people live and interact with one another. The world has now become a global village with the improvement in telecommunications networks and the growth of Internet connectivity in many parts of the world.
People can access information from all parts of the world with a click of the mouse. The improvement in telecommunications have eased business operations and opened new markets for business. Many successful companies have turned to online marketing to reach various target markets.
There are various methods of online marketing that any business should know to maximize profits. Social media marketing is a powerful online marketing strategy that is helping businesses to sell their brands to many people.
Here are a couple of effective social media tips for your business:
1. Conduct thorough research:
You need to know the online microenvironment of your business to post an engaging social media content. Some of the critical information you need to have included: your competitors, who are your customers, and what social media platforms do your customers and competitors use. Finding the answers to these questions will help to do social media monitoring for your brand and identify the differences with your competitors.
2. Identify the right platforms to use:
There are various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and many others. As a business person, you need to identify the right channels to reach your target audience. You need to identify at least three channels to use to make use of the available time and resources you have.
3. Work on how to craft an engaging content:
You need to plan how your content will look like after deciding on the platforms for your marketing. Your content should be tailored according to your business's core marketing strategy. Some of the critical factors to consider in the plan including the objective of the company and the budgets you have set aside for social media marketing. You also need to craft the posting schedule to ensure content reaches your audience at the right time.
4. Create quality content:
Create engaging content that will attract the customers to know what your business is offering. Do not just post for the sake of it. Ensure that your titles, captions, are interesting, videos are of high quality to capture the attention of your target audience.
5. Connect with your audience:
Build your relations with customers by engaging them in your posts. Comments likes and answers to your customers' questions will help to build a positive relationship with your customers.
6. Search for influencer:
You should look for social media influencers who will talk positively about your business's products. You can also hire a brand ambassador to promote your products in their networks. Influencers and brand ambassadors help in the marketing of your products across their networks since some followers will be willing to try the product.
7. Monitor the effectiveness of the channels:
Evaluate the performance of the marketing channels by measuring the impact over a specified time frame. Make adjustments where necessary and keep learning. Technology is evolving, and you need to make sure that you are up to date with the current technological trends.
8. Work with a Professional Social Media Agency
Between creating the best creative strategy, deciding on the copy, improving branding, and businesses might find their hands full. If businesses want to spend in the form of ads, they should look to take help from specialized social media companies Dubai. A professional and successful agency always has at its disposal, a team of designers, copywriters, and PPC experts, which can help with maximum returns from social media.
Read Also:
5 Types Of Digital Marketing
Online Marketing: Selling Your Product And Services
Exploring The Different Types Of Digital Marketing Strategies
IdeaPros, A Comprehensive Strategic Partner For Entrepreneurs
Creative Marketing Strategies To Put Your Small Translation Business On The Map
