Pinterest has been setting the internet ablaze with its amazing growth, but with all the talk about Pinterest being the next big marketing platform for businesses, not too many companies have been adopting it yet. This is mostly because they love the idea of Pinterest, but don’t know what to do with it for business.
Companies, large and small, can easily benefit from what Pinterest offers as a platform. By making the art of sharing incredibly easy to do, it gives us a platform to create a framework for what matters to us and, in turn, engage our audience with it.
But, let’s back up a little bit here. Simon Sinek gave a great TED talk about how great leaders inspire action.
He uses the Golden Circle and Apple to explain, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Start with the WHY then move out to the WHAT. The goal isn’t to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe that you believe.
Consider these two statements:
1. We make great computers. They are beautifully designed, simple-to-use, and user friendly. Want to buy one?
2. In everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?
Which one inspired you? Which one made you want to go out and buy a computer from Apple? To truly connect with your audience, companies have to think carefully about these questions: What is your purpose? Your cause? Your belief system? Why should anyone care? From there, they can craft a compelling vision.
The explosion of social media platforms and businesses’ quick adoption of each of them beautifully illustrates this. This is why you should be on Pinterest.
For those who sell products or services that aren’t quite as easy to connect to Pinterest, like a software product for a specialized audience or a consulting service as opposed to handmade scarves, perhaps an example will help.
How HealthRx uses Pinterest:
HealthRx develops institutional and business solutions to streamline information flow in the clinical and research environment. We don’t use Pinterest to sell product, but rather to engage our audience by showing them a different side of the company and advance science and healthcare through beautiful and useful illustrations. Science, especially in the biomedical world, tends to be sterile and, well, dull. We believe that scientists, health care providers, and health and safety personnel came into the field with broader, more idealized visions of their work. To be dangerously poetic for a health sciences company, we use Pinterest to remind people of the passion, fascination, and love of health sciences that pulled them into the industry in the first place.
What do we pin?
We pin and repin infographics, anatomy and health illustrations, beautiful images pertaining to biology and science, as well as some cute, funny, and downright adorable biology and science-related products.
Construct and showcase our identity
We can show our nerdy scientist sides and advance science. Science is fun!
Establish our company as an expert in the healthcare space
We pin the best infographics and illustrations we can find that our audience would find valuable and insightful.
Have fun
We pin and repin pictures to connect with our audience on another level; we geek out with our followers over science.
Visit HealthRx’s Pinterest here!
Kelly Morgan is the Director of Marketing at HealthRx Corporation (www.healthrx.com). She coordinates all marketing and communication efforts, including corporate image and product management, and is a social media and digital marketing subject matter expert.
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