How can a home improvement store leverage the power of Pinterest? Find out in this Pinterest case study on Lowe’s!
When you walk through the seemingly endless aisles of home imprevement stores, it is hard to imagine them finding a place on Pinterest. But as Lowe’s demonstrated, a little creativity and understanding how to use a network can go a long way for any brand.
The Campaign
Lowe’s is all about helping people accomplish home improvement projects on their own. Now, if we’ve learn anything from networks like Pinterest and Etsy, it is that the DIY world has exploded (or, at least, people wanting to show off their work) since the advent of these types of networks. Lowe’s decided to capitalize on that by creating a DIY section on their website.
Here, inspiration can be found from projects others have worked on and, more importantly, people can use the “Pin It” button to pin images from these projects to their Pinterest boards. That’s where the real fun gets started.
On Pinterest, there are boards where Lowe’s shares DIY project photos that regularly get thousands of re-pins. How did they get this kind of traffic? It was all in the strategic use of Pinterest.
The Lessons
Think Beyond Just Social
Running campaigns on social networks is great, but what does that really accomplish for your brand if the campaign stops on the network? For example, what if Lowe’s simply had a Pinterest board with images of projects, but nowhere on their website that allowed users to find the tools used, discover informative tutorials on how they could do the same thing and get started by ordering the same materials? It might have looked great, but it would not provide much value to users and wouldn’t help drive business for Lowe’s.
It is important that you think beyond the social part of your social business strategies and think about the business aspect as well. How will your Pinterest campaign drive users to your website, get them to take action, and help grow your business? That is going to be a crucial part of the program.
Integrate Other Media
For a lot of us, thinking of social does not include our websites. We think of the obvious players like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, but we neglect our websites. Why? There is the potential to have your own, branded social network if you are using your website properly!
Lowe’s added the “Pin It” button to their website to allow users to interact with their content on Pinterest without ever having to leave the website. By integrating your social presence onto your website, you can make the experience a social one! The easier the process is for your visitors, the more likely they will be to convert.
Leverage Your Insights
Lowe’s pays very close attention to their Pinterest Analytics when running campaigns on the network. They look to see what their most popular content is and design promotions and campaigns around that content in order to drive continued engagement.
By monitoring the activity and attention your brand is getting on social channels you will be able to optimize your program in order to eliminate anything that does not work and focus only on those components that are helping you build your business.
How is your brand using Pinterest? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
https://t2marketinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo-t2-300x138.png00Corey Padveenhttps://t2marketinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo-t2-300x138.pngCorey Padveen2013-11-18 06:15:012013-11-18 06:15:01Pinterest Case Study: Lowe’s Inspiring Others
Greenpeace – among the more high-profile charities – recently took to Pinterest, and with some impressive results.
Charities and not-for-profits have been resorting to social media in a big way. This is in large part due to the fact that social media is a great way to share important information and quickly have it spread to interested communities.
Of the charities using social media, Greenpeace is among the more recognizable. Furthermore, the Greenpeace social media initiatives are not simple Facebook posts or tweets, there is a very calculated effort on the part of Greenpeace to use social media to their benefit.
Among the channels used by the Greenpeace social media marketing team is Pinterest. The popular photo-sharing network is not being used to simply share images, however. Campaigns are extended to the network and it is used to drive traffic to landing pages for specific campaigns and initiatives at the Greenpeace website.
The results have been outstanding for Greenpeace, with thousands of images on over 50 boards and over 7,000 followers, and there are three important lessons that social marketers can learn from the Greenpeace Pinterest strategy.
Plan Ahead
Never venture into a new network blind. Looking through the Greenpeace Pinterest page, it is clear that there is a well-defined strategy behind the initiative.
In order to find success on a network like Pinterest, you need to know what you plan on accomplishing and how you intend on achieving those goals. Though it is easy to use, a carefully laid out strategy is needed for Pinterest in order to generate your desired results.
Keep that in mind, as Greenpeace did, and you will find it much easier to succeed with the network.
Understand Your Audience
Though the boards on the Greenpeace Pinterest page focus on campaigns and initiatives, the images are carefully selected by the charity in order to generate interest and clicks. The focus of the images range anywhere from fashion and celebrities to nature and animals – all categories that are among the most-shared on the network.
It is important that you understand your audience on any social network in order to properly generate engagement with them. Pay attention to your demographics and understand network trends before incorporating them into your social media strategy.
Keep Your Goals in Mind
Pinterest is one of the leading social networks for referral traffic. Last year, it surpassed Twitter and its meteoric rise shows no signs of slowing. With that in mind, you always need to remember why you are using the network in the first place.
Click on nearly any image on Greenpeace’s boards and you will find yourself at the Greenpeace website. You may start to generate some traction, but if you lose focus of what you are doing and, more importantly, how you are doing it, that traction will quickly disappear.
Keep these pointers in mind next time you are using Pinterest for a campaign, and you will surely find success!
What else impresses you about the Greenpeace Pinterest initiative? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
How did the Armani Exchange #DressedFor campaign generate buzz, engagement and a lot of publicity for the brand?
The Armani Exchange #DressedFor campaign was designed to reach out to consumers, influencers and bloggers and encourage them to use the #DressedFor hashtag on Instagram and leverage the power of the photo-sharing network.
Though the campaign was launched in November, 2012, data gathered using Fashionbi – the world leader in Digital Marketing Optimization for the fashion industry – has shown that the campaign continues to generate engagement, with over 340 Instagram users sharing images with the #DressedFor hashtag in June alone, seven months after the campaign was launched.
Fashionbi also found that more common hashtags such as #night and #summer were used in conjunction with the #DressedFor hashtag, which led to even greater exposure.
Finally, after the campaign was initiated, the marketing team behind #DressedFor reached out to influential bloggers and Instagram users in the fashion world in order to expand their reach even further.
So what can marketers take away from the Armani Exchange #DressedFor campaign?
Customize Your Campaign
It might have been easier to get people talking with hashtags like #summer, but there would be no way of knowing whether or not a conversation originated due to the exposure of the campaign.
By creating a custom hashtag that is instantly recognizable as the backbone of this campaign, Armani Exchange was able to monitor their reach while encouraging users to continue talking about topics they would normally discuss.
Be sure to include some form of customization in order to see the effects of your campaigns, and know where you are successful and where modifications might be needed.
Reach Out to Influencers
This campaign would not have had as much lasting success if it were not for the efforts by Armani Exchange to reach out to influential bloggers and Instagram users in the hopes of extending their reach further.
Influencers-turned-brand advocates are the key to longevity. There is only so much a brand can do on its own. If people are not talking, there is an expiration date on a given campaign. The reason why a campaign such as this can continue to generate conversation months after it was launched was due in large part to the help of industry influencers. (Find out more about influencers in this case study on Kotex.)
Engage Your Users
User-generated content is the second secret (along with influencer-engagement) to a brand’s long-term success on social media.
By reaching out to the community around the brand and giving them a chance to share their content and have it seen by the world, Armani Exchange increased the likelihood of success considerably.
People want to share their content, that is why social media is as popular as it is. Give them a chance to do so and you can rest assured that your brand’s reach and exposure will grow significantly faster than it would have without them.
Special thanks to Fashionbi for their assistance in gathering data and disseminating the information pulled on the Armani Exchange #DressedFor campaign. You can also view this article at the Fashionbi newspaper.
Have you put together any Instagram campaigns? Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!
Sony is not the first brand to come to mind when you think of Pinterest, but they managed to make themselves a powerful force on the network.
The logic was simple: everybody’s doing it, why don’t we? In 2011, Sony noticed the persuasion Pinterest had on purchasing mentality and decided to leverage the power of the network to increase traffic and, ideally, drive new sales.
Using a carefully coordinated strategy, Sony managed to garner 2,500 followers in the first six months of their activity on Pinterest, increase referral traffic from Pinterest to the Sony Store website by 800%, and collect more than 4 million brand impressions!
You can argue that Sony’s success came from their status as a brand on the market, but the reality is that Sony succeeded on Pinterest because of the course of action taken. The five lessons below detail what Sony did both before and after launching their Pinterest account and what marketers can learn from the strategy applied by Sony.
Do Some Research
While Sony had the added advantage of a brand that people were already talking about, it is important to do as much research as possible on your brand, competitors, industry leaders and, most importantly, your industry. Find out what people are already sharing and join an existing conversation instead of trying to start a new one. You might find it a lot easier to gain momentum.
Jump Right In
To truly succeed on social media – Pinterest or otherwise – you need to commit yourself and your team to the execution fully. Sony involved a huge part of their team when they started pinning. They did not want to ease their way into the community, they wanted to come in strong and get noticed. There are billions of conversations taking place and you need to find a way to get yourself noticed.
Mix It Up
After doing their research, Sony determined what topics were most relevant, most popular and most engaging, and created boards that fit into all of those categories. Do not limit yourself only to posts about your brand.
On the t2 Pinterest page, we share plenty of content about marketing, but we also share animal pictures, motivational quotes and healthy recipes! Be as broad as possible, because at the end of the day you want to reach as many people as you can. You never know where you might find new business!
Cross Promote Pinterest
Share your pins and promote your Pinterest page wherever you can. Sony posted their Pinterest account and their pins to other social networks, included links in email blasts and added links on their blog to drive new traffic to Pinterest. The more accessible your content is, the faster you will see eyes landing on it.
Pin It!
For Sony, the Pin It! button generated 10 times the number of clicks from the Sony Store than the Tweet This button. That means 10 times the number of links being generated on Pinterest than on Twitter and leading back to the store. Make your website Pinterest-friendly and your visitors will take care of the rest.
While we can’t all be Sony-sized brands, we can all develop strategies that lead to the same degree of success that Sony experienced. Whether your brand is big or small, your strategy is what will determine the value of your social media program.
What strategy do you incorporate into your Pinterest marketing? Has it worked? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
https://t2marketinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo-t2-300x138.png00Corey Padveenhttps://t2marketinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo-t2-300x138.pngCorey Padveen2013-06-13 06:15:572013-06-13 06:15:57Case Studies: Sony
Content is the root of a successful marketing campaign, no matter the medium. When it comes to content, however, there are certain types that flop and then there are others that engage your audience like never before. In this great infographic, we look at 21 types of content that always drive good engagement with your audience.
Your blog is one of the best ways you can showcase your expertise to your audience. It is a hub where almost all of your links might point, and one of the key steps in the path to conversion. So how can you go about increasing the shares of the content on your blog? Take a look at these 4 great tips to help increase the sharing of your blog content!
Cadbury is known for having some of the most delicious treats on the market, and they did something very sweet (sorry – it was just too easy) to thank their fans and boost engagement rates on their content. Find out what Cadbury did in this week’s Case Studies!
Blogging is an exceptional tool when it comes to getting found, and engagement rates see a spike with video content over any other type of content on social media. So, naturally, it would make sense that video blogging can add considerable value to your business. Find out what that value is in this week’s Social Equity segment!
Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!
https://t2marketinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo-t2-300x138.png00Corey Padveenhttps://t2marketinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo-t2-300x138.pngCorey Padveen2013-06-01 10:15:502013-06-01 10:15:50Social Media: Week-in-Review, June 1, 2013
In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!
Effective SEO Tips for Optimizing Content on Your Page
There is an curious irony when it comes to SEO: everyone knows that it is important when it comes to getting found, but few people understand how it works. While it may seem like a complicated endeavour to optimize your content – what with all the talk about algorithms and pandas – there are few simple steps you can take that will make a big difference!
Social Media for Small Business [INFOGRAPHIC]
Social marketing is not something that should be adopted only y big companies. Businesses of all sizes, even small businesses, can use social media to their advantage and help grow their business! Find out how social marketing is helping small businesses in a great infographic!
What are ‘Targeted Tweets’ and How Should You Use Them?
Recently, Twitter unveiled their newest marketing tool: Targeted Tweets. This new feature brings in an entirely new advertising angle from which marketers can take advantage. Find out what these updates are and how you can use them to gain a competitive edge early!
Case Studies: Honda
About a year ago, Honda noticed a growing trend and near-obsession with Pinterest. They decided that the best way to promote their newest CR-V was to launch a cost-effective campaign aimed at spreading the word virally. The approached worked and Honda created a campaign worthy of a feature in this week’s Case Studies.
Social Equity: The Effect of Social Media on Your Brand
How does your brand’s image benefit from your involvement in social marketing? In this week’s Social Equity segment, we decipher how your brand equity increases both in the short- and long-run with the strategic use of social media marketing.
Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!
https://t2marketinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo-t2-300x138.png00Corey Padveenhttps://t2marketinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo-t2-300x138.pngCorey Padveen2013-04-27 11:30:422013-04-27 11:30:42Social Media: Week-in-Review, April 27, 2013
Honda was looking for a way to promote their new CR-V to a specific demographic, and they found that the best way was through Pinterest.
The Honda CR-V has a very specific audience in mind: young adults on the verge of a major step. Whether that is starting a new career, getting married, or beginning parenthood, the Honda CR-V is aimed at making the transition easier for this group.
So how do you market to them?
The Campaign
In 2012, Honda decided to take advantage of the growing addiction to Pinterest among young adults to market their brand. How? By making people stop (for a whole day)! The #Pintermission campaign was intended to get influencers fitting the targeted demographic to stop using Pinterest for 24 hours and go out to live life. This is the aura Honda aimed to cultivate with the new CR-V, and this campaign was how they got that message across.
What was the reward for not pinning? Well, Honda reached out to a group of 5 key influencers and asked them to stop pinning for one day. In return, Honda offered them $500 to put towards making one of their dream pins a reality. Each of the five users was given a board on a designated Honda Pinterest page and asked to pin about activities they dreamed of doing. The reward money for not pinning over the course of 24 hours was then to be put towards making one of these dream activities a reality.
So how did the campaign do? Nearly 5 million users were exposed to the Pintermission boards. Furthermore, these five pinners managed to garner over 5,000 repins and 2,000 likes in a very short time frame. And what’s most impressive? There were over 15 million impressions on different media platforms. That’s a lot of exposure for Honda.
The Lessons
Some of the most important lessons from this Case Studies appear to be counter-intuitive when it comes to marketing and advertising. But the proof is in the numbers; this method works.
Never Ignore the Power of Influence
Similar to our Case Studies on Kotex, Honda reached out to influencers on Pinterest in the hopes that their reach would mean a viral campaign. Once again, this method proved to be a winner.
Influencers can take your campaign to the next level. Honda reached out to five people. Five. Granted, they have an internationally-recognized brand to fall back on, but they still attained those numbers with little effort. The brunt of the reach was due to the fact that these pinners had 6- and 7-figure follower counts.
Never ignore the power of influence on social media. Your average high-school senior can have more social clout than the most powerful executives in the world. Keep that in mind.
Make It Easy for Others to Do the Work
Apart from creating the #Pintermission campaign and the designated boards for the five pinners, Honda did not have much involvement in the evolution and growth of the campaign. They simply asked that they be included as collaborators on the individual pin boards in order to garner exposure.
There were no fancy apps or special requirements for the pinners to qualify, they simply offered five people a chance to win $500 (that’s right, the campaign only cost $2,500 plus some time) for not using Pinterest. After that, it was entirely up to the participants to provide the content.
By making a simple, straightforward campaign, Honda managed to reach audiences far beyond expectations and for minimal cost. When you open the door for others to collaborate on social networks, you can very easily decrease the costs of running a campaign.
Engagement > Selling
Honda did not, at any point in their campaign, try to sell a car. That was not what this campaign was about. The CR-V is intended to get people off the couch and outside to experience life. This campaign was about making people realize that, and having Honda to thank.
By creating a campaign that promoted the spirit of their product, and linking that product to the campaign, very superficially, Honda managed to capture the attention of a massive portion of their target demographic.
One of the most important marketing rules when it comes to social media is to avoid selling (at least, in most cases). People are on social networks to engage, not to be bombarded with promotional offers. Honda recognized that and their success is the proof that it worked.
What is your favorite aspect of the Honda #Pintermission campaign? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
The use of Pinterest and social media by Kotex proved to be one of the most successful and innovative social media campaigns run to date.
With the major announcement yesterday that Pinterest would now provide analytics to its business users, we thought an appropriate Case Studies this week would involve the use of the social network. And what better Pinterest-themed Case Studies than its use by Kotex last year to celebrate women’s inspiration.
The Campaign
As the world of social media exploded with the introduction of Pinterest last year, the first network of its kind, dominated almost entirely by women, Kotex and their social media marketing team had the brilliant idea to run a social media campaign centered on the women of Pinterest.
The brilliance lay in how they decided to design the program. Effectively, Kotex sought out the 50 most influential women they could find on the social network after reviewing thousands of accounts and their followers, and began searching through their boards to determine what inspired them. After that, they put together customized gift boxes inspired by these women’s boards, and reached out to these influencers on social media to share these gifts with them. They asked for only one thing in return: to repin the gift.
The results were far greater than what Kotex could have hoped for. Not only did nearly 100% of the 50 women comply with the simple request, but they went above and beyond. These women posted pictures of each component of the gift on both Pinterest and Instagram, made comments on Twitter, Facebook and reached out to their extended networks to tell them all about this wonderful gesture by Kotex.
By the end of the campaign – well, the end of Kotex’s analytics of the campaign, without measuring the extended secondary reach that the virality of the campaign created – Kotex had measured over 2,200 interactions and nearly 700,000 impressions. That’s quite the reach from contacting only 50 people directly!
Take a look at this video for a more comprehensive breakdown of the campaign:
The Lessons
There is a lot we can learn as marketers from this campaign. But when we consider the fact that this social media campaign relied heavily on a viral effect, we think the best lessons to pull from the Kotex Case Studies relate to the importance of influencers.
Find Your Influencers
Kotex knew their demographic and the audience they could reach, but they knew that referrals are so much more powerful than direct marketing. It was for that reason that the marketing executives at Kotex went looking for their social media influencers on Pinterest.
These were women who had a reach far beyond that of Kotex alone. And they were women with an audience that filled two vital criteria: the audience was made up of the right demographics and the audience was highly engaged with these influencers. When you can turn influential people into brand advocates, you can rest assured that you are going to generate quite a bit of new business. But in order to find these influencers, you need to keep this next lesson very much in the forefront of your thinking.
Influencers Can Be Anybody!
The women to whom Kotex sent gifts were not on any Forbes power list, they were not First Ladies and they were not Manhattan socialites – they were normal. (Well, that is not to say that these other women are not “normal” but you know what we mean.) These were every day women who happened to build a large and highly engaged following on Pinterest by simply being active and posting content their followers loved to share. It took a lot of insight for the marketing executives at Kotex to understand this.
When it comes to social media, industry influencers are no longer part of a closed off group comprised of the economic and social elite – anyone and everyone has the ability to be an influencer. Marketers need to keep this in mind.
Small Gestures Go A Long Way
The gift baskets sent by Kotex did not include fancy electronics, or high-priced jewelry. They were simply made up of small knick-knacks that Kotex knew these women would love because they did their research. Kotex could easily have sent them gift certificates for a lifetime supply of Kotex products, but rest assured, the returns would have been far fewer.
The reason why there was such a high response rate and such a viral effect was because Kotex customized these gifts to the tastes of the recipients. They did not need to include lavish, overpriced items because they knew that what they had included was worth much more. A little research into their industry influencers resulted in the numbers you see above. So remember, a little thought can get you a lot further than the easiest option.
Create Limitless Campaigns
Kotex asked these women to do one thing: repin the gifts. A simple request. But the beauty of social media is that these women decided, on their own accord, to take the Kotex campaign to the next level, and involve virtually every avenue of social media they had access to. Kotex created a campaign that had an inherently viral element to it; by giving these women individually-inspired gifts and making them feel unique, it was only a matter of time before they shared the experience with their communities. Furthermore, Kotex did not give these women an ultimatum. The gifts were not a bribe, they were simply gifts with one small request. Giving these women the freedom to do what they wished with regards to sharing the gifts and experience with their communities led to them immediately taking the opportunity to boast about how special they felt thanks to Kotex.
Don’t Hope to Go Viral – Work Your Way There
Kotex was lucky that the campaign was as innovative and original as it was. At the time, Pinterest was the newest, hottest social network and Kotex was the first brand to take advantage of it in the way that they did. First-mover advantage worked wonders for the Kotex brand, but we cannot all hope that our social media campaigns will go viral the way the Kotex campaign did. So, when putting together your next campaign, reach out to your influencers, but don’t neglect the average customer or social media fan. After all, by targeting influencers, the ultimate audience whom you hope to reach is the average user, so make an effort to reach out to every person you can. Brand loyalty is brand loyalty wherever you find it.
The Kotex example is one of the finest uses of Pinterest and social media to date. As marketing on social media continues to evolve, it is certain that we can expect other campaigns to catch on as virally as this one did, but with regards to the use of influencers, it is hard to think of another example as perfect a Case Studies as this one.
How are you reaching out to your influencers? What methods do you use to determine who your industry influencers are? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!