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!