In the world of new technologies – where Digital Marketing relies upon – not being quick enough to make decisions could mean a total strategy failure; it evolves so rapidly that those not being responsive risk of making a decision only when their competitors are already taking the lead.
When a company rejects for the wrong reasons (or for no reasons at all) the impact that a new technology might have on their business plan, the consequences can be dramatic. I have seen this quite often – especially on the early days of the Internet – when a business does not register their domain name in time, allowing somebody else to do it and thus paying later a large amount of money (either to the “usurper” or in the form of fees to some lawyer) in order to recover it. Another good example from recent times was the case of Gerry Harvey (Harvey Norman’s CEO) and his statement back in 2008 that “The whole world was conned with on-line retailing…” Three years later he stepped back from his words and opened an on-line store, however the company is still paying the consequences of that slow decision.
Ready…Steady…GO!
It is important to be responsive when a new technology arrives. However this does not mean accept anything without thinking – as this lack of strategy (or a bad strategy) could be as bad as ignoring the technology itself. However it is important to be quick when analysing the pros and cons of the new technology, and embrace it if required.
These days I am listening to too many businesses managers mentioning “Pinterest is not for me”, but some (most) of them don’t even know what all the fuzz is about! Is there really a strategical thought behind their statement, or is it just a gut feeling? What will they competitors be doing? Are they going to be the new Gerry Harvey?
The benefits of Pinterest
Of course, Pinterest does not work for everyone in the same way as Facebook does not work for all. As I mentioned on my post “Choosing the right tool”, it is important to establish which tools are good for each situation, but to make that judgement it is necessary to have a good knowledge about what is the new technology offering and how it works.
One of the main benefits of Pinterest is its viral capacity without the need of investing great resources and money. By simply creating good images that represent our product or brand, we will have the ability to reach a large audience that is still growing at an incredible fast pace. Besides, it is now clear that social networks based on video and images are developing more and more Furthermore to these three benefits, Pinterest is also a great SEO tool, as pinned images will generate more inbound links to our site.
The list of advantages does not stop here, and in fact there are plenty others: generating leads, easy integration with current sites and other social media platforms, discovering new wants and needs from your audience… plus being a relatively new platform, we could be the first among our competitors to start using it and thus place our business in a much better position in the long run.
So, should you be using it? It all depends on your Marketing Strategy (hopefully the infographic below may help you), but one thing is clear: don’t reject it without doing an exhaustive analysis first…and be quick; I am sure you don’t want to be the new Gerry Harvey, do you?
Should your business be on Pinterest? (source: http://www.firebellymarketing.com)
Hi Antonio,
I really like your blog this was very informative,
I was writing about Pinterest as well, and I was researching about it within my friends and I found that most of them did not know about this new social media either. As soon as I started to tell them what Pinterest was I can say that just women showed interest about this new social media. 80 per cent of the Pinterest users are women and I confirmed it with my small research.
some people answered me ” already known about it but this is not something that I thought I would not use my time. But unquestionably had not looked through the eyes of business …”
However, if you have time read my fourth blog.I wrote about SOPA Bill this controversial topic is very relevant to these social media networks.
Yadi
It’s funny how different genders prefer different social media tools. Pinterest is very graphic and visual, and thus relates more with emotions, with are more important for women – whilst men usually prefer facts and comparison. However, knowing this it is easier to develop a strategy that would suit each group. For example: what about producing images with some text displaying information about what is being displayed?
Looking forward to reading your post.
Love your article and the infographic! Great article and couldn’t agree more. It really does depend on your imagery and whether or not it is something people aspire to. A friend of mine is the marketing manager for an FMCG food brand and is using pinterest for the recipes rather than just picture of an every day food item. I guess with Pinterest it pays to think outside the square and always ensure the content you produce is actually appealing to end users! Otherwise its just noise and will not help at all.
Over the past weeks I’ve heard many people criticising Pinterest when most of them have not even use it. True that not many people will spend hours wathcing your boards – but I don’t think that is the main purpose. What your friend does is a good way of producing and distributing good content using the viral capacity of Pinterest. If the platform will succeed or not…only time can tell, but for the moment I think it’s worth give it a try.
We’ve been experimenting with Pinterest for a while and, as with the other Social Media platforms we use, it takes perseverance. We have a few boards on our Pinterest page, but honestly at this moment they’re just uploads from other people—we have an “Infographics” board with the Pinterest infographic you used in this post.
The thing is we build websites, therefore we could just pin screen shots of the sites we built, but how engaging is that? It’s not. Hence why we have other boards. And we also offer other services, but how to “advertise” that effectively on Pinterest we’re still working on, as you’re not really supposed to do that.
We enjoy using Pinterest and, as you rightly said, it’s growing at an “incredible fast pace” so we’d be fools not to at least try and make it work. It’s just finding the right way to channel it which is the problem.
These social media tools are harder to use with B2B than B2C, hence part of your problem, however there is always some solution. My suggestion in your case would be to create a series of short videos (e.g.: maybe showing a website before and after your work, a demo of some of your smartphone apps, etc…) and then pin those videos on your Pinterest profile. If the change is dramatical and the new designs is eye-popping, that will certainly bring people to see the real site and eventually, your own website (more info on how to pin videos here http://blog.pinterest.com/post/8670310296/video-pins)
Another alternative would be to create your own infographics (it is clear these are very trendy at the moment). Of course, your brand should be located somewhere easy to find.
Sometimes viral events happen with the most simple images, but however people still like them. If people forward images of a cat wit a toast around its head, why shouldn’t they forward an image of that same cat browsing one of your websites, with a message that reads “We create content that engages all audiences” – stupid idea, I know…. just trying to create an example
Hey
Thanks for suggestions! We’ve started to do write-ups of projects (kinda like a case study i suppose) but I never thought about filming the before and after. I’ll see what the designers think
Thanks again.
I agree with Shamapow in that you might as well try it if it is low or no cost. However, companies should make sure they are staffed to monitor their digital presence (keep on top of what is being said/commented on, manage the messages, etc.).
Fair point Nancy. It’s all about evaluating not only direct, but also indirect cots. Besides, it may not suit for all industries. E.g.: I don’t think a chemical company who sells ingredients only to pharmaceutical companies can benefit too much from Pinterest. However, once that strategy shows if it is a good option for your business or not, then you must act and don’t wait until it’s too late.
Considering the low cost to be in these nowadays digital opportunities (and the ones that are coming) and being aware of the consequences of not being in, if I was running a company, I’d try it and afterwards, depending on the evolution and results I’d make the necessary moves (from investing more ressources to deactivate the account or membership)
We all might remember ideas like Google Wave or Google Buzz and others that ended as a fail: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/10-google-product-fails.html
Is it wrong? NO! They were brave to start a project and wise to cancel it. Usually there is not success without previous failures.
Good comment. The problem here is how many resources does a company have to manage all their digital strategy. Uploading some images or creating an account will certainly not take too much time from anyone’s schedule, however you also want to track how these images are spreading, how many leads (and how many conversions) are generating, etc… As I said, there is always need for a strategical decision. However I agree that fear is the worst strategist.
Time magazine recently (April 9) published an article on Pinterest. What a clever way of promoting your product/service!
Thank you for the tip. Do you know where can I find an on-line version of this article? Thank you