Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Christine Corretti, who recently published Pinterest for Business: a Complete, Updated Guide for Ultimate Success.

Elite companies have managed to gather hundreds of thousands, even millions of followers on Pinterest. They have done so partly because they are already household names.  However, it is clear that big businesses are also combining key strategies to achieve success on Pinterest. These organizations are:

• visually diverse
• indispensible to brands they represent, or feature
• sensitive to consumers’ needs and desires
• informative and practical
• original

Case Study 1: Etsy

Let’s consider Etsy. An online site with over 800,000 individual shops and over 15 million unique handmade and/or vintage items. Etsy channels into some of the most popular categories on Pinterest – crafts, jewelry, home goods, and clothing.

The company has 78 boards, each well stocked with colorful, detailed images of unique things that epitomize Etsy’s diversity. Together, the boards cover a variety of topics, and none show just one type of product. Each board concerns an occasion (i.e. weddings, Halloween), function (entertainment), group of people (kids), décor/design, and the like.

Concomitantly, the company’s profile displays a plethora of Etsy products that are suitable and beneficial for each subject; bridal jewelry, for example. These boards are, in essence, tutorials — popular types of pins, for they instruct by showing how their items may be used.

The multi-faceted content of Etsy’s business profile indicates that the company has much to offer those pinners who are using Pinterest to enrich their own personal lives.

Etsy Kids

Etsy Wedding

Etsy’s Pinterest profile is, like Pinterest itself, a place to shop, as well as get ideas from others. However, the real creativity of Etsy’s Pinterest presence comes from the community that Etsy has built. The presence of guest pinners on the company’s profile stresses that fact.

These contributors show that Etsy is a community of everyday people from all over the world (in addition to U.S. shops, there are foreign boards: “EtsyUK,” for United Kingdom shops, “EtsyFr” for French Etsy products, etc.) and that viewers can find their own creative niches and open shops on www.etsy.com themselves.

Yet, all the guest pinners stand out from the crowd in one essential way — they all have over 100,000 followers on Pinterest. Perhaps they are guest pinners because of that fact, or maybe their presence on Etsy’s profile helped pinners discover them.  Either way, the guests are encouraged to repin Etsy material, and when they do, these pins expand Etsy’s audience tremendously.

Case Study 2: Sephora

Like Etsy, Sephora realizes that the visual power of marketing wearable items on Pinterest. Since Sephora carries hundreds of cosmetic and fragrance brands, the company’s Pinterest profile is highly varied, as it should be.  No one board is dedicated to a single name.

Instead, boards are organized according to the most popular topics in the beauty industry, runways and magazines, and top preferences, such as “Red Carpet Beauty;” “Trending Now;” “Pro Tips.”  Each board advertises more than one company’s items — all of which can be used to achieve the looks showcased on that particular board.  The message is that Sephora has everything a woman needs to look her vert best.

Similarly, the multitude of written and video tutorials on Sephora’s Pinterest profile display techniques one can apply with a variety of items  carried at Sephora.

Sephora’s Business profile is an educational catalog that links ideas with products so viewers can believe in the company’s technical and aesthetic expertise.

Red Carpet Beauty

PRO Tips

Case Study 3: Neiman Marcus

The Pinterest Business profile of Neiman Marcus is different because each of the company’s boards has a title beginning with the words “The Art of.”  We see “The Art of Shoes,” “The Art of Living,” “The Art of Orange,” and so on.

Neiman Marcus is a high end department store, and its profile cleverly suggests that its merchandise is what luxury living, a proverbial art form, is all about. Indeed, the company even has a board titled “The Art of Neiman Marcus.”

Neiman’s boards are made up of pins that show you how to combine their products for a luxury lifestyle. Not surprisingly, a good number of these pins come from Neiman’s catalogs, which showcase seasonal trends and how to wear them for different occasions. Neiman’s Pinterest boards are catalogs within the larger catalog of its business profile.

The Art of Living

The Pinterest profile of the yogurt brand Chobani is a must-see if you are using Pinterest for business. The first board, called “Go Real,” (“Life’s real, so are we” is the board’s description) encapsulates what the brand is about — organic yogurt — and sets the tone for subsequent boards that focus on healthy eating.

Interestingly, the first board includes quotes and phrases that define what being “real” is (i.e. “Be you, bravely”) without alluding to food. Even though these sayings have little to with yogurt, it helps define further their brand and company culture. Furthermore, quotes on Pinterest are quite popular, and helps them gain further visibility around their brand.

Their boards also consist of different ways to use Chobani yogurt: “Baked with Chobani,” “Dip and Dish with Chobani,” “Protein Parfaits and Smoothies,” “Tastes Better with Yogurt.”  The message here is that Chobani yogurt is versatile enough to use in many dishes.

Additionally, Chobani uses Pinterest to brand that their yogurts are a good way to add protein to any dish. As the description for the board “Protein Parfaits and Smoothies” mentions, Chobani has twice the amount of protein of other yogurts. That message appears on the smoothie and parfait board as well.

Baked with Chobani

Not all the pins making up Chobani’s boards involve Chobani products. The company wisely suggests that it cares more about its customers’ well-being than about competing with other brands and businesses by excluding them from its Pinterest profile (this message harks back to the saying on the first board, “Real friends get treated like family.”)

Chobani advertises foods from other brands, as well as recipes from culinary blogs and websites, such as “Sweet Treats and More.” The latter are important to Chobani, because they are venues where one can learn to use Chobani products.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these case studies offer further inspiration into how best to curate your own content on Pinterest. One significant aspect to take from all four of these case studies is the importance of being creative in integrating your own material.

By utilizing a variety of pins throughout your boards you empower pinners with a myriad of insights on how they can further use your products or services. Apart from a central theme that denotes your brand’s value, your profile needs diversity to attract followers, keep their interest alive, and stand out from the ocean of images that make up Pinterest.

About the Author      

Christine Corretti, Ph.D. is an art historian, artist, and author of the book Pinterest for Business: a Complete, Updated Guide for Ultimate Success (2013), which you can be purchased on Amazon.  She’d loves to connect with others on Pinterest and on her website and her blog.

For those with cash to spend and a product line that fits with Pinterest, reaching influencers can pay off. This Pinterest marketing example from Internet Retailer is a case study in how it can be done.

Online store Bourbon & Boots worked with Pinterest marketing firm HelloSociety who paid tastemakers in their network to pin from the retailers site. The campaign cost around $95,000 for 2 campaigns. Tastemakers are pinners with 200,000 to 10 million followers. They selected those who fit the merchant’s profile and sent them to the site to pin products they liked.

Bourbon & Boots had a goal to increase their email list. Pins drove people to a page with an invitation to sign up for their email list. In what we find most interesting, they rewarded pinners for results, not just to pin. Tastemakers got paid a certain dollar amount per e-mail address they get for the retailer. The campaign generated positive ROI for the retailer.

Results:

• In 6 days they got 30,000 e-mail addresses.
• Site traffic from Pinterest increased 10-fold when these campaigns were running.
• Revenue from Pinterest went up 305% during the first campaign and 1,300% in the next campaign, compared to the days just prior running them.
• Revenue from Pinterest usually represents 10% of total sales for the retailer.
• The campaigns got a better ROI for them than paid search campaigns or targeted ads on Facebook.
• Shoppers who come to the site directly from Pinterest are 20% more valuable, “because they tend to spend more and buy more frequently.”

Note how the site itself is very visual and each product has buttons to pin. One of the more popular necklaces on the site got over 149k pins!

“Bourbon & Boots launched in Feb. 2012 and brought in around $500,000 in total sales last year.” In 2013 it has already hit $900,000. They have over 8,200 followers on Pinterest.

Had success with positive ROI on your Pinterest marketing campaign? We’d love to hear your story – please contact us or comment below.

We recently featured an infographic with the top male fashion pinners on Pinterest. It featured power pinner Joseph Knoop. According to this list of top Pinterest users, Joseph (here’s his Pinterest profile) is the 8th most followed person on Pinterest in the men’s fashion category.

When he first started pinning his profile was featured on the “Suggested People to Follow” when someone signed up for a new account (Pinterest no longer does this). We asked him to reveal how he built such a strong following, who has over 4 million followers on Pinterest.

How did you get started on Pinterest? 

I got started on Pinterest something like 2 years ago. I can’t exactly remember how I found it, but I believe I saw an ad for it, or something like that. I just created an account because it looked like fun!

Do you have a background in men’s fashion?

I don’t have any “formal background” in men’s fashion. That is to say that I have never been to school for fashion design or anything fashion related. I have worked in retail though. I guess that counts for something, right? I believe that everything is influenced by fashion, and fashion is influenced by everything. Music, film, even literature has influence in the fashion world! I have just always been a fan of culture, and fashion is culture!

Why did you choose Pinterest (being a man, when there weren’t many men on the site)?

To be honest I had no idea that Pinterest was considered a women’s site. I still don’t see it as one! Sorry girls! I just knew that it had huge potential, and I wanted to be part of it!

What came first, your blog or your Pinterest page?

I’d been blogging long before Pinterest although I was not using the Tumblr I use today. I was on Blogspot. It was called: Desert Island All Time Top 5. The name was taken from a line I stole from “High Fidelity,” a book I love by Nick Hornby. It’s a great book! I highly recommend it!

Where do you find inspiration for your boards?

I am inspired by everything around me; songs I hear, people I meet, books I read etc! I have some kind of ADD, and being that the world is full of amazing beautiful things it can be a little hard to process. So anyone out there that struggles with this too, will know what I mean! For me, Pinterest makes sense. It is an easy way for me to take all of my interests from all over the blogosphere and organize them in my own way that makes sense to my crazy brain!

Any tips on how people should lay out their boards visually?

I look at Pinterest as if it were a magazine. I organize it by subject matter, putting the things I find most interesting at the top and go down from there. I make sure that each board has the best picture as the cover of the board and that as the boards flow across the page that the pictures don’t clash one with another. Flow is important if your presenting it to a large audience or business.

Do you have any tips for naming your boards?

Naming your boards is a personal preference. I have been complimented on many occasions on my board names. Like in anything, just be creative!

What was your approach to getting over 4 million followers?

It’s hard to say one thing that helped me to get the number of followers that I have. Pinterest has changed so much since I first started. I have put some work in to make it happen. If I were to advise anyone in how to get followers I would say go look at blogs! Find what interests you and pin those things! Try to re-pin less and pin more from blogs! Pin a lot of content and frequently! There are others out there that like what you like, you just have to pin and they will find you!

What kind of opportunities have opened up for you because of Pinterest?

I would have to say that my life has changed quite a bit because of Pinterest! I have received many job offers and have done things I could only have dreamed of. I feel very blessed! I am currently working on a project with a men’s fashion line called Bonobos. Their shirts are amazing!

Do you have a strategy for when/how often you pin?

To be honest, I don’t really have a strategy for my own personal Pinterest. If I were to suggest a strategy, it would just be to pin often and pin lots! It also helps to try and focus the majority of your efforts on just a few boards.

What are the most important things a business should do to be successful on Pinterest?

If a business wants to be successful on Pinterest, here are a few suggestions:

1. Don’t find an intern and call it good! Hire someone to do your social media! I work with a company called Storylark that contracts with companies to do exactly that.
2. When you hire someone or choose someone, make sure they have an artistic eye, preferably a background in design.
3. Finally, have fun! Pinterest Shouldn’t be a drag. Allow yourself to enjoy what you are doing.

Thank you for your insight Joseph!

If you have any questions for Joseph, please them in the comments below.

Last Tuesday I spoke at Connective Circle. I had an amazing time presenting to 80+ bloggers about how to effectively do Pinterest market. I actually wished we had recorded it, because the dialogue and questions of those attending, I felt, were better then the actual presentation!

However, there were several requests for my presentation, so I have posted it below. For those who didn’t attend the presentation you may need some clarification on this presentation. Mainly because I am the type of presenter who usually just shows an image and then builds a story around the image through my words. To overcome this issue you are  welcome to leave comments below and I will provide further clarification.

Here is the link on Prezi if you are unable to see the below flash display. ~Paul

Pinterest just launched their first set of analytics features—a long awaited release for marketers using the platform.

In a blog post this morning, Pinterest announced it’s first analytics features to the world. At PinLeague, this news excited us greatly. As the largest third-party Pinterest Analytics tool, we’ve been out and about preaching the power of Pinterest’s data for a while now. This release is going to show businesses of all sizes the true impact of Pinterest—and should, in turn, fuel growth in the Pinterest ecosystem.

Pinterest Analytics Are Pretty Similar to Facebook Insights

Pinterest’s new Web Analytics bear a striking resemblance to core metrics in Facebook Insights: Impressions, Reach, Content Reach and Unique Pinners. Pinterest is quite different from Facebook, though, in that most of the value is given away by driving traffic off-site, while Facebook tries to keep you within its walls as long as possible. Thus, while Facebook Insights focuses mostly on actions on the site and with your posts, Pinterest’s Web Analytics launches with a focus on Pins by other users from your verified domain.

The current reports show:

1. How many pins are generated from your site
2. Repins, impressions, reach and clicks for those pins
3. Most recent, repinned and clicked pins from your site

In order to use Pinterest’s Analytics features you need to first verify your domain on Pinterest and then change to the new Pinterest layout.

Pinterest Analytics Feature: Site Metrics

The Site Metrics tab currently contains four reports:

1. Number of Pins from your site over time and unique pinners
2. Number of Repins from your site over time and unique repinners
3. Number of Impressions of those pins over time and related reach
4. Number of Clicks on those pins over time and related unique visitors

Many marketers will quickly find they need more than this. A whole slew of additional analytics features are available via third party tools. For example, these are some additional features in PinLeague’s Pinterest Analytics:

1. See WHO Pinned from your domain
2. See WHICH PINS generate traffic to your site
3. See HOW MUCH REVENUE Pinterest is driving to your site
4. Track COMPETITORS’ top pins from their domain

Pinterest Analytics Feature: The “Most” Tabs

The “Most” tabs help you see pins from your domain filtered by most recent, most repinned and most clicked pins. The pins are laid out in the same visual format as Pinterest’s feeds and category pages that you love. If you need a more data-oriented view, simply click “Export” to grab a .csv file.

Want more? PinLeague offers additional functionality here, too for the serious Pinterest Marketer:

1. View top pins from your profile and filter by keyword, hashtag, category, board and more
2. Sort top pins from your domain (“Brand Mentions”) by metrics such as Repins, Likes and Comments
3. See which pins drive traffic to your site

This initial set of Pinterest Analytics features is beautifully designed and well executed. Check them out!

This article was adapted from Pinterest Analytics Features by Daniel Maloney at http://pinleague.com/pinterest-analytics-features/.

Toys R Us is using a lot of images to market their sales and toys on Facebook this Christmas season where the toy retailer has have over 3 million fans. However, they don’t seem to be as active on Pinterest (almost 3,000 fans).

While Toys R Us does get original pins, they don’t get as many as you’d expect for such a large retailer (you’d think moms would pin toys their kids want). Looking through the pins they do get, you’ll see almost every one is saved to a Christmas wish list type of board (take note marketers).

Our favorite marketing piece is perfect for Pinterest – it markets their brand without being pushy (see below). There are no logos or branding except their brand name. This image could be expanded to be an even better fit for Pinterest. To do that, they could make the image more vertical and make it longer with a larger font size and more images to go with each of their tips.

About 25,000 people liked this image.

Here are 5 missed opportunities:

1. Add a tip to pin your Christmas toy wish list to Pinterest.

2. Add Pinterest Pin It buttons to their page.

3. Add a Pinterest tab to Facebook.

4. Create a Pinfographic that shows their highest rated or most popular toys – both a Facebook and a Pinterest version.

5. Expand the image they already created for Facebook into an image for Pinterest, by making it more vertical and adding images within the text.

Now that it’s Christmas, we’re on the lookout for brands who really get it when marketing on Pinterest for the holidays. What’s your favorite toy retailer on Pinterest?

This article is for those responsible for creating a presence on Pinterest, but are still trying to figure it out. If you’re anything like us, you’ve scoured the internet reading articles, talked with those who you think “get” Pinterest and read every case study available. The research helped and you’ve learned a lot, but at the end of the day:

It’s difficult to see how your brand fits on Pinterest
It makes no sense for the Harlem Globetrotters to pin about weddings, recipes, fashion, hair styles, home decor or many of the more popular categories. We could try to tie into these topics but it wouldn’t be authentic to our brand.

You still want to reach Pinterest’s demographic but you’re not sure how
Despite your research, you’re asking yourself the same question: How can I create a successful Pinterest presence that fits my brand?

This is what we’re facing at the Harlem Globetrotters, but I think we’ve got a solid strategic plan. I can’t share results yet because we’re in the process of unfolding it, but I can give you some insight into how we got there, and hopefully spur some ideas of your own.

As we go, I’ll be sharing results and insights we learn along the way. We’d love feedback, and to hear your success or failure stories as well because at the end of the day, you learn just as much from what doesn’t work, as what does.

Harlem Globetrotters Background:

• The Globetrotters are a family entertainment basketball team

• We’ve been around since 1926 traveling the country and performing in front of millions of fans

• We are a family-friendly event that kids, parents and grandparents alike, will enjoy

• Families love coming to our shows and mothers tend to be the ones that purchase tickets

Due to these facts, the female-skewed Pinterest platform provides an amazing opportunity to directly connect with our female fans, including mothers.

Goal: Learn more about our target market
We’re a sports entertainment company, as opposed to a retailer, where a direct sales approach would make sense. Rather than direct sales, we view Pinterest as a tool to engage with and learn about our fans. We want to know: what are our fans interested in? If they like the Globetrotters, what else do they like?

Our goal is to study these engagements and interactions through driving traffic back to our website. Repins and clicks equate to traffic, and traffic lets us know what our fans on Pinterest are interested in.

Strategy: Use Pinterest as an extension of the Harlem Globetrotter’s Brand
In the words of Angela Leaney, EVP of Brand Marketing, the theme of our strategy is “Finding the intersection between what is interesting and shared amongst moms, and what we have credibility or expertise on.” Instead of the common approach: ‘How can I extend my brand into Pinterest’s platform?’; we ask, ‘How can we use Pinterest’s platform as an extension of our brand?’ Since we want to extend our brand, our strategy is guided by what’s popular on Pinterest, and we are looking on how to capitalize on that in the areas that make sense for our brand.

One of our stars, Dizzy Grant, got married last year. We could post pictures of Dizzy’s wedding because weddings are a popular category on Pinterest. Although the category is popular, our brand isn’t relevant, and aside from a picture, we have nothing to offer.

Here is a snapshot of what we’ve created so far on Pinterest:

Questions to Answers:
Now that we know the direction we’re headed we can ask:

• How can we use Pinterest’s platform as an extension of our brand?
• What does our brand stand for?
• What are our areas of expertise?
• Where do we have credibility amongst mothers?

For the Globetrotters, those include topics like giving back to the community, healthy lifestyles, character development and bringing families together. Essentially, we use a venn diagram approach consisting of identifying areas mothers find interesting, identifying areas where the Globetrotters are relevant, and pinning the common ground.

All the general tips involving descriptions, visually rich content and SEO are helpful, but won’t help you maximize Pinterest if your strategic approach is flawed.

Now we have some questions for you:

• Do you have any feedback on our strategy?
• Has your brand run into any problems with Pinterest?
• If your brand doesn’t seem to fit Pinterest’s mold, how do you create a successful presence?

Let us know what you think. In the meantime, you can follow our boards to see how our strategy plays out.

Dylan Richter is a former collegiate basketball player turned marketing man. He is the Digital Marketing Manager for the Harlem Globetrotters responsible for the execution of all digital campaigns including website, social, mobile and online marketing tactics. Connect with him on Linkedin .

Last night we were interviewed by the weekly Twitter group #PinChat concerning PinAlerts.com (you can read the interview here). On that forum we shared how several companies have reached out to us and asked for a way to keep a record of their pins. To address this concern we will shortly be launching a new feature on PinAlerts—Pin History.

Pin History will allow users to not just rely on the emails they receive from PinAlerts, but instead they can log in and view all the pins they have received alerts on. Here’s a sneak peak of both the extended and condensed view of Pin History (though it is not quite finalized yet).

You will be able to download your pins into a csv, excel, or pdf file. Allowing for quick and easy reporting on your daily, weekly, and/or monthly pin activity.

Also, all the pins you have received from PinAlerts will appear in your Pin History even if you signed up with us months ago. We hope this will be a much added benefit to those individuals and businesses who are looking for solutions to track their Pinterest marketing strategies.

Once we have rolled out Pin History and stomped out all the bugs we will be launching our own version of Pinalytics. Basically, you will be able to have a holistic view of your pins and the effectiveness behind them. We also have several more features coming, but we don’t want to spoil all the surprises Ü.

The Pin History launch is still several weeks away (no firm date just yet), but all users of PinAlerts.com will be notified as soon as we are ready (so go sign-up!).

This new function of PinAlerts will be a paid feature, but rest assured that our email alerts will always and forever be free. We are diligently working to provide both free and paid solutions that will help both small and big businesses and also keep our doors open for future Pinterest tools.

In addition to announcing new features, we are also offering an opportunity to 25 bloggers to receive a 1 year free membership to our upcoming paid tools. To receive this free membership you simply need to blog about PinAlerts before we launch the Pin History feature. If you would like to receive this free membership send over your blog post link. We will announce the 25 chosen blog posts when we open up Pin History to the world.

We are enjoying ourselves immensely developing these creative Pinterest tools, but we know that we cannot do it alone. If you have further ideas or insights on how we can improve PinAlerts please do not hesitate to let us know.

Today Pinterest launched profiles for businesses officially welcomed businesses to Pinterest. Cat Lee at Pinterest blogged about the changes and hinted at future tools for businesses. To make it easy for you to see how this might affect you’re business, we’ve listed the main points below.

Here’s what you will find:

• You can now enter the name of your businesses when you register, you no longer have to work around this and use the first name, last name format. Unfortunately, it doesn’t open up any new URLs.
• A new terms of service just for businesses, so you can now use Pinterest for marketing (nothing about copyright that we know of).
• New widget (code you can add to your website) so you can display your profile or a board on your website.
• Guidelines for how to use the Pinterest logo and terms. Specifically they say not to use “Pin” or “Pinterest” as part of your brand name or domain name. NO NOT: “Register a domain name containing “pin,” “pinterest,” or any misspellings, transliterations or similar variations on Pinterest.” No word on the consequences but we take this as an early warning.
• Guidelines on using their logo or a version of it (we think it’s going a bit far to prohibit the use of a pushpin, but we’re just reporting not making the rules).
  DO NOT:
  • Use a scripted P
  • Use a red and white P
  • Use a pushpin

Developers are already updating their Pinterest tools to take advantage of the new buttons and widgets. For example, Michael Benson, CEO of WedOverHeels has already added the new profile widget to his site. He gives this tip: “Don’t forget to include the trailing slash at the end of your Pinterest User URL or the link to your pins from the widget won’t work.”

Lee also wrote, “We hope to add more tools and features that are geared toward this audience,” but didn’t give any hints as to what might be next.

While we’re glad to see Pinterest speak to brands and officially sanction them, some of the new guidelines are not welcome. Anyone who has built a business around Pinterest will have to rethink their plans.

Go to http://business.pinterest.com to convert your personal page to a business page and read more about the new changes. Seeing as how we’ve built this site around Pinterest, we might have to make some changes of our own.