We understand the aversion some businesses feel when they hear the phrase “social media marketing.” You may know that Facebook has a timeline, Pinterest has boards, and LinkedIn has connections, but apart from that, it all feels confusing.

In an effort to demystify all these channels, this blog is going to break down three popular social media platforms for paid marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn, & Pinterest) and analyze their strengths/drawbacks in ad targeting, reporting, and overall efficacy. The goal? We’ll help you learn more about three of the best social media platforms for marketing and how they can help your business.

Why Use Social Media Ads for Business?

Social media advertising allows a business to reach new audiences that would otherwise be unreachable due to the algorithms behind organic social media posting. Creating unpaid (also called “organic”) posts is great for interacting with your followers, but there’s little chance it will bring in new customers or lead to sales unlike the earlier days of social media.

Some other benefits of social media advertising include:

• Increased brand awareness at a very cheap cost.
• Better data on the demographics and interests of your target audience.
• More traffic is driven to your site (which can potentially increase leads and revenue.)
• Build relationships and give people a chance to engage with (not just see) your ad.

Figuring out how to use social media marketing to grow your business is challenging, but it can have a rewarding payoff. Below we’ll explore what you can do to get started and the unique ad offerings of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

How to Start with Social Media

Before jumping in, you first need to learn about the capabilities of each platform and then pick which one best aligns with your marketing goals. Your business type and industry will determine your B2B or B2C marketing strategies on social media.

Some helpful questions to ask yourself are:

1. Who is my target audience?
2. Which social platforms are they using?
3. What kind of social content do they best respond to?

When starting to develop a social media advertising strategy, it’s important to make a plan based on research. But it’s also important to give yourself room for testing, so you can gather data and learn more about who your audience is or isn’t (especially if you can’t answer the questions above). As a part of that planning process, let’s take a closer look at the specifics of these three top platforms.

How to Use Facebook for Social Media Marketing

As the most popular social media platform in the world, Facebook is still one of the best social media platforms for marketing. The benefits of Facebook marketing include:

• Very low-cost advertising options
• Variety of ad formats to use (video, slideshow, image, etc.)
• Great reach with local and global audiences

Let’s take a look below at some of the specific features you can use within their advertising tool.

Facebook Audience Demographics Options

Understanding demographic targeting is crucial to creating a social strategy. It helps you see who your social ads are resonating with and plan out future ad campaigns that are targeted towards the right people. 

Through Facebook you can choose:

• Location (specific zip codes, counties, states, or countries)
• Age (18-65)
• Gender
• Languages
• Relationship status (single, married, divorced, etc.)
• Education level (high school grad, some college, college grad, masters, etc.)
• Income bracket (top 25%-50%, top 10%, etc.)
• Life Events (just moved, engaged, new job, etc.)
• Household role (parent, etc.)
• Political affiliation (likely to engage in conservative politics, etc.)

The extensive range of specific targeting Facebook offers makes it a prime hub for testing. It also makes it one of the best social media platforms for marketing. 

Facebook Interest Targeting

Facebook allows you to further define your audience by allowing you to target users based on their interests, activities, and the pages they “like” related to:

• Entertainment & art
• Brands & publications 
• Hobbies & activities
• Fitness & wellness
• Business 
• Family & relationships 
• Food & drink
• Shopping & fashion
• Sports & outdoors
• Technology

Facebook Behavior Options for Targeting

This option factors into account data collected from users on their device usage, shopping behaviors, or their past intent while interacting on the platform. It allows you to target people with behaviors that fit the following buckets:

• Digital tools used (operating systems, browsers, plugins, etc.)
• Mobile device or browser details (iOS, Android, tablet, etc.)
• Purchasing behavior (for cars, fashion, tech, etc.)
• Media consumption (radio or TV)
• Residential status (homeowner, renter, likely to move, etc.)
• Seasonal events and interests
• Travel profile (business travel, frequent traveler, commuter, on vacation, etc.)

When creating your first Facebook ad audience, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll use all of these targeting options at the same time. It’s best to start simple and tighten your targeting over time based on the data you collect showing who is interacting with your ads.

Facebook’s Reporting Capabilities

Depending on your marketing goals, you can customize Facebook’s ad report columns. However, by default, your Ads Manager table will most likely include:

• Results. This shows the number of times people took action on your ad based on the objective you set it to have: link clicks, page likes, phone calls, leads, etc. 
• Cost Per Result. This breaks down how much you spent on each of those results. (Total budget divided by the total amount of results.)
• Reach. The number of unique users who saw your ad.
• Impressions. The total number of times your ad was displayed on a screen (counting any time the same user refreshed your ad as well.)
• Amount. The actual spend of your campaign’s budget within the allotted run time.
• Bid Strategy. How you’re telling Facebook to bid in its auction to show your ad – you can use bid caps or target costs to ensure you don’t eat up your total budget too quickly.
• Attribution Settings. The finite amount of time when conversions are credited to the ad and used to optimize who it shows to in upcoming run time.
• Frequency. How many times a person in your audience is seeing the ad.

*Some of the terms above will be used again below. To avoid redundancy, please reference this list for an explanation of those terms.

Once a campaign finishes, Facebook allows you to download this data into a spreadsheet. You can even customize which metrics you want to include so you’re only looking at the ones that matter to your business. 

Looking at this data will help you understand how your audience is responding and adjust your ad targeting or ad creative as needed.

How to Use LinkedIn for Social Media Marketing

If your business is geared towards professionals or companies, LinkedIn could be a great place to focus your businesses’ marketing efforts. You’ll find it has a lot of robust targeting options to help you reach your ideal audience online.

LinkedIn Audience Targeting Options

With LinkedIn Campaign Manager, you can build a precise audience with the following options:

• Demographics (age, gender, location)
• Education (fields of study, member schools, degrees)
• Job experience (job function, job seniority, job title, years of experience)
• Company (company connections, industry, size, or a business’ name, followers, and growth rate)
• Interests and traits (member groups, member interests, member traits)

LinkedIn Forecasted Results

While building your LinkedIn audience, the platform provides an estimated results tool that shows if your targeting is too broad or narrow. This is especially helpful if you’re new to running LinkedIn ads and have no previous data to go off of.

Ongoing Optimization

One of the benefits of using LinkedIn for social media marketing is that it shows you which demographics are underperforming while your ad is running. Then you can exclude them during your ad campaign so you see a better performance and spend with your budget. Plus, you have a cleaner audience for future ads.

LinkedIn’s Reporting Capabilities

Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn offers a wide range of data to pull from at the end of a paid campaign. By default, you can access the following metrics:

• Impressions
• Number of clicks 
• Click-through-rate percentage (CTR)
• Average cost per click or result
• Number of conversions
• Cost per conversion
• Number of leads
• Cost per lead
• Event registrations

Depending on the goal of your campaign (e.g. brand awareness, conversions, lead generation, etc.) you can customize your view to show the metrics that best indicate success. This data will help you figure out how you can best move forward with future ads. 

Want to learn more about LinkedIn advertising? View our guide on LinkedIn Ads which goes more in-depth about ad formats, audiences & more.

How to Use Pinterest for Social Media Marketing

Pinterest allows users to “pin” posts that interest them. This allows an ad’s pin to serve as its own remarketing campaign because users can see a businesses’ pin after the campaign’s initial run.

Businesses that benefit the most from Pinterest ads typically have a visually appealing product or service.  For example, the following industries can find a lot of success with Pinterest ads:

• Outdoor builders & home remodelers
• Home & lifestyle businesses
• Retail and fashion companies
• Art and design services

Since Pinterest is primarily used for finding and saving ideas, a kitchen design company is likely to gain more traction on Pinterest than an accounting agency.

Pinterest Targeting Options

Pinterest has a relatively simple targeting interface compared to other social platforms. Your targeting options for ads include:

• Keywords & Interests (this is where an SEO specialist can help)
• Demographics (gender, age, location, device type)
• Placement (main feed browser or search)

Pinterest’s Keyword Targeting

One of Pinterest’s standout features is the ability to add and exclude keywords during your ad setup.  Part of this is that its users view Pinterest as a search engine. People log in to search topics like “bathroom remodel with vanity” or “large playset for backyard”.

Compared to LinkedIn and Facebook, Pinterest has a less detailed approach to who you’re targeting. But if you have an active audience there, it can end up being an extremely effective advertising tool.

Pinterest’s Reporting Capabilities

By default, Pinterest offers the following metrics to monitor the performance of an ad:

• Spend
• Impressions
• Pin clicks (who clicked into the pin to view it)
• Outbound clicks (who clicked the URL in your pin)
• Cost per result
• Click-through-rate (CTR)

While simple, all this data is good quality information that helps you understand how many people are visiting your website or landing page from Pinterest.

Is There a Winner?

So, which of the three covered is actually the best social media platform for marketing? Well, it really depends. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest all allow you to build and target a relevant audience. They just offer very different types of targeting. Instead of picking which one you think is a winner, you should test which platform is your home run.

Sitting in front of your computer, staring at Facebook ads manager and feeling daunted? You’re not alone. Figuring out how to write effective Facebook ad copy for your business is a daunting task for first-time creators. However, considering that the average person spends at least 1.72 hours each day on social media, it’s an advertising outlet worth pursuing. That’s why we’ve put together these tips on Facebook ad copywriting and included best practices so you understand how to make a good Facebook ad that’s effective and produces the ROI you’re looking for. 

The Effects Of Good Ads

Facebook advertising is the most effective way to ensure your brand actually reaches new audiences on the platform. A few years ago, Facebook changed algorithms for organic reach, prioritizing personal posts over business content. As a result, businesses posting organic content have very low visibility in the Facebook news feed.

However, taking advantage of paid ad campaigns or boosting your posts allows you to override that limitation and regain visibility in users’ news feeds. In a Facebook study done by Wordstream, they noticed that businesses with active ad campaigns saw a 77% increase in followers compared to businesses not running any advertising. 

Followers should not be the most important metric you use to gauge your Facebook advertising’s success. (Although, earning more followers does show you’re increasing brand awareness and it provides an opportunity to drive more new traffic to your website.)

You may find social campaigns can help you meet additional goals, such as growing your lead list and increasing sales, gaining more email subscribers, boosting phone calls, and more.

Successful Facebook Ads Strategy

If you’re just starting to do ad campaigns, it’s important to set realistic goals. Too often, businesses get ahead of themselves and expect leads or conversions the moment they begin social advertising. However, most successful Facebook ads have one thing in common — they are the result of time and experimentation.  

Facebook advertising moves through four stages, which are adequately summarized in a digital marketing strategy known as “R.I.C.E.”

Initially, your ad campaigns are working to build your reach among new audiences. However, it may take several months (or campaigns) to achieve this. You need to spend time using trial and error testing to find what content your intended audience responds to best on Facebook. 

Once your reach is established, then you can move into the interacting phase. The goal of your advertising here is to persuade your audience to take action and learn more. You want to direct them to your website and make sure you have content they’ll want to explore.

After you see your ads are consistently drawing new audiences who spend time on your website, it’s time to convert them. Now you can start writing Facebook ad copy that converts and sells. You’ve built up your reach and the value of your content on Facebook, which in turn gives you social credibility that appeals to people ready to make a purchase decision.

Once you’re seeing your advertising lead to conversions, you’re then left with the responsibility to continue engaging audiences with your advertising. In this stage, you’re focusing on using your ads to create brand loyalty and continue offering value to customers to encourage repeat business.

The key takeaway here is that you first need to build social equity on Facebook before you can sell. Now that we’ve covered the strategic stages you can use to advance your Facebook ads, it’s time to look at how to write effective Facebook ad copy.

Getting Started: How To Write Effective Facebook Ad Copy

If you’re wondering how to write effective Facebook ad copy, it all starts by putting a framework into place. Successful Facebook ads usually employ the following practices.

1. Start With Audience Targeting

Know who you’re trying to talk to and don’t guess based on your gut. Instead, look at your audience demographics from your website’s tracking. Consider who your sales team is talking to. Research the data your business has to find out more about your audience. Ask yourself:

• What demographic is visiting my website currently?
• Does my desired demographic use Facebook?
• What is their job title?
• Which hobbies or topics interest them?
• Where is their geographic location?

After you’ve found the data to answer these questions, you can use Facebook ads manager to build a target audience for your ad campaign. But it’s important to do this step first so that you can make sure you write ad copy tailored to your actual audience.

2. Write Short & Simple Content

 Some advertisements can break this rule, but at the beginning of your advertising campaign, you should write content to fit the character limits so your text isn’t cut off and users can see it all at once. Facebook ad character limits are:

• 25 characters for a headline
• 30 characters for a link description
• 125 characters for ad copy (primary text)

This is where good writing comes into play. Follow the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Smartie) principle. Write simply and use language your audience understands. Don’t use big words or try to impress them with industry jargon.  Think about what pain points trigger your audience emotionally, lead with that, and present your brand as the solution. The headline is a great place to hook them, the link description shows the solution, and the main ad copy is where you do your persuading. 

3. Always Choose A Call To Action (CTA) To Match Your Strategy

You probably already have a CTA in mind as you’re writing, but it’s worth devoting a section talking about this. Since you’re just beginning Facebook advertising, you’re still in the reach or interest phase, so one of your better CTA options is to encourage people to “Learn More.” As you move further along in your social media strategy, then you can begin experimenting with other CTAs. 

4. Make Sure Your Copy Matches Your Visual

If your ad campaign doesn’t look cohesive, it’s a huge turn-off for Facebook users. Social platforms are heavily visual and people have come to expect clear, high-quality images. If your photo is distorted, blurry, or too posed, you won’t see good engagement from your ad campaign.  Thankfully you don’t have to be a design expert to figure out how to optimize the visual part of your ad. Facebook provides straightforward visual guidelines about what looks optimal in an ad. Plus if you’re pulling stock images from a provider like Shutterstock or Adobe, you can feel confident they’ll be good quality for social.

Need Some Inspiration? As you begin to draft a campaign, here’s a compilation of some great Facebook ad copy examples to get you started. There’s also a great breakdown for each one detailing what they did right in the ad copy and the visuals used. And while we recommend starting with image-based ads when you’re new, eventually you’ll want to look into exploring other types of Facebook ads (video, carousel, etc.) to see what resonates with your audience. 

Measuring Your Facebook Ad Results

It’s easy to fall into basing your assessment around vanity metrics, such as likes or comments, but those aren’t the best criteria to base your conclusions on. The way you measure success depends on the goal of your ad campaign. However, here are some metrics to keep in mind as you start your advertising.

Ad Frequency

Ad frequency shows how many times Facebook users saw your ad. If you’re trying to increase brand awareness, you likely want your frequency to be around 3-4 times. 

However, if you’re at the stage where you’re trying to convert users, it’s better to keep that frequency number low. Otherwise, you risk annoying users with a very direct ad they don’t have an interest in.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC) or Cost-Per-Result (CPR)

Facebook either charges you per impression or per click, depending on which option you choose. If you’re just starting out, cost-per-click is a more budget-friendly option. 

Just don’t be startled, as your CPC or CPR may initially be high. One way to gauge your ad’s success is if that dollar amount starts decreasing over its run time. Generally, you want your Facebook ad’s click-through rate to be $2 or under. If it’s not, you’ll want to try adjusting your campaign’s targeting, copy, or run time, depending on what you think is driving the high cost.

Reach & Results

When you’re starting social ads, this metric can show you how many different people are seeing your ad. Initially, you want to see a large reach to raise brand awareness. 

Over time, the goal is to eliminate any waste in your reach, such as people in the wrong location seeing your ads or demographics that aren’t a good fit. From there, you want to see your number of results increase compared to your previous campaigns. 

Your results will be different depending on what Facebook objective you use while setting up your ad. In the beginning stage of R.I.C.E., the traffic objective works well to see how many new users are visiting your website. 

Over time, you’ll also want to branch out from the metrics above. Always make sure you’re measuring the metrics that best indicate success according to the goal of your ad, which could be anything from brand awareness to webinar signups.

Create A Holistic Social Media Strategy

Above all else, make sure that your Facebook advertising fits into your goals for social media marketing, especially if you’re active on other platforms. It’s important to make sure your brand is consistent across all platforms.

Plus, you want to make sure your marketing efforts are achieving your business goals. Check out this blog for advice on how you can create your own social media strategy from scratch.

If you’ve been asking yourself whether your B2B business should have an account on Pinterest, the truth is there is no clear cut answer. It all depends.

Pinterest was the fourth most used platform at the end of 2019 so there’s clearly a huge audience to reach through marketing. It’s also worth noting that:

• Pinterest grew its active user base by 26% from 2019 to 2020.
• 71% of Pinterest users are female and 29% are male

There’s a lot of potential on this platform, but don’t rush to create a business account just yet. Start with research to gauge if you have any target audiences on the platform.

Navigating Pinterest marketing in regards to your business can be overwhelming, especially if you haven’t spent much time on it. Doing B2B marketing on Pinterest is definitely valuable for some businesses, but for others, it’s not an effective choice.

This blog will explore what a strong Pinterest marketing strategy looks like and show examples of successful B2B companies using Pinterest effectively. We’ll also provide you with a free, Pinterest SWOT resource that can help you start figuring out if and how you can leverage Pinterest to grow your business.

B2B Pinterest Marketing Strategy

Content is your business’ currency on any social media platform. Before you even start B2B marketing on Pinterest, you need to first make sure you have high-quality content. This is what makes your target audience want to follow and interact with you.

Why is this step important? Some people may use Pinterest to follow friends, but most use Pinterest to find the information they’re interested in. And that information can be anything returned from their search, from sponsored ads to organic pins promoting blogs, videos, and other content. Your audience’s search behavior is the key to your success on Pinterest.

You can’t reap the benefits of Pinterest marketing if you’re only ever pinning content made by others. Make something of your own that’s also worth sharing.

Organic Vs. Paid Distribution on Pinterest

After you have your content resources, it’s time to strategize how social media accounts, like Pinterest, can be used as a content marketing distribution channel. Pinterest B2B marketing is most effective with a plan that uses both organic (aka unpaid) and paid posting. Both are valuable methods for growing your followers and reaching new potential customers.

Organic Pinterest Pins

Anyone creating a pin on Pinterest, including B2B companies, should first read through Pinterest’s guide to creating great pins. It’s full of great tips to help you understand how you can choose or create the best images for your pins. It also has tips for optimizing your text, incorporating your logo, and branding your posts. Pinterest also has extensive resources to help you learn the ins and outs of creating boards, pinning, and more on its platform. Like any social media account, your organic posting will get very little engagement in the beginning. Don’t be discouraged though, as with time and a willingness to experiment you will learn what tactics work to increase your followers.

Organic Pins & Search Engine Optimization

One way you can help your organic pins is to incorporate an SEO keyword strategy in the pin that you are writing directly on Pinterest or even on your account page. You don’t need to have any fancy SEO tools to do so (although they do make it easier). Start by searching to find keywords related to your B2B business, industry, or product. See what competitors are using in their pins if possible, and look at what Pinterest is suggesting in its search bar as you start typing. From there, gather a list and decide what phrases you want to use. Doing this makes your unpaid pins easier to find through search on the platform.

Paid Pinterest Pins

Once you’ve created an organic posting plan, it’s essential that you also set aside money and make use of paid advertising on Pinterest. By the end of 2019, Pinterest recorded having 320 million active users monthly, with 58% of those users saying they used it to make shopping decisions. The problem is that with algorithms and other factors, it’s difficult to target the users you want to reach solely by posting unpaid content. But with paid ads on Pinterest, you can expand your visibility much more quickly. By paying to boost a pin, you can choose specific targeting in regards to location, gender, age, interests, languages, keywords, and more. Because of that, your content is more likely to reach people who are interested in it. And one of the awesome benefits of Pinterest marketing is that users can save your paid pin just like they can save a regular pin. This is a great way to see what content your audience is finding valuable. Best of all, long after your paid post ends, the people who saved it can still go back and reference it. This gives your advertising a longer lifespan than it has on other popular platforms.

So, Does Pinterest Work for B2B Businesses?

The answer is both yes and no. The key to making Pinterest work for B2B marketing is to do your research and curate content to align with the data.
Find out what audiences are on Pinterest and how they intersect with your customer demographics. Then figure out what angle you need to take to interest those audiences and engage with them on Pinterest. Building that relationship, brand awareness, and authoritative voice is what can give you an advantage when they’re ready to buy.

There are plenty of blogs on best practices for creating a Pinterest business account and managing it. But when it comes to B2B marketing on Pinterest, it’s more valuable to look at real-life examples of companies who are and aren’t doing it successfully. That way if you decide to get on Pinterest, you have examples of strategies that are actually working for other B2B groups.

Examples of Poor Pinterest B2B Marketing

When it comes to finding B2B Pinterest examples of companies who aren’t successful, it’s actually quite difficult. Part of it is that no one wants to talk about when Pinterest marketing isn’t effective. The other issue is that their account is doing so poorly it’s hard to find through search. However, there are some valuable lessons that can be learned from studying their profiles and content. Below are two B2B companies that definitely have the potential to increase their business through Pinterest marketing, but currently aren’t doing a stellar job. I’ll dive into some main takeaways below for each, but check out the link to their accounts and have a look for yourself.

HubSpot Creative’s Pinterest

HubSpot is recognized as a leader in marketing, sales, and customer service software, so you may be surprised to see they’re on Pinterest. But a segment of their business, HubSpot Creative, actually has an account geared towards people interested in marketing and design. This should be a great fit given the visual, creative nature of Pinterest. The problem? They only have around 400+ followers. And for a company with such high brand recognition in its field, that’s not enough to make an impact. Let’s break down their account. What did they do well?

• They create well-organized topic boards.
• Their account uses high-quality images.
• All pins are clearly and consistently branded.

Where do they struggle?

• Their only in-house content is team updates.
• Some of the content is great to view but offers nothing beyond the image.
• The account leads to a Tumblr page instead of their main website, creating a credibility issue.

Staples NAD’s Pinterest

You also might be surprised to learn that Staples has an account geared towards its B2B customers. And while it’s not a bad account, it’s not performing like a competitor (Office Depot) that I’ll cover below. The account only has 64 monthly views, and after gauging their competition, that’s a low number for their level of name recognition. What did they do well?

• Their account is verified, adding to its credibility.
• Pins are being used to distribute their online Work Life Magazine.
• Imagery is branded, attractive, and good quality.

Where do they struggle?

• They only have one board with a handful of pins.
• Pins are only their content, while it’s best to have a mix of your pins and external content.
• They lack diverse content, as it’s all online articles.

There are some recurring lessons from both of these examples. Pitfalls you should avoid for B2B marketing on Pinterest include:

• Only pinning your own content
• Not having your own content
• Not having enough boards
• Not establishing your credibility either by verifying your account or linking to the right website

Examples of Successful B2B Companies on Pinterest

Starting to ask yourself again if effective Pinterest B2B marketing is actually possible? While we showed where it can fail above — the answer is still YES!
Below are two B2B companies doing a killer job – and some honorable mentions that didn’t make this list, including FireRock’s Pinterest and Survey Monkey’s Pinterest. If you have some free time, it’s worth studying their accounts to see how both are leveraging this platform well.

Office Depot’s Pinterest

So above we saw a competitor, Staples NAD, engaging around 60+ views monthly. However, Office Depot is tapping into 7 million monthly views. Businesses are familiar with both suppliers and both are well-recognized brands. And they’d be engaging similar audiences on Pinterest. So why is Office Depot doing so much better?

Here are some factors playing in their success:

• Their account is verified, making it more credible.
• Written content makes use of SEO keywords and hashtags so it can perform well in search.
• The pins and content target Pinterest’s main audience demographic – women! (The majority of Pinterest users are women.)
• Branding on their images is very well-done.
• They mix up the use of images and short, eye-catching videos.
• Their content includes blogs, videos, and product spotlights, all tastefully done and diverse.

It’s exciting to see how they’ve embraced the platform and earned a great ROI as a result. They’re actively engaging millions of users every month. It’s easy to think that pens and office supplies aren’t exciting and therefore they can’t get away with B2B marketing on Pinterest — but Office Depot is doing it.

Ultimately, they realized the opportunity on Pinterest and angled their approach accordingly. They pivoted from just “selling businesses supplies” to designing a narrative. Their popular messaging includes designing your dream office and creating a picture-perfect business space to work in, which they subtly suggest starts with their supplies.

IBM’s Pinterest

So maybe you think office supplies are fun, and it makes sense to you that they can market on Pinterest. But business technology giant IBM is doing it, too. Their account has over 129,500 views monthly. So how is this B2B company performing so well?

Here are a few details worth calling attention to:

• Their account is verified, giving it that sense of credibility.
• They have diverse boards with different targeted interests like cooking, geeky tech gifts, tech in sports, tech in fashion, and much more.
• They do a great job creating a lot of women-focused content to tap into that specific audience. (Over 5,000 users follow their women in tech board.)
• The content is diverse, including blogs, old IBM photos, infographics, and cross-promoting other people’s content.
• All branding is clear and consistent.

What’s interesting here is just how good IBM is at targeting not just their audience, but who they think is on Pinterest that could potentially be their B2B client. They target tech people who love history using iconic IBM photos. They target a niche community interested in fun technology incorporated in gifts, sports, and fashion. And their targeting of professional women is also a smart move.

Encouraging women in STEM fields is a social push — but IBM has recognized it’s also a rising audience. This group is highly active on social media, so IBM has curated content around that topic. This is a smart move because it will tap into women in the field now, and the next generation of women in tech who are vocal online.

The Advantages of Pinterest Over Facebook or Instagram

It’s a no brainer for businesses to be active on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. But when it comes to Pinterest, it’s often a question mark for B2B companies. Here’s an overview of Pinterest user facts to persuade you that it holds value:

• The majority of Pinterest users are between ages 30 – 49.
• Around ⅓ of users admitted to using Pinterest to follow brands.
• About 6 out of 10 Millennials use it specifically to discover products.
• Only 28% of marketers worldwide use it for marketing.

As millennials in the workforce are aging, they’re gaining more responsibility, including purchasing power within their job. It’s interesting to note that they are the majority of Pinterest users and that many of them will use it for product discovery. And, we know from data that users on Pinterest are more willing to buy products compared to users of other social media platforms. That paired with the fact that only around a quarter of marketers use the platform shows a HUGE opportunity. If you find that your B2B company’s products or services can align with audiences on Pinterest, it opens the window to reach audiences that aren’t inundated with marketing. The key is taking advantage of organic and paid posts, while also figuring out the best way to present content. Native advertising is certainly a part of how B2B companies find success on the platform.

How B2B Marketing on Pinterest Can Grow Your Business

Now that you’ve seen the good and the bad, it’s time to figure out if Pinterest can actually grow your business. We’ve put together a Pinterest SWOT exercise you can use to ask some key questions to lead you to either create an account or disregard the platform.

Download & Print the Pinterest SWOT Template

It’s possible to use B2B marketing on Pinterest to grow your business, but you need to make sure it fits into your social media plan. And if you don’t have one, then it’s wise to start first by creating a social media strategy for your business.

At the end of the day, your success on Pinterest will be contingent on your willingness to put time into creating and sharing good content, analyzing data, and being flexible enough to adjust your strategy to find what tactics work.

Are you familiar with network marketing? Let me ask you this instead — are you familiar with a distant cousin, an old co-worker, or that girl from high school who you haven’t spoken to in 20 years flooding your social media feeds with sales pitches for weight loss programs, chemical-free cleaning products, or essential oils?  Does the phrase “Ask me how!” haunt your dreams? If so, you’re more familiar with network marketing than you thought.

What is Network Marketing?

Network marketing is also referred to as multi-level marketing (MLM) and it describes a business model where growth depends on a network of independent business owners who sell products while also recruiting other participants. Independent business owners sell products through in-home or “online” shows hosted by friends and family, or by using social media to spread their message and drive sales to a much wider audience.

To become an independent business owner, there is often an upfront cost, sometimes thousands of dollars, to buy product samples or build product inventory that can be used in the sales process. Business owners earn money through a percentage of their sales and bonuses from reaching monthly goals. They receive additional incentives for recruiting other business owners and then earn a percentage of their recruits’ sales (and the sales of every recruit that fall under them).

Examples of Network Marketing Companies

Network marketing companies have been around for decades. They sell everything from vitamins, household cleaning products, food and cooking tools, clothing, skincare regimes, and weight loss programs.

Some of the oldest names you might recognize include:

• Avon
• Mary Kay
• Tupperware
• Amway
• Pampered Chef
• Longaberger
• Tastefully Simple

But new multi-level marketing companies are still debuting. More currently, you may have started to notice some of these names:

• Beachbody
• LuLaRoe
• Arbonne
• doTerra
• Plexus
• Monat

The very latest MLM companies are now entering the world of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Working with these companies, independent business owners sell a variety of digital products and then their commission is paid to them in bitcoin.

Network Marketing’s Bad Reputation

Now perhaps, you’ve been reading along and you’re thinking “oh, right, pyramid schemes!”  Well, yes, and no. Network marketing companies earned the bad reputation of being tied to pyramid schemes and sometimes they are, but not always.

These multi-level tactics are a legitimate business practice when products are sold to end-users outside of the company.  Money is exchanged for goods or a service, and all is on the up-and-up.

Problems arise when the business model puts more emphasis on recruiting new members, and most revenue is made from selling starter packs and goods to “owners” within the company. The fact that business owners earn money based on the sales of their recruits and everyone beneath them can be seen as controversial.

What You Can Learn from Network Marketing

While network marketing’s bad reputation is well-earned, there are some things they do well and marketing tactics that we can learn from them — and improve upon!

Social Media Marketing

As network marketing reaches a new generation, business owners are using new tools to grow sales and recruitment. More specifically, they have harnessed the power of social media to widen their audience. But while MLM participants bombard their entire list of (unsuspecting) social media followers with repetitive sales pitches, social media marketing is much more finessed.

Doing social media marketing for your company is a great way to connect with users and create a two-way conversation (this is the part that most network marketing agents miss). Your first step is to build a targeted audience of followers who fit the persona of your company and show a genuine interest in the products and lifestyle that your brand serves.

From there, don’t cram products and discount codes in their face day after day. Social media is a platform where you should be informing, entertaining, and engaging, not only selling. Follow an 80/20 rule with social media posts — 80% on sharing content and 20% on selling your product.

Influencer Marketing

Many network marketing companies employ celebrity endorsers to promote their products. A famous face can make their products appear more well-respected and allow them to reach a wider audience among celebrities’ followers. MLM celebrity endorsers include Warren Buffet, Sir Richard Branson, Dr. Oz, Madeline Albright, Cristiano Ronaldo, Chuck Norris, and Hulk Hogan.

Influencers can play a big role in carrying your brand message to a new audience, but you need to approach influencer marketing wisely. It might be tempting to approach a big name celebrity with hundreds of thousands of followers, but you need to look beyond the number. Nevermind the fact that social media followers can easily be purchased, you want to be sure the influencer and his/her audience are a natural fit to your brand or the message may be wasted. For example, you’d partner with a survival expert if you sell camping backpacks, but you wouldn’t partner with a fashion blogger if you sell lawn fertilizers.

Affiliate Marketing

There is often some confusion between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing.  Here’s a quick breakdown: influencers are paid an upfront fee to promote a product, while affiliates are paid a percentage of the sales that come in from a link they share with their followers.  Influencer marketing is very similar to how network marketing business owners make a portion of their income.

With an affiliate marketing campaign, you’ll have a team of people selling for you.  Typically, you share your product or service with popular bloggers or social media influencers free of charge. In return, they create content about their experience with your brand, whether it’s a blog post, Instagram story, or social media post. They then provide a link for their followers to your website. The affiliate would earn a percentage of any sales made through their affiliate link. Affiliate marketing is a great way to circulate user testimonials and user-generated content about your brand to a wide audience.

It’s that time of year again! The holidays are right around the corner, which means eCommerce businesses should be gearing up for one of their biggest online shopping days of the year: Cyber Monday. If you’re wondering whether or not you should focus on marketing for Cyber Monday, take a look at how last year’s Cyber Monday performed, the predictions for this year, and tips on creating Cyber Monday marketing strategies that will boost your profits!

Cyber Monday Statistics & Predictions

How Cyber Monday Performed in 2017

Over the past few years, Cyber Monday has become one of the largest sources of revenue for businesses. Here are a few of the statistics that were generated based on last year’s data:

• Online transactions reached a staggering $6.59 billion, a 16.8% increase from 2016.
• Mobile sales reached $2 billion in 24 hours.
• Cyber Monday 2017 topped the charts and was proclaimed the largest U.S. online shopping day ever.
• Millennials spent an average of $419.52 per person, which is 25% more than average customers in other demographic groups.

Predictions for Cyber Monday 2018

Now that you have seen how successful last year’s Cyber Monday truly was, it’s time to look at the possibilities for this year! Marketing experts in the field have predicted the following based on data and trends from previous Cyber Mondays:

• Businesses will be providing a wealth of exclusive promo codes for site-wide discounts and free shipping on their products.
• Product sales will be announced right before the holiday or incrementally throughout the day on Cyber Monday, helping to provoke a sense of urgency from customers.
• Cyber Monday will generate more revenue than its in-store competitor holiday, Black Friday.
• Some online eCommerce businesses may begin their Cyber Monday sales on Saturday or Sunday to help increase sales under the guise of “Cyber Weekend” or “Cyber Sunday.”
• Voice-driven shopping with digital home assistants like the Amazon Alexa or Google Home will make a presence this year, though it will be a small sliver of online shopping.

Cyber Monday Marketing Strategies

So, are you ready to get going on your Cyber Monday marketing strategy? We’ve compiled a full list of ideas to help you make the most of the eCommerce holiday.

Step Up Your Social Game

Consumers will be bombarded with deals around the holiday, so it’s important to stay on top of your social posting to make sure your target audience doesn’t miss out or forget about your sales. Here are a few ways you can engage with your consumers:

• Offer a Giveaway — Who doesn’t love free products or gift cards? Entice your users and reward them for posting about your brand or products or using a specific hashtag associated with your Cyber Monday campaign.
• Collaborate with Other Businesses & Organizations — Extend your business’s reach while supporting other local, small businesses and organizations by working together to promote one another. Not only does this help to establish a sense of community, but you may also be able to pull in an audience that wouldn’t have heard about your brand otherwise.
• Use Influencer Marketing — Putting a face to your social media channels can drive engagement, foster authenticity, and broaden your network. Have a micro-influencer takeover your account for a day or throughout your campaign to showcase your new products or items that are currently on sale.

Check out a few examples of how businesses can use social to garner engagement during Cyber Monday:

Enhance Your Cyber Monday Email Marketing

Email marketing sees some of the greatest conversion rates for Cyber Monday deals. In fact, 24% of traffic directed to eCommerce sites on Cyber Monday in 2017 came from marketing emails. Here are a few tactics you could try:

• Provide Exclusive Deals to Current Customers — Reward your current customer base for being loyal to your brand! Send them promotions or coupon codes before your Cyber Monday sales begin to instill a sense of excitement.
• Target Your Highest-Converting Audience — Take some time to look into your website’s analytics. To gain the most conversions to your site with your Cyber Monday email marketing strategy, cater your messages to them.
• Create a Gift Guide — Give your email subscribers the inside scoop by letting them know about some of the deals you’ll be offering during the sale. Show them how some of your products would make great gifts.
• Set Up Exclusive, Email-Only Deals — Provide your subscribers a real, VIP treatment by offering them coupons and promo codes that only email subscribers will receive.

Offer More Than Free Shipping

Since a majority of online retailers offer free shipping, you’ll want to set your business apart by providing your customers with something more. You can still entice new customers with free shipping, but you can also one-up your competition by offering a bonus gift with orders or letting customers know that you’ll be donating a portion of your Cyber Monday sales to charity.

If your business isn’t able to offer more than free shipping, it’s important to guarantee your shipment and delivery times. Reassure your customers that their order will be delivered in a timely manner and that they’ll receive it well before Christmas. This is especially vital for customers who are solely shopping on Cyber Monday for gifts for their loved ones.

Extend Your Cyber Sales

One other Cyber Monday marketing strategy is to extend your sales an entire week. This gives your customers more time to shop your online store and find all of the items they want. You can incorporate flash sales to motivate buyers to make purchasing decisions throughout the entire week, helping to promote even more sales.