You want to move beyond posting words to your social media followers…but you’re not quite ready to produce videos. That means it’s time to get involved in visual social content, which includes photos, images, and infographics. This kind of content is very compelling and shareable, and will open up your online marketing, branding, or recruiting efforts to a whole new audience. And the places to start are Pinterest and Instagram.
Here are a few reasons why: With an estimated 40 million monthly active users and 30 billion pins, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Twitter, Reddit, and StumbleUpon combined. Instagram, now owned by Facebook, has an estimated 180 million monthly active users. Instagram sees 1,000 comments per second and 8,500 likes per second on its content in total.
What’s the difference?
Pinterest lets you organize images into boards. You can then arrange the boards on your main Pinterest page, so that “Halloween cookie recipes” is only prominent at the right time of year. Besides uploading your own photos, you can “pin” images from anywhere on the web, or “repin” images that you find on Pinterest. So some popular images, like the famous garlic cheesy bread, show up multiple times in a Pinterest search — and it can be hard to tell who created or posted the original image.
Instagram currently has no way to to organize photos. It’s meant for mobile, with users taking pictures, editing them with filters, and uploading them to their personal profiles. With no folders or categories, users classify and describe their images with lots of hashtags; we have Instagram to thank for the popularity of the word “selfie” for just that reason. Since it’s a constant stream of content accompanied by hashtags, you can think of Instagram as a sort of visual Twitter.
With some exceptions, Instagram is mostly based on your own images, photos you take with your phone and upload with the Instagram app. Pinterest allows you to share others’ images along with whatever content you produce.
Pinterest best practices
First, be sure to verify your company website by adding code from Pinterest onto it. This will give you access to the site’s free analytics. You should also embed “share” or “pin it” buttons into all your site’s visual content, to make it easy for your fans to share it on Pinterest. Then you’re letting them do your marketing for you!
Internet marketer Fannit has found that the best times to post on Pinterest are weekdays from 2 to 4 pm and 8 to 11 pm, along with Saturday mornings.
It helps to pin the types of images that get the most attention. The three most popular categories on Pinterest are Food and Drink, DIY and Crafts, and Home Decor. However, different categories are popular on different days: Monday’s most popular category is Fitness, while Travel wins Saturdays. Meanwhile, Pinterest itself claims that its fastest-growing category is Humor. Combine these findings with peak posting times to give your images the best chance of being seen and shared.
Follow the example of…
Nordstrom. As of May 2014, they’re the most followed brand on Pinterest. With 67 boards, they have something for everyone, from “Back to School” to “Great Gifts” to a board devoted to products in “The Color of the Year – Radiant Orchid.” The retailer goes one step further by offering free shipping on their most-pinned items. Nordstrom even takes Pinterest into the real world, physically tagging their most pinned products in their retail stores.
Instagram best practices
Obviously the best Instagram content is simply compelling photos, with or without the many artistic filters the app provides. But the way users find those images is through the hashtags you attach to them.
Positive content, without commentary, rules the day at Instagram. According to Webstagram, the top hashtags include cute(#6), happy (#10), beautiful (#11), and#fun (#17). This is probably because the app started as a way for people to share photos, which generally show happy events like vacations. Now brands can take advantage of this environment by posting images that are fun, cool, or quirky — whether it’s a silly sign or a pretty sunset or an employee party.
You can have many hashtags, so it’s safe to tag a photo with #yourcompany, #yourproduct, #yourtagline, and then multiple descriptive terms like #summer or #nyc.
Instagram’s basic, free version has few frills; you just take a photo, describe it with hashtags, add a filter, and upload it. Everything takes place on your phone. But there are a few tools that make this process both easier and more robust. Repost is an app that lets you share others’ photos on Instagram while giving credit to the original Instagramer — think of it like a Twitter retweet or a Facebook share. Picdeck brings Instagram to your computer with a Tweetdeck-like dashboard, so you can monitor multiple feeds and hashtags. You can’t post from Picdeck — that still requires your phone — but it’s great for searching images.
Follow the example of…
Nike. Nearly 6 million Instagram users follow their stream, which showcases beautiful images of sports, health, and fitness. The expected photos of pro athletes are actually a rarity here, in favor of artistic shots, like this image of a boy facing his fears before diving into a pool. There are plenty of pictures that appeal to non-sports fans, like this great shot of a lone rower in Rio. These photos go beyond promotional to become inspirational — and thus more shareable.
Picture-perfect
These basic tips will help you get started with either or both of the two most popular visual social sites. People love to share photos, so be sure to integrate Instagram and Pinterest with your website, blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, so your customers and fans will have greater access to them. And get ready for your social channels to brighten up with lots of fun images — and a lot more interactions.
Jason Ginsburg is Director of Interactive Branding at Brandemix.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
