Small Business B2B Marketing Blog

Small Business B2B Marketing Using Pinterest, YouTube & Instagram

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MyMarketingDept. Inc on

Pinterest, YouTube & Instagram Using
Small Business Social Media B2B Marketing.

Our goal in this series on social media small business marketing was to add to the knowledge and understanding on how social media could augment your marketing communications efforts.

To recap, our series see below:

1. Social Media Basics for Small Business Marketing
   
   
2. Social Media Six Small Business Best Practices
   
   
3. How To Create Your Small Business Social Media B2B Marketing Plan
   
   
4. How To Market Your Small Business with Facebook
   
   
5. Twitter - Small Business B2B Marketing Tool
   
   
6. LinkedIn Small Business B2B Marketing
   
   
7. How to Use Blogging to Boost Small Business Sales
   
   
8. And Today’s Blog…Marketing Small Business Using Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram

When you think of the word ‘social,’ what comes to mind?

• An ice cream social
• A church social
• Social Science
• Socializing
• Social Butterfly
• What else would you add?

Social, by definition, includes human interaction typically geared toward pleasure of some sort.  Pleasure, by definition, typically involves our feel good emotions.  So it’s no surprise to discover at this point that our remaining major social media platforms include images – pictures. Yes, a picture paints a thousand words.  Easier to convey a deeply meaningful message, one that breaks through resistance and connects at the hearts, minds, needs and desires of your target market with an image. 

Pinterest

A social media platform based solely on images Pinterest users upload images and videos of things that they like. They ‘pin’ them on their own and other’s Pinboards. Pinterest, a new social media platform arriving in late 2011 already surpasses the traffic generation many of the best known social media platforms.  Are image communications more powerful than written communications?

Using images becomes a challenge for small business B2B firms where your product or service offering typically doesn’t include visual content.  To get started on Pinterest, Hubspot.com suggests using:

• The Images You Already Have.  Have you had a recent ‘social’ event?  Perhaps an open house or a photo-shoot for marketing material?   Have you had photographs created for your staff?   Or …. Just as good or better, pictures of your brand new puppy?  It’s all appropriate for your Pinboard!

• Pictures from Your Blog Posts.  As you begin to use blogging as social media, search out relevant images to include in your posts.  Then take a moment to also add the images to your Pinboard.
  

• Info-graphics & Data Charts.  What’s trending in your industry?   What sorts of charts and analytics do you use?   Are there specific excel worksheets that your audience finds helpful?  By all means pin all of these. 
  

What do the two HUGE brands Mashable.com and General Electric have in common?  GE has a board specifically dedicated to its “Badass Machines” (remember to keep it real), and how they help us to build, power and cure the world.  And the media giant Mashable.com, dedicated to covering social media, digital culture, and technology, showcases the gadgets and info-graphics it reports on every day.

YouTube

With over 20 million viewers per month, your audience may likely congregate here, too.  What was the last video you watched?   In addition to entertainment and music videos, ‘how to’ videos and ‘who we are’ videos rank highly.   If you think that you need a huge production budget, think again.  Technology.inc.com explains that a $300 camera and a decent external microphone can be sufficient for most people’s needs. Take some time to look around YouTube and see how easy creating your own video, or better still, start your own YouTube channel.

Instagram

Given the privacy policy changes announced by Instagram we cannot recommend this social media platform.

Takeaway
The primary keys to using social media successfully in your small business marketing are:

1. Make a Plan - set realistic goals
2. Mange Time – decide who is going to what, when and how often
3. Find Your Audience - then select one platform to start with
4. Add Platforms -  that are relevant to your audience
5. Understand Success Horizon - long term marketing solution a year or more

Need help in building an executing your small business social media B2B marketing efforts contact us.

Sources:

http://blog.hubspot.com/Portals/249/docs/ebooks/howtousepinterestforbusiness.pdf

http://technology.inc.com/2008/08/01/marketing-your-business-on-youtube/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224799#

http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223310