Kirsten McNeill is a Coordinator on the Content & Community team at Social Media Group.

Pinterest’s popularity has grown exponentially in the past six months, leaving marketers hunting for strategic ways to get involved. Pinterest is a natural fit with obvious tie-ins for clothing retailers and home décor brands. Brands such as Real Simple, West Elm, and HGTV have done a fantastic job with their presence on Pinterest. The link is less obvious for B2B companies, although this doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity!

Pinterest can work for B2Bs as a way to build credibility and share industry trends and data. Companies can share infographics, charts or whitepapers on Pinterest, as they are great visual content pieces. Companies can also share and re-pin others’ infographics, whitepapers etc. because it will keep the profile community-based and not just a promotion center. No one wants to follow a company that strictly advertises itself. Bringing together industry data in one spot will help brands to develop relationships with the pinning community interested in a specific industry. Another more social way to share industry related content is to create a board dedicated to images and videos from corporate events or conferences, as Conduit has done with their “Conduit Conferences” board.

Companies and organizations can also use Pinterest to share their company story, personality and culture by pinning images and team bios to show the human side of the organization. (Check out Constant Contact’s “Life at Constant Contact” board to see an example of this).

Pinterest also provides a great way to share customer success stories and testimonials. One business doing a great job of this is HubSpot with their “I HubSpot Because…” board where they have created shareable images out of testimonials and quotes.

As with any new platform, there are some important questions to consider before jumping on the Pinterest-wagon:

• Why are you interested in making Pinterest a part of your social strategy?
• Is your target market using Pinterest?
• Do you have visual content on your site worth sharing and, if not, are you willing to dedicate time, money and resources towards creating content?

Are you a B2B on Pinterest? Let us know how you are getting involved.