For this year’s back-to-school season, TOMS launched a contest aimed at increasing engagement on Pinterest.
#TOMS Give Back-to-School encouraged people to create a pinboard and pin their favorite outfits using only items found on the TOMS website.
While primarily known for shoes, TOMS wanted people to see they could wear the brand from head to toe.
To compete for the $500 TOMS gift certificate, pinners created a special board for the contest and tagged every pin with “#TOMS Give Back-to-School.”
TOMS scored huge brand awareness and sales during the contest as pinners posted beautiful pictures that spread across their personal networks.
The TOMS campaign shows the expanding influence of visual social media sites, and in the coming years, more brands will take part in this growing trend.
Pinterest has more than 70 million users, which may not seem like a lot compared to the billions at Facebook, but, unlike users of other social media sites, Pinterest users become more active over time, not less.
This makes sense when you think about the draw of pictures.
The Internet is overloaded with text, with every company in the world creating text-heavy blog posts.
With so much to read, people are looking for simpler media to consume.
Pictures are processed more quickly and remembered longer. They can also tell your brand’s story more effectively than 1,000-word blog posts.
(Hence: A picture is worth more than 1,000 words.)
When it comes to social media, posts with images get 39 percent more engagement than other posts.
And, in some inexplicable way, it’s been proven that users will not only remember your picture, but they’ll also associate your brand with similar pictures in a different context.
That’s reach you could never get with words alone.
Customers also love images because they’re editable. Everyone wants to express himself, and when users can share a brand’s content but also make it their own, it’s a win-win.
So, how do you make like Pinterest and take advantage of the benefits of visual?
Like all other content, visual sites such as Instagram and Pinterest require some strategic thinking and a well-executed plan.
One of the worst things brands can do is throw up mediocre images, hoping to draw attention.
Here are some important steps for brands to take when crafting a visual social media strategy.
The rise of Pinterest and Instagram is undeniable, and more brands are beginning to realize the power of images in marketing.
Winning brands will be the ones that create the best and most compelling visual social media strategies that engage all kinds of users.
The author of this piece is Carol Scott. Carol is the director of marketing at Mattr, a platform that uses a unique mix of personality data and demographics to help marketers discover what really appeals to their audiences.