While you’re likely familiar with the Pinterest app and web site…did you know that there’s a Pinterest Business Community (PBC) too?
This community is a space for businesses, merchants and creators to share best practices, connect, and find support and resources to improve their brand or business.
What I love:
The Spotlight. Not only does this highlight community members, but it’s also an area of inspiration! How can you not feel inspired after reading these success stories? I would imagine that this area would also be helpful to anyone who might work in sales for Pinterest so they could show off these incredible stories. I hope Marketing is taking notice as well for potential case studies and testimonials. Also, I love that one of these Spotlights is featured on the community’s home page.
A robust Product section. You know what truly thrilled me in this section? The number of views on each post in the Product FAQ page. That tells me this is COVETED INFORMATION.
Phased approach to adding Creators. I admit that I only know this because of my past work with Pinterest*. Let me back up for a second…when this community launched, it was only serving the business audience at that time. The community team carefully thought through the execution of this space and determined that they would launch with one audience at first, and then eventually open the community up to Creators and more audiences. This was a smart move because it allowed for focus on one business audience as the community was building awareness and content. It also allowed the community team to get situated operationally. All of this contributed to a smooth and successful roll-out when Creators were eventually invited to be part of the space.
My wish list:
An idea exchange. With the high view count on each of the posts in the Product FAQ section, this might be an indicator that their users are eager for more product information, or opportunities to interact with the product team. (The community team will need to review other metrics to confirm this.) While an idea exchange requires a lot of planning and workflow on the back end, it’s an incredibly rewarding benefit to community users AND to the brand.
A more vibrant home page. It’s hard for me to say that since today’s home page is absolutely beautiful, but it’s missing a few key things I look for right away in a community: signs of life and volume. I get somewhat of a sense for signs of life by viewing the conversation feed, though I wish it were higher up the page. I don’t get any sense necessarily of the amount of volume (content) in this community. There’s TONS of value waiting to be discovered!
Link to Community. It looks like this site is the all-in-one-stop for anyone who wants to advertise with Pinterest. I’d love to see Community listed as an option in the Resources menu. That would be huge for awareness and referral traffic.
*Full disclosure: I have previously worked with this community, however, I was not asked to publish this post nor were they aware I was going to.
What do YOU think of the Pinterest Business Community? If you’re reading this in your inbox, just hit reply to send me your response privately. If you’d like to share publicly, scroll to the comments section below (or, again, if you’re reading this in your inbox, click on the title at the top of the email. Then, scroll down to the comments section.)
This is part of a weekly series where I’ll select a community I’m inspired by and write about it. Sometimes they’ll be ones that I’m a member of. Sometimes they won’t. Sometimes they’ll be clients. Sometimes they won’t. Each post will share what I enjoy the most about that community, and if you’re familiar with it, I hope you’ll share what you like about it, too.
Do you have a nominee for Community of the Week? If so, send me a brief email with the name, URL, and a few sentences as to why I should highlight it and check it out.
Find Calm Creating Your Community Strategy
Many thanks to Deb Schell for having me on her podcast, Find Calm Here, to discuss many facets of community strategy, including how I got into the field. Click the image below to hear the episode.
#100DaysofCommunity
Are you participating?! Check it out.