In our new series, we look at how B2B brands are performing on one of the top social media platforms. This month its the turn of General Electric on Pinterest, reviewed by Hannah Rainford, SEO and social analyst, Jellyfish
Introduction
With a global presence in more than 150 countries and over 300,000 employees worldwide, General Electric (GE) is a massive company that operates in everything from finance through to aviation, appliances and healthcare.
Page: pinterest.com/generalelectric
Number of boards: 23
Number of likes: 337
Number of followers: 12,572*
Direction
GE has a well-developed and established presence on Pinterest. The official GE Pinterest page sets out its strategy on the social media platform and is very closely aligned with the company mission statement, ‘Pinning things that inspire us to build, power, move and cure the world.’ GE is doing a great job of creatively promoting its products and services while showcasing its expertise. This is some undertaking as it has such a diverse and geographically dispersed company. But the company has chosen a focus and stuck to it on Pinterest. This is exactly what brands need to be doing; find a focus and stick to it.
GE’s focus is GE Healthcare, providing medical technologies and services for patients. It uses Pinterest to share its vision for the future, which is to ‘enable a new and early health model of care focused on early diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention.’ The brand has done a great job of engaging with users meaningfully while affiliating itself with cancer prevention. Of the 20 boards listed on the GE Pinterest site, four of the boards champion this cause.
Engagement
Alongside these boards, GE has created a ‘Ready to pinspire’ board that provides directions for people to create boards.
As part of a campaign last year to prevent breast cancer in Wyoming, GE created a Pinterest board to drum up support and encourage women in the state to get a cancer screening. While the campaign was started on Facebook, GE was able to use the same information across channels to further increase its support, which is evident in the 12,000-plus people who are now following the page.
Showing a true understanding of the medium, it has taken the Pinspire board to the next level, and encourages users to engage with it on a topic that affects many people. Users are encouraged to create and share their own Pinterest boards, which demonstrates GE’s dedication to a two-way conversation around the subject.
Overall conclusion
GE has been successful in its engaging, focused and joined-up use of Pinterest alongside other channels, which combine together to make this a stand-out site.
Rating: 9/10
1: GE has found its niche – it has taken what it sells and found a part of it which can be shared with a community (e.g. those affected by cancer). The brand encourages people to share their own stories, and engages in two-way dialogue.
2: GE used information from its Facebook page to generate content for Pinterest during its ‘Women First’ campaign.
3: GE helps build brand personality by showcasing employees and their stories.
4: The brand uses quotes in a clever and inspiring way.
* All figures were correct at time of publication in B2B Marketing magazine
