Have you considered running a competition on Pinterest to build your following? There are a number of organisations who have done this successfully in single geographic markets, but what do you need to consider if your business operates across multiple international markets.
In June this year, Nissan Europe launched a Pinterest competition across a number of European markets to support the launch of Nissan’s New Micra.
They launched the campaign to engage with their customers to bring the ‘Micra Attitude’ concept to life visually. Participants of the competition have been invited to create Pinterest boards that celebrate their own ‘Micra Attitude’ – whether it’s inspired by people, quotes, design, products, places or activities. You can read the press release here and if you are in the UK you can find out more details here.
I was delighted to have the opportunity to ask David Parkinson, General Manager, Social and Digital Engagement for Nissan in Europe about their use of Pinterest and he shared some of the considerations when managing a multinational Pinterest campaign which you can read in the article below.
Krishna: Tell us a little about the journey you have been on with social media across your European business as I can see you have integrated social media into your online newsroom.
David: We started using social media more seriously in the business around 18 months ago and have spent the last year building a pan European foundation. Now that is in place we have the cross functional team to lead campaigns quite easily across Europe.
We are using platforms including Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Twitter, Vine and YouTube and trial new platforms centrally as they emerge.
At a country level we manage Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and we will then manage the other platforms from the European central team if the audience by market is not large.
Krishna: When did you join Pinterest and what encouraged you to start to build a presence there?
David: We joined about 6 months ago and we wanted to use it as a ‘cool place to share pictures we liked of our cars by category and theme. As a platform the number of users in the US are compelling, and we wanted to put ‘a stake in the ground’ for when Pinterest eventually grows as big in Europe.
Krishna: What inspired the current pan-European competition you are hosting?
David: This is our first competition on Pinterest. Pinterest is a perfect place to engage with our Micra audience, who are primarily female (and yes men are able to enter the competition too!). We want to create a lot of noise with the right audience online and Pinterest fits the bill perfectly. We are also trialling the benefits of ‘click through’ to our website for pictures and images we pin.
Krishna: What are you hoping for as a result and what metrics are you tracking as part of the Pinterest competition?
David: Increased awareness is the key for us. KPI wise we are tracking mentions of #MicraAttitude and the sentiment of these mentions. We are also tracking click through’s to the website and the total numbers of participants and pins/repins.
Krishna: What actions did you have to take to persuade and influence your leadership team that it was appropriate to build a presence for the Nissan brand in another social media platform?
David: None as I now I have a team in place who are able to influence the leadership of the organisation that we could use Pinterest to connect with our target audience – I personally have a seat at the leadership table and we have done a lot of ‘legwork’ over the last 12 months.
Krishna: What planning went into the campaign to ensure it runs smoothly across multiple European markets?
David: One of my team did all the planning working very closely with PR and Marketing to ensure it had the right support, assets and ‘buy in’ with their teams.
Krishna: Are you using a platform to manage the competition and if so which one and why did you choose it?
David: We are just using Pinterest linked with our monitoring tool. Our key tool, Hootsuite, does not have Pinterest integration yet.
Krishna: Who is managing the responses to the comments on the pins which are posted in multiple European languages?
My pan- European community management team manage community management led from our European HQ.
Krishna: How are you promoting the competition across other platforms and media?
David: We will use some paid advertising and we have had articles about the campaign in online media such as The Drum. We will also using promoted Tweets and Facebook posts to generate awareness and traffic to the Pinterest competition in the coming weeks.
Krishna: What is the initial response and reaction from people about the campaign?
David: Very positive – the images we created were deliberate in their need to invoke an emotional response. We love that people debate the why’s and wherefores of using a heel to lock a car. It’s better than no reaction at all!
We also love the boards being made and watch them with glee!
Krishna: I know some countries have not been included in the European wide Pinterest competition e.g. Ireland where I am based – why is that?
David: Ha! Well, the issue in the case of the Republic of Ireland as an EU country means we would have to pay for separate contract rules which is very expensive. It is also not a ‘group’ country, and is what we call an ‘independent’ and is managed by an importer – so it does not fall into our scope at Nissan Europe.
As you can imagine setting up the rules for a continent has been very time consuming – every country has a differing requirement and set of regulations – but we managed.
Krishna: What specific challenges and opportunities does it present you as a brand operating across so many markets and with many distributors of your cars in terms of managing social media campaigns such as this?
David: The main issue if one of communication and staying cross functional – across Social, PR and Marketing.
Krishna: With the increased requirement for visual content in social media, what has this meant for you and the marketing team when it comes to planning your content for your websites and social channels?
David: Yes the need for visual content means we have to change the way content is planned and we are starting on this task. It needs to be designed with a big idea and theme and then developed to be suitable for each platform in both its creation and delivery. This is a work in progress.
Thanks so much David – I look forward to following the progress of the campaign.
Make sure you check out the campaign if you are based in Europe – entries are open until 21 July 2013.
Details Of The Nissan #MicraAttitude Pan European Pinterest Competition
Participants are invited to create a #MicraAttitude Pinterest board and to share it on the Nissan Europe Pinterest board for the competition.
You need to:
1. Follow Nissan Europe on Pinterest
2. Create a Pinterest board called “Micra Attitude”
3. Pin at least 8 images onto your board using any of the Micra Attitude themes for inspiration:
4. Repin two images from Nissan Europe’s “Micra Attitude” Competition Board to your “Micra Attitude” board
5. Include #MicraAttitude and the relevant country hashtags within the description of each of your pins
6. When your board is complete submit your entry by posting a comment under the Nissan Europe pin relevant for your market with a link to your board.