Many retailers, artists, and other tastemakers have flocked to Pinterest as way to show off their products, their work, or their style.

But many B2Bs, online companies, and service providers are stumped when it comes to creating an image-based presence.

Realize that you have more at your fingertips than you might think. Part of the beauty of Pinterest is that you don’t have create all these images yourself — you can relevant images from other sources.

If you’ve ever thought “Pinterest seems cool, but I can’t figure out a way to make it work for my business,” then this post is for you.

Check out these six real-life content ideas and let us know if you have any other great ideas up your sleeve. 

Infographics

Lots of marketing, social media, and B2B companies first looked to infographics as their entryway into Pinterest. Given infographics’ combination of intriguing stats with beautiful design, they are a natural fit for Pinterest.

Comics and cartoons

Constant Contact’s Humor pinboard is one of our most-followed.

It contains cartoons, drawings, and photos that relate to small business owners, marketers, and social media practitioners by allowing us to laugh at ourselves (and yes, sometimes at others).

The popularity of this board (and some of Constant Contact’s Facebook posts) is proof that the best marketing often doesn’t feel like marketing at all. Sure, your fans, followers, and subscribers want actionable tips and valuable information. But that doesn’t mean every interaction with your brand has to feel like homework.

You may find that some occasional playfulness will increase engagement and readership of your harder-hitting pieces. 

Inspiration

General Electric’s inspirational quote board “That’s genius!”  is a collection of quotes from GE’s founder, Thomas Edison. But your company doesn’t have to be founded by an Einstein to use great quotes.

Check out Pinterest’s Prints & Posters category to get started. I suggest starting with a theme — innovation or perseverance are two popular ones. You can even build a pinboard around one of your company’s value propositions — punctuality if you’re a courier service, for example.

Or if you’re a design company, you can create boards about typography or boards focused on a single color.

Company culture

Sometimes it can be difficult for B2Bs to show the human side of their brand. Don’t forget: companies don’t buy things, people do. So go ahead, put your face (or better yet, your coworkers’ faces too!) on a pinboard that shows off the actual people who work at your company.

You can build empathy and trust by showing your customers a glimpse of the men and women “behind the curtain.”

Constant Contact’s “Life at Constant Contact” pinboard shows off a recent industry social media event we hosted, as well as the flash mob some of my coworkers performed at our 500,000th-customer celebration.

Tips and best practices

You can use the same tips you might list in blog post format for Pinterest by coupling those tips with an image.

Remember, your pin will link back to its source on your website or blog, so your Pinterest board can be another source of web traffic.

Some bloggers have discovered that Pinterest is driving a lot of traffic to their sites. In this sense, Pinterest can be another point of entry to your blog or website.

Content from your customers

Did you know you can “tag” a Pinterest user in a pin, repin, or description if you follow at least one of their boards? That means you can ask your customers to tag your company in one of their pins. And that means you can then repin that content to one of your boards. It’s like having a conversation, only with images.

In fact, let’s try that right now:

1. First, follow Constant Contact on Pinterest.

2. Next, pin a picture of yourself, your business, or your logo to one of your own boards.

3. Lastly, tag Constant Contact in the pin description by typing “@ConstantContact.” Our Pinterest page will show up as a drop-down option if you’re following us. Do that and we’ll repin your pin to “Our Customers” board.

And that shows you how easy it is to create some content on one of the hottest social media sites out there.

What are some of your ideas for creating pinboards? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.