THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 6th Annual Shorty Awards

Petplan on Pinterest

Entered in Pinterest

Objectives

As a company that protects dogs and cats across the United States and Canada, we know that life on four paws can be “ruff." We're on Pinterest to lend a helping paw. As you might guess from our boards, Petplan isn't your typical insurance company. We’re a team of devoted animal lovers, who aim to be the kind of organization that will make our own pets – and those we protect – proud. At Petplan, one of our core values is that “pets come first," and everything we do on Pinterest reflects and supports that. Pinterest's visual medium is the perfect forum for us to share our colorful branding and our high-quality, visual and informative content for pet parents. We pin health tips and breed health profiles authored by Petplan’s veterinary experts, as well as homemade pet treat recipes and DIY pet projects curated from popular pet bloggers online. Pinterest gives us an enterprising visual outlet to share our passion for pets and pet health, allowing us to connect with a pet-loving people in a new and meaningful way. When Pinterest was first launched, Petplan saw a great opportunity to reach pet parents and animal lovers in exciting new ways by visually showcasing our veterinary expertise and brand personality through fun and informative boards such as “Breed All About It," “Treat Them Well" and “Tails of the Unexpected" – a novel approach that led Pinterest to select Petplan as a case study –one of only five brands worldwide – to help launch their business pages. We also used Pinterest to give a face to our company – well, many faces, in fact (some hairier than others!). Our “Meet the Team" board features our two-legged leaders, while “Our Furry Helpers" introduces people to our four-legged employees. “Just a Day at the Office" throws the doors open – literally – by inviting our followers to step into our offices. It’s a level of engagement and transparency we’re proud of, and something that further sets us apart. Our unique approach led to early success. After only a few months, Petplan saw Pinterest become our second-highest source of social network referral traffic, generating 69% more page views and 97% greater time on-site than Twitter, and rivaling the performance of Facebook, where we’ve had a presence and passionate fan base for years. The following quarter, we saw an 87% increase in new site traffic, a 35% increase in page views, and a 12.5% increase in insurance quote requests as a result of our increased presence on Pinterest. Those efforts attracted further media interest, leading to placements in Forbes, Fast Company and others, as well as to being named one of the Top 20 Companies on Pinterest by Social Media Delivered. The expansion of our Pinterest presence has not only helped us further reinforce our brand and our commitment to social content and customer service, but it has also spread consumer awareness of pet insurance as an industry – and set Petplan apart in this growing field. There’s no doubt, our use of Pinterest has helped Petplan emerge as a thought-leader and innovator driven by passion and supported by smart, sustainable strategic planning and execution. (Oh, and cute puppies!)

Strategy and Execution

http://business.pinterest.com/case-study-petplan/ http://www.socialmediadelivered.com/2012/03/14/top-20-companies-on-pinterest-from-social-media-delivered/ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-unexpected-brands-kicking-social-media-butt-pinterest-makes-successful/77827/ http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33302/7-Industries-You-Wouldn-t-Expect-to-Be-Creative-on-Pinterest-But-Are.aspx http://www.fastcompany.com/3020838/dialed/pinterest-and-your-personal-brand-7-steps-to-pinning-your-life-work-and-way-to-succes http://saydaily.com/2013/10/10-brands-doing-cool-stuff-on-pinterest.html http://socialmediatoday.com/mike-allton/1396941/using-pinterest-get-more-traffic-case-studies-included http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/11/15/now-there-is-no-reason-for-a-brand-not-to-be-on-pinterest/

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

Petplan Pet Insurance

Link

Entry Credits