If your brand or organization could benefit from having a highly engaged user base, you might want to consider putting them first. Just look at Pinterest – they’ve made this concept their company’s core value.
David Rubin, head of growth at Pinterest, leads the community, marketing and brand teams who are responsible for the company’s voice and relationship with users. During his SXSW panel, “Love Letters: Building Brand and Community,” Rubin will share tactics anyone can use to build a better brand.
Q. Can you give some information about what your presentation will cover?
A. Pinterest has grown into a beloved brand, breaking a bunch of “rules” of marketing, and with virtually no paid advertising. What lessons can be learned from how Pinterest achieved this? And, how do we keep that brand love going as the product scales into the hundreds of millions of users? How do we broaden to other audiences, while maintaining the essence of the brand with the community?
Q. How did you come up with the idea for this panel?
A. I’ve been at Pinterest for eight months, and when I first joined I was most surprised by how Pinterest had built a brand with tens of millions of people with almost no paid media budget, thanks to the passionate community of Pinners. We’re constantly hearing stories from Pinners about how Pinterest makes their day-to-day lives better. I wanted to share some of the insights I’ve learned over these months, and the creative community at SXSW seemed like the right audience.
Q. Why is it important for a company to put its users first? Do you believe companies will benefit by including this in their core values?
A. For us, the community powers the product. Our core value is to “put Pinners first.” We think of this value in everything we do – when we launch a product or campaign, or even if we just have a meeting, we always ask how it will benefit Pinners. The key is to engage with the community and let them know you’re listening and taking their feedback into account, while also taking a leadership role.
Q. An article in AdAge said one of your top priorities at Pinterest is to market more toward male users. It’s a common misconception that Pinterest is just for women. What do you say to men who feel this way?
A. This question relates to our community, too. When Pinterest got its start, it was mostly used by women who were Pinning in the lifestyle categories. The service grew through word of mouth among those communities. Now that Pinterest is almost five years old and available in countries around the world, it’s growing across all kinds of interests and demographics. In fact, 1/3 of all signups are from men now. Pinterest is a visual bookmarking app for saving and discovering creative ideas, and that kind of service can be useful to everyone. Pinterest has evolved into a discovery engine that helps you save and create, which we believe is valuable to everyone. While Pinterest started as a place for saving lifestyle-related content, in the long term, we see everyone getting value from it, just as they do with traditional search.
Q. What do you think the biggest takeaway will be for an audience member of this panel? What specific things are you hoping people learn?
A. I hope audience members will take away ideas and specific tactics on how to build a strong and effective brand by putting the user first, no matter the size of the company.
Session Details
Sunday, March 15
12:30 -1:30 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Austin
Zilker Ballroom 3
208 Barton Springs Rd
For more information on this panel about putting users first, visit http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP41515.