TYPES, TIPS, AND TACTICS OF VISUAL MARKETING 49 Whole Foods is a good example of a company that goes above and beyond in being useful and relevant to its consumers. The company has more than 600 social media accounts, spanning both the national and store levels. Local stores are tasked with developing content related to what’s happening, or being offered, much of which is visual across sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. At the national level, sites like Pinterest help Whole Foods be useful at scale (http://www.pinterest.com/ wholefoods). Clearly, it’s not a leap to assume that a grocery store offer- ing recipe content would offer value. However, Whole Foods Market has become a leader on Pinterest for its unique approach to cocreation. During the Visual Voice panel at SXSW 2013, Whole Foods’ direc- tor of social media, Natanya Anderson, shared that for every pin, Whole Foods repins five things from other people, making sure that they’re able to appropriately source and credit the content. Whole Foods also partici- pates in cocreation by bringing in different subject matter experts to help them pin worthwhile content. As a result, Pinterest has overtaken all of Whole Foods’ other social media channels for traffic generation to the recipes on WholeFoodsMarket.com. During the panel, Anderson went as far as to say that Pinterest’s 110,000 followers generate 15 times more value than Facebook and Twitter combined. For example, one of the most popular Pinterest recipes for spaghetti squash has been repinned 68,000 13 times, driving 44,000 views to the recipe on Whole Foods’ website. Be Human In addition to being useful, visual marketing performs better when the content has a human element. Being human means feeling more like a friend than a corporate entity. A friend has a personality, values the rela- tionship, shares experiences, and understands when to listen, when to be serious, and when to have fun. Being human means not leading with “buy this now.” Instead of going straight for the sell on social media sites, companies need to think through how people discuss and recommend a product or service to a friend. Evaluate and learn from the best prac- tices of known influencers and superfans who are producing trustworthy