In the world of social media, a few months is a long time, so it may come as something of a surprise if I told you that Pinterest is the next big social media phenomenon, and that it has already celebrated its 2nd birthday.
Help, what’s Pinterest?!
Pinterest is a social photo sharing website. It allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections of photos of any subject. The sites mission statement is to "connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting."
Development of Pinterest began in December 2009, and the site launched as a closed beta in March 2010. By February of this year, Pinterest had over 10 million users. The majority of Pinterest’s users are women.
So how can Pinterest help my business?
As with all social media, Pinterest is about connecting people with common interests. So think for example about how you use Twitter to discuss shared topics that interest you e.g. a new car launch. So you might use Pinterest in the same way, to share images of relating to a car that interests you. The images could be of a car, a car advert, a garage, even a diagram relating to a car.
Social media is becoming increasingly visual. The new Facebook Timeline allows you to post large images / videos across the width your page, Twitter now allows you to embed photos and video in your posts. Pinterest takes this a step further by enabling you to build relationships purely through imagery.
Here are a few ideas how you could use Pinterest to help your business or organisation:
- A charity can share images from its campaigns / ads which link back to their website.
- A web designer can share images of their favourite websites.
- An teacher can use Pinterest to share images with students that may be of interest e.g. design ideas.
- A clothes store can highlight the latest fashions that people are talking about.
- A caterer can highlight a niche food area that their followers might be interested in e.g. sushi.
Like Twitter, you can follow people, some of whom will follow you back. For example, a restaurant can follow food fanatics who they find interesting and some will follow them back and share their food photos.
They way to understand Pinterest is though one simple phrase "a picture is worth 1000 words".
(You can view our Pinterest account here).
If you are interested in finding out more about how Pinterest can help your business, why not book your place at our next social media seminar, taking place Tuesday 17th April? Click on the button below for more info…
