Have you been to www.Pinterest.com? If so, odds are you spent a lot of time there, compulsively looking at just-one-more page of beautiful images. If not, ask a few people in your life about Pinterest. You’ll get some animated responses, particularly from women, as they talk about their boards and pins and exactly how they are going to re-do the bathroom, travel through Italy or layout the garden.
What is Pinterest? It’s a virtual corkboard, upon which you can “pin” images and words. If you like something someone else has pinned, you can re-pin it on your board. You make friends by following other “Pinners” and they can respond to or re-pin your images and well, you start to get the idea.
What’s in it for you? I’m a big fan of visualization and have always put “vision boards” together to help me set goals and make things happen. You,too? Then you will love creating boards for “Vacations” or “My Dream Home” or “Family Reunion.” So far, only 13{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} of Pinterest users are men. (There is a new site called http://gentlemint.com/ for the dudes!)
On a personal level, Pinterest can be a fun, positive way to clarify your vision and intentions. Cool, right? From a business standpoint, Pinterest may be the next best social media community and an opportunity to connect with your customers in a powerful way. If women are your target market, you are in the right place. A flat out sales pitch is not a good first approach. Consider instead how to make friends and influence people. Social media is replacing the backyard fence. Relationships first. Then, add some relevant, entertaining images of what you do, why and how.
What to Pin? If you do bathroom remodeling, you could pin before and after photos of your projects. Re-pin and upload other’s images, too…and comment on cool images they put on their boards. Ask for Pinners to share their best bathroom ideas with you…and see what emerges creatively. Start a board that illustrates the community outreach work you do, or tips for do-it-yourselfers. Pin pictures of clients and include their glowing testimonials. Remember to include your website address as, according to Inc.com columnist, Marla Tabaka…
“I heard from more than 50 small businesses when I reached out for Pinterest success stories. Most of them indicated that Pinterest is among their top-10 referring sites. These entrepreneurs feel that their consumers are expressing higher levels of loyalty due to the community being built around the brand. And, many claim that traffic generated from Pinterest far exceeds traffic numbers from Facebook and Twitter combined—not bad for a newbie forum!”
What’s not to like? Here today, no-where tomorrow. Remember myspace and prodigy? What connects people today may be gone in a heartbeat. Right now, it’s free to pin on Pinterest…but can ‘Pay for Pins’ be far behind? Also, there are copyright issues brewing on all these social platforms. Pinterest offers some good guidelines on their site, however laws are being crafted in the decidedly un-hip halls of Congress to limit sharing. And all social media can be a colossal time waster if you don’t set some time limits. One more thing. You have to be invited to join Pinterest by someone who is on it. Maybe that’s how they keep computers from “spybot” accessing the site? Don’t know, but I am happy to send you an invite. Leave me a message at www.facebook.com/ellenrohr