Note: This is a post geared toward businesses/organizations. Unlike Twitter, wherein you can be on the cusp of breaking news and be involved in varied conversations that you can’t find elsewhere, I don’t see Pinterest as a must-do for an individual. If it doesn’t appeal to you in a personal setting, I’m not going to try to convince you otherwise. But be warned, if you do try it: it can be a real timesuck.
Also, I address the copyright concerns at the end of the post, along with some links. Yes, this is an issue, but I am of the mind that Pinterest will work with content creators at some point to come up with a mutually agreeable decision.
I’m not a fad guy. I’m not really a numbers guy, either. Pinterest‘s importance to me has absolutely nothing to do with it being hip or the fact that the stats are showing it blowing up. I believe in Pinterest due to logic. Mind you, like everything in social media there is a major caveat: Go where your audience/target demo is. But if you do have the resources to play around with different social media platforms, you have to be on Pinterest.
What’s Pinterest?
Honestly, Pinterest, you need to change how you define yourselves. I guarantee that in the coming months, this will no longer be their self-description:
Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes.
What do I think will be gone? That last part. Planning weddings, decorating homes, sharing recipes? Pinterest, your audience isn’t even mostly female in the UK. Don’t have an explanation that will alienate a lot of half of humanity.
I’d never even heard of a pinboard before Pinterest, so their portmanteau name didn’t do much for me.
My definition:
Pinterest is a social media platform where you can create boards to organize and share pictures and videos. When done on a higher level, these images can be used to convey a larger idea.
(If you have a better explanation of Pinterest, please write it below. Perhaps I’m missing some key elements for the sake of brevity.)
Why did it take me so long to get on the Pinterest bandwagon?
See: above. Pinterest seemed to have popularity in mostly female, consumerist circles. (And my perception wasn’t off: 97% of its Facebook fans are women, 83% of its users are female.) I don’t care about dresses or cakes. Pinterest seemed very, very niche and not in any way that I’d care about.
What converted me?
While Pinterest has conspired against itself to aim for only artsy women, there’s so much more that can be done. I now think of Pinterest as a social media platform for the iPad generation. At conference after conference, people talk about how things now need to be pretty and visual for anyone to care. Pinterest is designed for an iPad. You can use it quickly, looking at a few pictures or dilly-dally for a long time. The virality and ease of using it became abundantly clear to me when playing around on the site. I’ve barely used it, but the first night, I began collecting a board of “Cute Aminals” and the second day I was already feening to look for more.
I know an executive at Warner Music Group who is tasked with helping companies find the sound of their brand. Pinterest is the visuals of your brand.
How do I use Pinterest as a company/organization?
If you have physical products, this is easy-peasy. Just have pix of them up organized on various boards. It might take a bit more work for you to figure out what you want associated with your brand, but just think of any TV or print ad: It’s not just about your core product, it’s about making people feel a certain way.
CopyBlogger has a great post on 56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest. It’s helpful for people on any level of Pinterest usage. If you need ideas, there really are tons of people out there writing posts all the time on how to creatively use Pinterest. Check out this Quora post on some brands that are using Pinterest intelligently.
What are the concerns about Pinterest?
Other than the demographic concerns, there are real questions about if Pinterest on the right side of “fair use” on pictures. DigitalTrends has a post, if you’re curious to learn more. Here’s a Business Insider piece on the same. And one last one that goes into it pretty in-depth. (My take is that they might have to tweak their model at some point, but that the core will remain. And, for what it’s worth, you can request to not allow pins from your site.)
For my money, Pinterest is doing something that is desired in a smart way. Hard to beat that.
Pinterest is, as of this writing, invite only. You can ask them for an invite or you can just pop your e-mail in below and I’ll throw one to you ASAP. Of course, you can find my currently minimal presence on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/roniweiss
Let me know if you think I missed anything major, either by commenting or e-mailing me at roni@rwsocial.com.
