I finally got around to checking out
Pinterest and seeing how it could be used for my business and professional
interests. Check out my 'Open Health'
Pinterest page http://pinterest.com/pjgroen/pins/
Pinterest is essentially a web-based platform that consists
of a digital pin board with a social component. Individuals are able to "pin" images
of items that they have interest in to a virtual pin board. You can use it to share images of things that interest
you. It could be images of a person, place, or thing. The images you share
could be pictures, videos, a logo for your blog or web site, ads for products
you like, or…
From
my perspective, Pinterest is simply another web-based social networking platform
that allows users to share information about a wide range of products or
services they find interesting. In reading through the top 15-20 recent articles
about Pinterest that I selected from a quick search of Google News, certain
points were made over and over. That about 65% of Pinterest users were women.
That it was graphics oriented, primarily aimed at allowing you to post and
share pictures of what you find interesting – for free.
It was also
repeatedly pointed out that this was a great site for use by small businesses.
In an article entitled "Pinterest:
Understanding the Business Benefits" posted on Social Media Today,
they mentioned that Pinterest is now either the 2nd or
3rd biggest social network, depending on which statistics you read. I've seen
numbers about their users ranging from 10 million to 50 million customers and
growing rapidly.
I
finally went and looked at the site, signed up, created a group of virtual pin boards,
and started to pin items to the boards – just to see how it worked and to try
and figure out how it could be used for 'business' purposes. I'm one of those
strange people who don't like to be overly social and share everything about my
personal life that really ought to be kept private. But I do try to figure out
and use social networking sites to further my business or causes I believe in.
I
like Pinterest. I still don't know if it's worth the effort, but I am
persevering in trying to use it effectively. I do see where it can help you
build your 'brand', feature your bogging or web sites, can be used for
marketing purposes, allows you to show and highlight particular products and
services, may be a source for referral traffic to your business, reach out to
potentially new clients, and more.
Using the site for
small business promotion is a bit different from Facebook or Twitter because
you work with images, rather than words. Thus it's often more enjoyable to a certain
class of customers who are more visually oriented. It seems to be ideal for
small businesses in the fashion industry, photography, hotel accommodations, or
other businesses that rely on great images or pictures to attract customers.
There are a growing
number of 'open source' and commercially licensed tools now being offered that you
might want to use to further enhance your Pinterest experience such as:
- Pinstamatic: Use Pinstamatic to add quotations to your boards, share music that plays directly from your boards, add clickable maps, and more.
- Piqora: This company offers a more complete Pinterest dashboard that features analytics and options for pin scheduling, tracking and analyzing potential customers, and more.
- Pinpuff: Use it to gather data and calculate your Pinterest influence.
Let us know about your
experience using Pinterest for business purposes. Let us know about any great
free and open source Pinterest tools that we ought to know about.
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