About 8 months ago Pinterest had no meaning to me. In fact, the first time I saw the word (on a Facebook status of course) I thought it was stupid. I figured it was just ONE MORE THING to connect your Facebook or Twitter account to and show everyone what you are doing. Well… I quickly apologized silently for robbing myself of such a magnificent social network. Once I discovered the vast world of visual D.I.Y.’s, yummy recipes and beautiful photographs, I quickly requested an invitation. In a matter of hours I was all set up and pinning like crazy. At first I thought it was something fun and time consuming that also offered great ideas for crafts and home stuff. But then one day recently a picture of a D.I.Y. craft I pinned from my own personal blog got picked up by the right person and had a bit of a viral spike. My page views went from 30 to 1,410 in one day. Needless to say, I was nauseous with excitement. Over the past several weeks I have gained popularity among Pinterest users and now receive at least 10 followers a day to my boards. That’s way more than I can say for Facebook and Twitter!
Pinterest is like a virtual cork board that you can pin all of the things you like to, only you are not limited to one board. You can have as many as you want, and they can all be categorized. It’s almost like a bookmarking tool on crack. It’s simply magnificent! But it has proven for bloggers and businesses alike to be an incredible new way of marketing. In January of 2012 the site had 11.7 million unique visitors, thus becoming the fastest site ever to break through the 10 million unique-visitor mark. That’s a lot of potential eyes looking at your products.
Here’s the small catch that could prove difficult for some to get past in order to market effectively: 83% of its users are women. That doesn’t mean it has no grasp on the male demographic. My husband gets to see several things I pin on Pinterest because I show him almost every night when he comes home. Here’s a great article by Colby Almond that goes into further detail on how to succeed in using the site, detailing personal experience and good research.
Here are a few popular info-graphics that give great visual explanations of what Pinterest is, the stats it generates and how you can use it at its greatest potential:
Should your business be on Pinterest?
Here’s a FANTASTIC youtube tutorial by Megan Auman of Designing an MBA that shows you how to use Pinterest to promote your product without spamming everyone.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_DZEBFvvSk&feature=related[/youtube]Speedy signs has a Pinterest account, and boy do we love to use it! Visit our boards where you will find the most visually pleasing signs, typography, packaging/labeling, posters and just plain ol’ stuff we love!
