Here is why you should be ‘pinterested’
Pinterest, the new picture/video sharing platform, has been kicking up quite a fuss within the social media community. Discussions of its usefulness are a daily occurrence and while opinions differ from social media strategist to social media strategist, we at Paratus believe that there’s in fact room for a platform such as Pinterest and this post explains why.
What is Pinterest?
If you strip it down to its basics, Pinterest is an online scrapbook. If you find images or YouTube videos you like you can pin them to one of your ‘boards’ via a button that sits in your browser.
In my personal Pinterest, I have ‘Happiness’, ‘Want’, ‘Sayings’, etc. These boards as well as the Pinterest community fuel my creativity on a daily basis. More importantly, however, Pinterest offers me a break from the masses of difficult to digest content on the web.
What I mean by that is that most information we are provided with is text based and it takes time and effort to understand what a blog post or a news article is all about. But there comes a time during the day where I crave information that can be understood by simply skimming it. And that’s when I, and many of my peers, turn to Pinterest. (That is also how I became totally addicted.)
Why businesses should not disregard the platform
Yes, it’s a fun place to be, to waste time and to find some inspiration. But why do I as a business need to pay attention to the platform? Firstly, not every business needs to pay attention to Pinterest because quite frankly, the platform isn’t suitable for everyone.
However, if you are in a very visual industry (cosmetics, fashion, food, jewelry etc.) you should be paying attention because Pinterest is a potential gold mine. No other platform allows you to cater to visual learners. Added bonus: you get to show people all the cool things you do. Some companies have already caught on to the trend and prove to be using Pinterest in more than one creative way.
Samuel Gordon Jewelers is the most well-known example. They held a ‘Pin it’ contest in which people were encouraged to visit their website and pin pictures of their jewellery to their personal boards, ultimately entering the competition to win Honora Pearls. Clever isn’t it? Pinterest can be synced with Facebook and Twitter, which means the potential viral effect is huge. Samuel Gordon is a primary example of recognising the platform’s potential and benefitting from it.
What strikes us the most however, is the potential stickiness of the platform. It’s still in beta and you can only register if you receive an invite and yet, it seems the majority of users are not the early adopter kind.
However, with any platform that grows quickly, it’s also experiencing some growing pains. While writing this post I was wanting to sign into my account and the site kept crashing which led me to give up after half an hour of trying. Ironic, isn’t it?
So what does all of this mean?
If you are a visual brand reliant on people buying your goods after having seen them with their own two eyes, you should keep an eye on the platform. From an agency standpoint, it’s also important not to dismiss the platform as just ‘another social network’, as we can see a vast variety of different business applications already.
Are you ready for Pinterest? Have you explored it yet or are you trying to avoid it? Share your opinions in the comments. We’d love to hear them.
