Pinterest - Interest Network
By Marta Mattioli, Mindshare
What can you use Pinterest for? Pinterest is a social pinboard founded in 2010 and it has experienced astonishing growth in the past few months.
What exactly Pinterest is can be deciphered in the name, a digital pin board where you can create pages “boards” related to your interest categories. With early adopters flocking from interest areas such as Arts, Design, Architecture, Crafts, Food & Fashion with no limit to the topic areas you might want to pin against this is rapidly expanding to Products, Retail & Brands.
The website has just opened registration to the public after two years of requiring an invite to join. Anyone can now sign up with Twitter, Facebook, or just an email address. This may result in a further increase in sign-ups by users.
Pinterest features are:
- Bookmarklet system for adding items to pinboard
- Most boards by subject
- Free to use
- Ability to “repin” someone else’s items to your board
- Commenting and following for socializing features
Pinterest and Brands
Brands have an opportunity to act immediately and start building out content segments for areas they want to own and have sufficient collateral or partnerships for. Early adopters will have long term gains by becoming subject matter experts on topics in and around their brand’s associated interests. Brands also need to consider how consumers are representing them on the platform.
Pinterest is now being used by a large number of companies for different purposes: use of collaborative boards as ways of bringing people together internally or for client projects; adding products (with their prices) to drive awareness through search and social.
Pinterest has the potential to redefine the way people may view the web. Following this trend, brands should
- Invest in high-quality images;
- Create content to showcase the essence of a brand’s personality in fun and interesting ways;
- Include the audience in social contests will engage them as well as make them become stronger brand advocates
Useful website that contains all kind of infographics on Pinterest:
http://big.onvab.com/2012/02/pinterest-users-usage-trends-statistics.html