Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing social media sites of all time. According to comScore, the average Pinterest user spend 98 minutes per month on the site, compared to two and a half hours on Tumblr, and seven hours on Facebook. If you don’t count sites like Google+ or new Yahoo channels that have built-in user bases, comScore’s data shows Pinterest would be the fastest site of any kind to hit 10 million monthly unique visits in the U.S.
Last month, Social Media Examiner wrote about an Alaskan Mom who is seeing 6,000 unique visitors PER DAY to her carpentry blog - just from Pinterest.
Have I gotten your attention? Good. Let’s back up. When tweeting about Pinterest the other day, one of my Twitter followers, @jeffreyprice, replied to me and asked, “What’s your tweet-avator pitch for explaining Pinterest?” (Sidebar: how clever is the term, “tweet-avator pitch”?!) My response: Pinterest is a collection of public virtual file cabinets where people have Boards (files) and Pins (pieces of info in each file). @jeffreyprice said he calls Pinterest a visual social bookmarking site. Pinterest simply describes itself as a virtual pinboard.
For those of you who have heard a little bit about Pinterest prior to reading this article, I’d like to take this opportunity to clear up some misconceptions I’ve encountered recently while trying to educate folks about the site.
1. Pinterest is only for women. False. While there is more woman than men using Pinterest – there are many men taking advantage of the usefulness of the site. I’ve seen the men that I follow pin sports memorabilia, gadgets, travel destinations, DIY home repair tips, and more. Here’s a fun infographic I recently pinned that talks more about Pinterest for men.
2. Pinterest is just for people who craft and cook. False. 259 people are following my ‘Infographics’ board. 236 people are following my ‘Social Media Tips, Tools, Advice & How To's’ board. Coming in at a close 3rd is my ‘Crafts For The House’ board with 225 followers. Those are just 3 out of the 45 boards that I’ve created covering a broad range of topics, interests, and information.
3. Pinterest is just for people, not businesses. False. Many, many businesses are hopping on the Pinterest bandwagon. The site is ideal for businesses for showcasing products, sharing presentations, getting customer feedback, crowdsourcing ideas, displaying company interests, holding contests, and much more. To get an idea of what businesses are already doing on Pinterest, check out my ‘Brands on Pinterest’ board and start following some.
4. Pinterest is still young; I should wait to see if it’s worth it before I get involved. False. Just this one time I beg you to be an innovator. Make Pinterest work for you and your business and run with it – get out ahead of the competition and get noticed for really caring about your audience. Add the ‘Pin It’ button for websites to your blog posts and product pages and make it as easy as possible for others to pin your content on their boards!
5. Pinterest won’t help with my search engine ranking. False. When someone pins something from your website or blog, a link is created back to your site – the more links you have back to your site, the higher your site ranks in search engine results. Another good reason to follow the advice given in point #4 above!
While anyone can currently view “Pinners’” profiles, boards, and pins, in order to create your own account you need an invite – but I would love to invite you – please feel free to request an invite on the Get Social Baltimore Facebook Page!
For more information about Pinterest, I encourage you to set your DVR’s and/or tune in to ABC 2 News tonight at 11pm where my girlfriends and I share everything we love about Pinterest with anchor and reporter, Jamie Costello.
Comments