	Article Directory		Article Submission Service		Article Marketing Blog		Publishers		Member Log In

Article Directory :: Internet Marketing/Online Business Articles

Pinterest - Whats It All About?

By Paul Cunningham

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 18Mar2012
Word count: 1090
Viewed: 34 time(s)

Get Free Content For Your Site

I must admit to only being aware of this new social media phenomenon recently and, having done a bit of research, I thought i'd share it in case any of you also fall outside the 11m+ registered users it has to date.

How Does Pinterest Work?

Its basically a picture sharing platform where users 'pin' images to their own 'pin board'. Now this can be anything you want - it can be random stuff that you just like and want to share or it can be multiple images relating to an interest of yours. For example you may have a passion for 60's British sports cars, defunct company logo's, vintage mens watches or even a holiday cottage you need to rent out. As a member you can browse topics and if you discover something you have an interest in you can 'follow' it in the same way you do inTwitter and you will then be informed as soon as any new pictures are added to that board. You can also leave comments and join in discussions on each of the images that appear on the site.

How Can It Benefit A Business?

Well if you're running a business which is selling or producing something which would benefit from good images (which is pretty much anything) ie clothes, photography, accommodation, artwork etc this seems to be a great oppurtunity to set up some boards to promote your services because your images can have links back to your own websites product pages. The best long term approach from a sales perspective would be to join in with the community spirit for a few weeks before 'hard-selling' your products, ie post some non-business images and then gradually introduce your products. This approach may not be totally neccessary but its just a personal preference when i join something which wasnt intially designed to be a business site.

If we look at the the holiday cottage rental example above,it could be someone has a cottage they want to rent in Wales for the 9 months of the year its not being used by them. They struggle on Google because the first 5 pages are dominated by the large rental companies and so they get a board on Pinterest and fill it with pictures of the cottage itself. They also upload pictures of the surrounding countryside, local places of interest etc etc and then wait for other Pinterest users to come across the board, follow them and, hopefully, rent the cottage.

Why Havent I Heard Of It & Will It Be Around Long Term?

I'm not sure why its had such a low profile so far as there are 11m people already registered - (although i would guess the majority are based in the USA) . Like Facebook & Twitter before them though if they continue at this rate of growth its only a matter time before everyones talking about Pinterest. You would probably question wether we have time to log onto another social media website but Pinterest is certainly different & its definitely simple to use so it may fill a gap we werent aware we had.

From a business perspective its another no-brainer - if you have a service which would potentially profit from a lot of people seeing pictures of what you have for sale you need to be on Pinterest. Its free to join and millions of people visit it every week. Only slight negative at the moment is that its invitation only and I'm not sure why this is but its a tactic which has been used to generate interest in joining an 'exclusive club' before (remember Gmail invites?) which I think will change in time.

Paul Cunningham has 11 years experience in website design & for the past five years has specialised in search engine optimisation,in Stockport, UK. The team at Web Site Design Lab have helped hundreds of small & medium sized local business maximise their revenues via cost effective SEO in Manchester and all over the UK.

EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here