Someone asked me the other day, “Why Pinterest?” I nearly spit out my Skinny Caramel Macchiato. I wanted to shout: “Because it’s awesome! Because it gives me great ideas for organization! Because it gives me style inspiration! Because it keeps my creativity fresh! Because it keeps me from getting bored while I’m waiting in the insanely long line at Starbucks!” I
nstead of saying any of these things, I decided to write a blog.
While I can’t speak for my fellow pinners, I have plenty of reasons for why I love the online pinboard. I’ve yet to have a client who has fully embraced Pinterest, I can tell you that some of them are very close to joining the power of the pinners and have many of the same reasons as I do. Here are a few below:
1. It has a rapidly growing base.
With a predominantly female audience, Pinterest has become such a popular place to share photos for wedding planning, home redecorating, recipes, vacation destinations and books that even First Lady Michelle Obama has joined the party of passionate pinners! Forbes just printed a recent report by Experian, which revealed that Pinterest is now the third largest social media site based on the number of site visits in March 2012. A report by Shareaholic also estimated unique viewership for Pinterest growing a whopping 429% from September to December 2011. If that doesn’t turn some marketing heads, I don’t know what will.
2. It’s actually useful.
Even I’ll admit that there is an inherent impracticality with some social media platforms. (The common complaints I hear against Twitter, for example, is that it’s noisy, a time-suck and impossibly hard to understand for new users. Could these barriers be why Twitters’ adoption rates have been relatively flat year to year?) But the Pinterest platform is pretty straight forward since it’s built around the basic concept of sharing photos. I’ve found healthy quinoa recipes, home office ideas, DIY organization ideas and inspirational quotes that actually had an impact on my life.
3. It’s a marketer’s dream.
Many entrepreneurs and small businesses have found that Pinterest is among their top-10 referring sites. In fact, I can’t tell you how many products I’ve personally bought as a result of a pretty pin. (Even if I can’t buy the item at the time I pinned it, I can remember it for a later time.) That same Shareholic report showed that Pinterest drives more traffic to websites than YouTube, Reddit, Google Plus and LinkedIn combined and was just .01% shy of tying Twitter for the 4th spot and .02% behind Google, which currently sits in 3rd place. ‘Nuff said.
4. It caters to idea people.
I never knew it, but I was a “pinner” before there were pinners. I actually tore photos of dream living rooms out of magazines and stuffed them into”idea” folders. I would jot down dinner recipes on my iPhone notes to try. Those are the kind of people who love Pinterest. Idea people. Visual people. Words people. People who are always on the lookout for something new or unique or inspiring or thought-provoking. Just the kind of people you want to market to.
Why do you pin? Do you pin for business or pleasure? Or both?
