Over recent years I've enjoyed testing out new social networks while they're still shiny. The last few weeks I've been looking at how to get the most out of another new thing: Pinterest.com.
For those that haven't tried it, Pinterest is a pinboard-themed image sharing social network. It is popular with forum users, more women than men, and with a pretty mainstream demographic (I know colleagues who have mentioned it to their wives only to find they have been using Pinterest for some time). Much different to Twitter for example which was very male and techy for its early years.
On Pinterest there are some users with over a quarter of a million followers. Pinboards can be collaborative. It's all very Facebook and Twitter friendly, and content is discoverable nicely as a live stream or in themes. To a digital Comms person like me, it's all very exciting.
This week I'm going to step away from Twitter, which I've been using heavily for six years now. I feel like an addict! Instead whenever I feel the urge to tweet, I will pin. I hope to find some novel uses for it.
You can find my updates and my pinboards at http://pinterest.com/drewbenvie . Feel free to comment there, or here, with any thoughts of feedback.
I will update this post with anything interesting I find along the way.
=========================
Update #1. 24hrs in:
- I would love to see stats on how many people view your pics / pins
- Pinning is difficult from mobiles and tablets. Some functions don't work on the ipad for example
- It would be great to click on people who follow your pinboards the same as you can with people who follow you. I can't seem to do this, but have more followers of my PR Stunts pinboard than I do for my generic profile and would like to follow them back. Any tips?
- You can't pin content from Twitter easily!
- I'm thinking more visually now.
- I've found there are some people on Pinterest with a LOT of followers! Maia Macdonald, below, for example, has over 700,000 followers at the time of writing this blog post
Update #2. 2 days in:
- Pinterest is the Anti-Twitter. People I know who don't get or don't like Twitter LOVE Pinterest
- 'Recent Activity' on the right hand side of your home page is not a live ticker, like Facebook or Twitter. So make sure you refresh (see below image)
- I'm missing the way Twitter allows you to chat to friends independently from an image upload.
- Pinterest is FUN (corny but true)
Update #3: wow that week went quick:
- What I liked: Pinterest is a whole 'nother world of image based social sharing. It appeals to people to share what they're reading in different ways
- What I missed: I will continue to use Pinterest instead of other image sharing services, but not instead of Twitter or Facebook. Twitter is my social IM. Facebook my network of close friends
- What surprised me: our agency won some cool new client work this week. Two of these clients cited my / our work on Pinterest as a factor in that. And of course I think that's awesome. It's so exciting to be able to try out something personally / socially and then get to do it for work. Did Pinterest get me a new job this week? Yes, it kind of got me two!
- Now back to using a bit of everything, including, very much, Pinterest :)
It's interesting to read your thoughts on Pinterest. As I haven't yet started using it efficiently it is very useful to see what pros and cons the new social network comes with. The fact that your agency won new clients on the basis of your work on Pinterest shows that the site is growing, and that it will probably be one of those social media platforms that organizations need to integrate with– just as facebook and twitter.
Posted by: elisabeth | April 25, 2012 at 01:39 AM