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Interest in Pinterest? by Stephanie Ramirez

Everyone’s buzzing about Pinterest. Launched in March 2010 and still in beta, Pinterest is an invite-only social networking site that allows users to curate content and socially collaborate. The platform has a natural way of curating content around shared interests, instead of personal connections. Early adopter brands, such as Whole Foods and Nordstrom, have begun to curate a Pinterest profile and develop site-specific strategies and executions that generate awareness, build engagement, drive traffic and increase sales.

According to comScore, Pinterest has more than 4 million registered users and growing rapidly. It has more than 11.7 million U.S. unique monthly visitors, making it one of the fastest growing stand-alone websites in history. Women, ages 24 through 44, make up the majority of the platform’s demographic which tilts to women 4:1 over men.

Websites and blogs are seeing immense spikes in traffic due to Pinterest. Pinterest is now one of the top five drivers of referral traffic and refers more traffic to a website than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn. Time Inc.’s Real Simple had more referrals from Pinterest than Facebook in the month of October.

It’s all about the boards! Images on Pinterest are known as “pins” that users can assign to customized “boards.” Pins are a valuable tool for users to curate visuals based on a specific topic. For example, brides-to-be have replaced bulky three-ring binder wedding planners with the simplicity and portability of a Pinterest account. With the platform, boards have the functionality for multiple contributors, allowing collaboration with other users with shared values or purpose.

In recent days, Pinterest announced that it’s making a profit from incorporating affiliate codes to links after a user pins an image. When a transaction is made as a result of a user clickthrough, Pinterest makes a percentage of a profit for the conversion.

On any social platform, a brand must have a consistent look and feel, voice and tone and evoke organic conversations online. And, best practice suggests that brands should go beyond creation of branded content. On Pinterest, brands should not only talk or pin content about themselves, but create and pin compelling content from other boards, as well. This allows the brand to show its value to the consumer on a variety of topics.

As brands continue to evolve their digital strategy, they have the opportunity to consider how to incorporate Pinterest — possibly to supplement a current initiative through a contest or content collection or to conduct research through a new channel by testing products with users prior to launch. Consider the following opportunities:

+ Segment — Like Google+ circles and Facebook and Twitter lists, brands can use boards on Pinterest to segment and tailor content to different audiences with a range of interests.

+ Engage — Add new pins frequently, engage with users’ pins and monitor to find out what is being said or pinned about your brand. Make sure content is eye-catching and sharable – not too promotional.

+ Deepen Brand Personality — Pinterest allows brands to demonstrate different aspects of a more complex personality and showcase diverse interests in order to broaden the fan base. For example, the Today Show’s Pinterest page has different boards to show pins of their fans, the newscast and their antics, recipes from their cooking segments, etc.

Join the conversation:  What are your questions or concerns in getting started? If you’re already pinning, how are you using the channel?

Stephanie Ramirez is an Account Associate on the digital and social media team at MSL New York. She joined MSL New York from the University of Florida where she earned a B.S. in Public Relations. A digital marketing enthusiast since she led Florida’s largest student-run public relations firm, Stephanie supports the larger MSL social team in social media strategy and community management for CPG brands.

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