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What’s all the interest in Pinterest?

Well what IS all the interest in Pinterest? It may well be that you are one of a considerable number of people who have never heard of it, or you may be one of almost 12 million others who have raced to use the new social media platform just in January alone.

Pinterest has actually been around for a couple of years and originated in the USA, but it has become the ‘most talked about’ recently after its user numbers jumped from over seven million to nearly 12 million in the space of a month between December 2011 and January 2012, according to the ratings firm Comscore.

So what’s it all about? Just when you thought you’d got to grips with Twitter and Facebook, there’s a new kid on the block that it seems you really should get to know… well this one is slightly different in character. Whereas Twitter and Facebook enable social networking and marketing, contact, communication and discussion about what you have done or are planning to do, Pinterest is highly visual and is all about aspiration.

Pinterest describes itself as an online pinboard where users can create collections of pictures and images that they find across the Internet which they post under different categories. If they like a particular image they can ‘repin’ it to their own board, essentially creating a mood board which reflects their tastes and aspirations and creates their personal image as they would like the world to see it. Photographs are then repinned many times over as, for example, users follow fashion trends and finds.

The most popular topics so far have been fashion, recipes, interior design, arts and crafts and holidays, reflecting the fact that in worldwide terms the site is female dominated – although in the UK it has a predominantly male audience interested in topics such as blogging and web analytics. However this is expected to change with time as the audience demographic matures. Meanwhile other more male focused pinboard sites are also popping up, for example such as Manteresting which provides pictures of ‘interesting man things’.

So how can you adapt Pinterest for business use? Well it is clearly of relevance to creative businesses and those in the industries related to the most popular topics mentioned above, and as the content is visual and mainly related to products it could soon become a honeypot for advertisers or for anyone hoping to create a trend.

So watch this space to see how Pinterest develops and matures – is it here to stay or just another one of those five minute wonders? With 12 million users and growing, it sounds like the new kid has secured its place in the gang.

For more information and support with starting and running a business contact NBSL on 01670 813322 or visit our website at www.nbsl.org.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Phil Langton .