For one of the many who just recently found out about Pinterest I find the platform a lot of fun, every interesting and a bit addicting. If you are not familiar with Pinterest it is a lot like keeping a scrap book without bothering with the scissors and paste. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail and explain how it works or how to set up an account; the best place to do that would be Pinterest’s About page. One thing though, you just can’t set up a Pinterest account, you must be invited. If you would like to be invited send me an email at tim@imagemediapartners.com and I’ll invite you to join Pinterest. 

Collectors

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, which are about sharing or LinkedIn, which is about Networking, Pinterest is about collecting and that takes a slightly different approach for inbound marketers. In Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s book "Groundswell” they define Collectors as those who, “organize content for themselves and others using RSS feeds, tags and voting.” When the book was written in 2008 about 12% of U.S. adults online were collectors. Now, according to Forrester Research, that number is 21% and 35% for women in the 18 to 24 age group. Pinterest was made for collecting at it seems to have attracted the collector demographic. According the latest statistics from Google’s Ad Planner Pinterest has about 21 million users worldwide with the largest group, 19 million users, in the U.S. In the U.S. 70% are women and 61% are between the ages of 18 to 44.

The video below from CNN gives a great overview of how collectors can use Pinterest.

Traffic Driver

Pinterest is growing by leaps and bounds. People spend a lot of time on Pinterest and it is a great place for collectors but why would inbound and online marketers care? The main reason inbound marketers should care is because Pinterest drives traffic. It may not approach the number of referrals as Facebook, the King of Online Referrals, but it does better than YouTube, Google Plus and LinkedIn combined according to research by shareaholic. Since driving traffic to your site is one of the main goals for any inbound marketer then Pinterest should pique your interest. This is not to say that every business should drop everything and pour their resources and time into a Pinterest account but marketers should take a look.

For a bit more information check out The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Pinterest for Marketing and 7 Example’s of Brands that Pop on Pinterest. For a little bit more information on who is on Pinterest read Ignite Social Media’s Pinterest Demographic Data: The Marketers Guide to People Who Pin. For an excellent assessment of Pinterest’s strong and weak points read Monetate’s 5 Reasons Pinterest Works and 4 Weaknesses that May Kill It.

As I mentioned above Pinterest is, for now, by invitation only so send me an e-mail if you would like to be invited at tim@imagemediapartners.com. Let me know below what you think of Pinterest and how it could be a good or poor marketing tool.

Photo Source: Uploaded by user via Pinterest on Pinterest