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Is Pinterest of Interest To You?

The social media landscape is ever-changing. Recent examples include Facebook’s seemingly constantly changing design layout, the addition of Google+ to the social media arena, and a number of fairly new and visible social media sites, apps, and tools.

A social media site that is getting a lot of attention recently is Pinterest, a visual bookmarking platform that has been around since 2008 but has since developed a loyal following of over 11 million visitors per week. Pinterest, managed by Cold Brew Labs, of Palo Alto, California, is best described as a pinboard-styled social photo sharing website. Pinterest enables members to “pin” things of interest to the site by managing theme-based collections of images. The site’s stated mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” People use the Pinterest site to share, look for, and organize their favorite recipes, to get or share ideas on decorating their homes, and to choose clothing for special events such as weddings.

Over the years, the popularity of the site has grown, especially among women, and in December 2011, the site was rated in the top 10 social networks, according to Hitwise data, with 11 million total visits per week. The next month, Mashable reported it drove more referral traffic to retailers than LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+. The same month, the company was named the best new startup of 2011 by TechCrunch

To get started with Pinterest you first need to request an invitation. Once an email confirms your acceptance you can then register to use the service.

I believe that the recent addition of the Pinterest app for iPhone in February 2012 has added to the site’s ease of use and popularity, and will make this a social media photo sharing site that should see continued growth in the future by allowing people to connect in a social way over shared interests.

If your business sells products or services that have visual appeal, and targets women, 68% of Pinterest’s users, then this should be one of the main sites to focus your marketing efforts, given the sites increasing popularity, and social sharing features.

References and further reading:

http://www.experian.com/hitwise/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinterest

Indvik, Lauren (January 29, 2012). “Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers”. Mashable. Retrieved February 7, 2012.

Josh Constine (January 31, 2012). “Congratulations Crunchies Winners! Dropbox Is The Best Overall Startup”. TechCrunch. Retrieved February 7, 2012.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 (February 7, 2012). “Pinterest Hits 10 Million U.S. Monthly Uniques Faster Than Any Standalone Site Ever -comScore”. TechCrunch. Retrieved February 15, 2012.