An In-Depth look at Pinterest

1. An In-Depth Look

2. What is Pinterest?
• “A virtual pinboard where people
share and collect the things they
love.” – Pinterest creators
• Social media site built on the idea
of sharing images and content
• Images = Pins
• Virtual Bulletin Board= Pinboard
• Friends = Followers
• Pinterest lingo: Pinning-verb;
Pinteresting & Pintastic-adjectives

3. Key Facts & Stats
• User base grew from 1.6 million visitors in September
2011 to 11.1 million visitors in February 2012.
• Became the fastest site to reach 10 million users.
• In February 2012 , it was announced that Pinterest
drives more traffic to retail sites than Google+, YouTube
and LinkedIn combined, and Pinterest drives more
traffic to blogs than Twitter.
• When it comes to engagement, Pinterest is second only
to Facebook — its users spend, on average, 89 minutes
per month on the social network.
> + +

4. Best Practices

5. Pinterest Humor

6. Best Practices for Brands
• Avoid Self-Promotion: Sell your culture and people,
not just your products.
• Cater to the demographic: majority of users are
women.
• Publicize your presence: Add the Pinterest button
to its websites.
• Crowdsource: Ask fans to take pictures of
themselves with your product and tag you.
• Engage with users: welcoming and encouraging
comments builds brand engagement
• Use Keywords and Hashtags: Generates the
likelihood of receiving more views

7. Best Brand Use of Pinterest
Each of these brands have embraced the culture and best
practices to succeed on the image-sharing site.

8. Best Brand Use of Pinterest Cont’d
• Pinterest gave a shout out to The Travel
Channel for making use of the interplay
between Pinterest and other social media sites.
– The Travel Channel reached out to its Facebook
Fans by asking them what pinboards it should
create.
• Bergdorf Goodman also earned a mention from
Pinterest.
– The department store asked Facebook fans to
complete the sentence "In the morning I never
forget…" and then displayed the responses on a
company pinboard.

9. Measuring ROI
• PinPuff: measures a user’s pinfluence aka
the relative measure of your popularity,
influence, activity, reach (& celebrity levels
if applicable) on Pinterest on the scale of
100.
• PinReach: working to empower people and
brands with the tools necessary to monitor
trends, understand activity, and gauge
impact, easily.

10. Pinterest & Public Relations
• Reputation management: PR professionals can
create boards dedicated to the brands’
philanthropy and corporate responsibility.
• 2-way Communication: Pinterest allows PR
professionals to communicate with their
audience through comments, likes & repins.
• Spotting Trends: Browse Pinterest’s most
popular pins to see what images resonate with
the most people and use this information to
craft similar pins for their brand.

11. My Analysis
• I’ve discussed the background of Pinterest, its
popularity, best practices for businesses with
examples, ways to measure ROI, and how it
helps public relations efforts.
• After thorough research, my assessment of
Pinterest is that it is a successful social media
platform and it is innovative in design and
sharing capabilities.
• Pinterest is a great tool for businesses to
employ and I’m a loyal user myself.

12. Additional Sources
• 26 tips for using Pinterest for Business
• Pinterest-What's the role for businesses
• Pinterest for small businesses
• 5 Brands engaging like pros on Pinterest
• Which brands are winning on Pinterest
• Pin Puff
• Pin Reach