I, like hundreds of other people, want to chat with you about Pinterest.  With stats like this from Techcrunch (10.4 million registered users, 9 million monthly Facebook-connected users, and 2 million daily Facebook users where 97% of those users are women), this new social network is not going away anytime soon.

So how does it work?  After creating your profile, you share images from within the site by those you are following or by doing a word search within Pinterest which will bring up shareable images.  You can also “pin” images from your own computer or anywhere online if you have the “Pin It” button on your toolbar which is super easy to install.  You have “boards” which collect your images into one named topic like “Weddings,” “At Home,” or “Good Food,” so those following you, when they see all of your boards, get a sense of who you are and what you like.  Here is an example from mom blogger Crash Test Mommy and you can learn more about the how tos from this great article by Business Insider.

When I first started using Pinterest, I messed around with different boards and different board names and had fun liking, commenting or repinning images that struck me as beautiful or unusual.

 

“Awesome Hair”

Pinning was like taking a break from the rest of the social media we do all day at Creative Concepts…dare I say it was therapeutic?  After I got a grip on my personal profile (which is forever evolving of course), we at Creative Concepts opened accounts for a couple of our clients.

Ahhh, more fun.

Similar to other social networks, each client is different in that the community they draw is always unique to them and their product.  We found one client had hundreds of images unknowingly pinned from their website to a variety of Pinterest boards ranging from “Products I Love” to “Healthy Living” and more which is a good thing.  We “liked” these images or commented by saying thank you and even answered a few questions. For this same client, we created a board called “Your Pins” featuring images from the brands’ most supportive pinners (side note: is pinners an actual word or category now?  Am I a pinner too?).  Product pictures with descriptive phrases like “I love this” and “this is my favorite” got added to the “Your Pins” board which sits among additional boards that feature a life lived with the product category (not just the brand alone).

Another client is using Pinterest to build multiple boards that speak about a lifestyle which touches many parts of a woman’s daily life.  We don’t openly promote the brand by pinning brand images but we do focus on a visual description of a lifestyle that could easily include the brand.  Using the products to make your life easier and more efficient is implied but never spoken and as a result people are looking at this brand differently, one image at a time.  If pinners have never heard of the brand, which is possible, they feel at home immediately.  If they know the brand, they are learning more about the company through the lifestyle boards which range from Family First to Killer Kitchens.  It’s an opportunity that doesn’t exist anywhere else online for them.

What’s interesting to note (based on my short lived experience on this social network) is what appears to get attention and what doesn’t on Pinterest.  For our client blogs, we often include celebrities which bring quite a few new visitors weekly from anywhere and everywhere online, but on Pinterest, celebs are rarely a focus unless you have an Oscars TV event or something similar.  Sweepstakes and contests are hot on Facebook but when mentioned on Pinterest, there is no traction.  Twitter has lots of chatter back and forth which builds that community, but it’s rare to find an image on Pinterest that has hundreds of comments; a photo on Pinterest could easily be repinned hundreds of times similar to the concept of a retweet though.  I wouldn’t compare LinkedIn in any way even though it has value as a social network for the corporate set and Google plus, again in my opinion, doesn’t even hold a candle to the activity happening on Pinterest.

I never want a new social network or social media tool to be the same as the others.  If it is, history has shown that only the fittest win with Facebook (at this point anyway) still leading the way.  Nothing is like Pinterest or the experience you have on Pinterst so I will make my prediction now (like I did years ago that Facebook would rule and that Second Life would die) that Pinterest is here to stay and dare I say it has already changed the face of social networking.  The social media pioneers are not leading the way this time as they did with MySpace, blogging, Facebook, Twitter and more, for it’s the every day woman who is the driving force behind the success of this website.  If anything the hard core social mediaites are appearing to be out of their element by posting news about their marketing efforts and stats about the social media sites.  Even though I live and breathe social media as well as PR and marketing and love to see articles about the same, on Pinterest I don’t want to see an individual or company openly promoting their know-how.  It seems intrusive and rude.  Why don’t these former social media leaders get it…aren’t they supposed to understand the essence of all social media which, by the rules of Creative Concepts, is run with the crowd and then once you understand the rules you can expand on them?  The Creative Concepts board I created within my own personal profile features inspirational sayings that speak to our corporate culture and ethics, cool offices in homes (because we are virtual),

 

A home office can take many shapes and forms!

balancing work and family (cause we have so many parents that work for us)

 

Everyone can balance work and family!

and client images and stories that will resonate with fellow pinners.  We are following the rules of the community while telling our own story, a rule every brand should follow for any social network.

So let me take off my social media hat and get back to Pinterest where I can be Creative Concepts and Valorie together and separately (you will know what I mean once you follow me).

Here is to Pinterest.

May the pinning never end!

Image #1 via Techcrunch
Image #2 via Crash Test Mommy
Image #3 via Business Insider
Image #4 via Pinterest via Little Bits of Lovely
Image #5 via Classy In The City