Over the past few months, I’ve read a number of articles about the female obsession with the popular social photo sharing tool called 
Pinterest. A recent Washington Post article dubbed it “crack for women.” So, I was reluctant to try out the new platform for myself, thinking that the last thing I need to worry about is another social media platform to manage.
However, after dedicating a few hours of my holiday Monday to playing around with the tool, I am now hooked. Although I know that there are more productive things I could be doing with my time, I predict that I will spend many more hours completing and updating all of my virtual Pinterest pin boards – selecting images of my favourite recipes and home decor items to stick under different category headings.
But why did I so quickly become hooked on Pinterest? Basically, I see it as a virtual scrapbook which allows me to arrange all of my favourite hobbies and interests in one place. So, if you like to organize and categorize your life in a visual fashion, this platform is definitely for you. It’s just like rearranging your closet by colour coding – something that many women enjoy and attempt to maintain.
While there are other social media tools and apps that enable people to arrange and share photos, Pinterest is extremely user-friendly. Plus, many people have now enabled their “pins” (i.e. images they’ve attached to their virtual pin board) to be shared in their Facebook timeline. So, the Pinterest user base is growing rapidly as women share their interests with all of their Facebook friends.
I predict that consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers and marketers will be flocking to this tool in droves to better understand their customers. That’s because I believe that Pinterest enables you to capture a glimpse of a person’s psyche – identifying the items and activities that they covet and enjoy.
As a blogger and small business owner, I see a lot of promotional benefits to using Pinterest. I can organize and promote stories that I have written, or link to ideas and images that have inspired me to write future stories. I can also see what my followers or the people I am following are interested in and then tailor stories and images to suit their curiosities. One important caveat to note is that the image that bloggers use to promote stories on Pinterest needs to be extremely visually compelling. It’s just like judging a book by its cover – you need to entice people to find out more.
It’s also important to note that you need to copy and paste the URL of the blog post or website that you’re referencing into the comments section when you pin your image. Unfortunately, the images that you select don’t automatically link back to the website from which you’ve pinned them to your board.
So, if you’ve created a Pinterest board worth noting, please send me a link. I’d love to find out how other people are using Pinterest to share ideas, products and more. In case you’re interested, here are the boards that I’ve started. Stay tuned for more photos as I visually make sense of the things that Pinterest me.
Image source: iStockPhoto.com