Social media is the fastest growing areas in the modern world with its two strong pillars being Facebook and Twitter. But the autonomy of these two was challenged by a new competitor, Pinterest. Pinterest is the new marketing powerhouse in the web world and has turned heads all over right with its launch. If you have little or no idea as to what Pinterest is, you should know that it is simply an image sharing platform. This is a forum where one can use the feature of link sharing in a completely different way. So whether the user wants to show off their latest buy, seeks feedback on newly designed print business cards or help their circle with what’s new in the market or will catch their interest, Pinterest is just the right thing to use.
This social networking website has started off with all the very best marketing strategies itself by taking up an ‘interesting’ name and a mechanism which is appealing to a wide range of different kinds of users. Probably the main reason for its popularity is the fact that it is presently the fastest website to break a record of visitors, having reached a stupendous 10 million visitor mark. According to a survey, at most 83% of the website’s users in 2012 were women which make it a female-dominant website, reducing the limits of its marketing opportunities for some.
How Pinterest Works
The working of Pinterest is based on a user’s board where he can ‘pin’ the content that ‘interests’ him. Here, however, the content differs from other websites in a sense that is aesthetically pleasing, high quality images. Being a female-dominant site, it’s popular searched includes images for food, interior, crafts and fashion. The website works like the social networking websites in the respect that when a user like something, he or she can re-pin it on their boards and all the people who can see these boards can see the pins. Pinterest can well be associated with how Twitter works, finding or creating what they like and pinning it to a virtual board. Now these particular boards can be customized by giving those names of one’s liking and with themes.
To understand the working of Pinterest better, one should know that an image pinned on the board links to the site that it is originally taken from, hence providing a great opportunity to share original content from a website.
My Experience with Pinterest
I carried out a little experiment of my own in which I selected four attractive images to pin on my board. The first three images failed to bring any traffic while there was a drastic up rise in the traffic soon after I posted the fourth image. And though I had no followers, I concluded that it can work so much better for marketing if you do have followers.
I carried on with my experiments to see how well it goes every time and came up with something interesting. For every re-pin an image received, the website would see more visitors. More visitors mean that if you have popular pins on your board, there can be thousands of re-pins. Also, you should know here that creating a pin takes no considerable time and is free!
One finding or my research told me that there are some, if not all, users who are interested to know where the content has originated from. For other users, this interest can be created by adding an incentive with the pin such as offering them more details if they click on a certain link. Pinterest is a wonderful platform for sharing likings with friends and networks. The website is also very useful for companies and brand to market their products and services.
A Strong Foundation
One thing that sets Pinterest apart from other and favors it is a lot of money backing that it has. They have developed a ‘invite only’ model from which they have greatly benefited. Their network has spread like a virus with invites bringing over thousands of users to check this new website out. With a ten million user mark already reached, it is moving on to a 12 million mark and will be reaching it in no time.
Final Thoughts
While Pinterest has as yet pushed all the right buttons to be a major competitor in market, the question here is that whether it will maintain this level, topple other competitors like Facebook or will it stay as relevant as it is now for a long time. The future looks promising to Pinterest as yet, however, it still needs to find its permanent footing in the world of social media. It still has to make a profit which is a natural danger for all social networking sites but can be achieved with just a little effort.
Although it has secured a user base of ten million visitors but there is still the stage of capitalizing on its gains. All eyes are upon Pinterest now and it looks highly likely that we will be pinning our favorite stuff on Pinterest rather than liking them on Facebook and following them on Twitter.
