What is Pinterest? Pinterest Review
Pinterest: A Visual Collection of All Your Interests
Visit Pinterest on the web at http://pinterest.com/
Do you like paper crafts? Do you enjoy decorating your home? Are you fond of collecting pictures of cute dogs? Do you delight in finding new recipes to try? With Pinterest, you can create different boards for each of these interests.
Before Pinterest, you would most likely see an interesting recipe in a magazine, cut it out, and put it in a file folder. With Pinterest, all you need to do is “pin” a recipe for lasagna, blueberry muffins, or clam chowder onto a board.
Not only is Pinterest helpful for personal use, businesses can make use of the platform as well. Those in the entrepreneurial world can use Pinterest to increase brand authority by providing useful and educational information for their audience like info graphics, expand their reach by collaborating with other pinners (take BHG’s Group Board as an example), and drive traffic to their site.
It’s not a secret that a lot of people appreciate visuals, and this is where the strength of Pinterest lies. The platform provides users with the ability to convey information that pure text cannot match. Pinterest also benefits from a highly simplistic interface and helpful apps and browser plugins.
Pinterest Wall Sample
The Pinterest “streaming” wall
Digging back through time
Pinterest was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp in March 2010. Development of the platform started in December 2009, and by March 2010, the site was available for an invitation-only beta.
The site continued to be operated out of a small apartment until the summer of 2011. On August 11, Time listed Pinterest as one of its “50 Best Websites of 2011.” By December, the site became one of the largest social media platforms with around 11 million visitors each week. It was also named by TechCrunch as the best new startup of 2011.
2012 saw Pinterest grow into the third largest social network, behind Facebook and Twitter. By August, the site no longer needed an invitation to join.
What Pinterest has to offer:
- BOARDS
Users can create several boards that showcase their interests. For example, a user can create a board about “Organizing My Home” and pin anything they find useful in restoring order in their home. They can pin from around the web (using the Pin It button that can be installed on a Chrome browser) or repin from other Pinterest users.
Pinterest Boards
Pinterest boards for organizing your pins
- SECRET BOARDS
Regular boards are visible to everyone, but Secret Boards are only visible to you and anyone you invite to it. These are good if you’re planning a surprise party, and don’t want to let your friends or family in on what you’re up to.
Secret Boards At Pinterest
Pinterest secret boards for total privacy
- GROUP BOARDS
With this, you can invite other people to collaborate on a board. BHG does a great job at this with their “Blogger Faves from BHG.com” and “Blogger Recipes We Love” boards.
Pinterest Group Boards
Pinterest group boards for collaboration
- SEND PIN TO FRIENDS
If you ever come across a pin you think your friend would like, Pinterest provides you with the opportunity to send that pin. The “Send” button can be used to share a pin to Facebook or email contacts.
Send Pinterest Pins Or Board To Friends
Sending boards or pins to friends is easy
- PINTEREST ANALYTICS
You can take advantage of Pinterest Analytics once you have verified your website. In the Analytics page, you can see Site Metrics, Most Recent, Most Re-pinned, and Most Clicked. If you’re a blogger or a business owner, these metrics come in handy because it tells you which kind of content your audience interacts with the most.
Pinterest Analytics Sample
Pinterest detailed metrics & analytics
- DUPLICATE PIN NOTIFICATION
This feature really comes in handy, especially if you’ve pinned a lot. Rather than browse your boards to see if you already have it, Pinterest alerts you that you’ve already pinned it.
Other things to keep in mind
Pinterest is pretty strict with being too active on the site because they think you’re doing spammy things. They will not think twice about suspending your account if you pin too much, follow too much, and like too much. You can wait 24 hours for the suspension to be lifted, but if it doesn’t then you have to contact their customer support to get your account active again.
Currently, Pinterest imposes limits on boards, pins, and likes. Here they are:
- Boards – 350
- Pins – 100,000
- Likes – 100,000
Top brands on Pinterest
- L.L. Bean
- Nordstrom
- Lowe’s
- Everyday Health
- Etsy
Etsy On Pinterest
Etsy boasts 380,000+ Pinterest followers!
Conclusion:
It is real hard not to quickly fall I love with Pinterest. It is so easy to use and can provide endless hours of entertainment. The platform is highly versatile and is great for entertainment or business marketing. This is not just a random opinion but the huge success and wide popularity of this design says it all. If you are not using Pinterest for personal or business we suggest you at least go and give it a look for yourself.
You are more than welcome to visit our Pinterest profile at: http://pinterest.com/impactsocialme1
If you have questions or comments about Pinterest or would like to share with us about your personal or business profile then feel free to post your comments right below.
Video: What’s Pinterest? Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save creative ideas. Watch this two-minute video to see how it works. http://about.pinterest.com/
Comments
I’ve been doing a little digging/googling about Pinterest user forums- unless you own and are promoting a business, about the only thing you can do is go to the help/contact feature on pinterest to report a problem. Every google search brought forth multitudes of results for marketing on pinterest- increasing followers, generating business, increasing sales etc….but what about a large portion of pinners who have nothing to sell? We have things we want to talk about that there isn’t a pin for. A general experience question that can only be answered by pinners like yourself. Reporting an issue isn’t the same thing as asking others if they’re experiencing the same issue or how they use pinterest or what they do when something they pinned for fun becomes a political or social issue. I read something this morning about pinterest communities which is invite only and seems – is- business focused as far as who is invited. It’s less about a particular pin and more about a subject focused conversation with those you invite or those that subscribe- as long you have a business or blog you’re promoting. You can ask a general question in the community and you can join multiple communities in a variety of topics. General users- hello! those of us that pin the pins and buy the products and make the projects, cook the recipes- we want in!
We want a forum to have conversations about boards, topics, interests. We do. We really do. Maybe we want to collaborate or find someone nearby with the same hobby. It’s next to impossible to find a facebook group if the topic of the hobby isn’t used in the groups name. Pinterest would be far more successful at generating activity for interest/topic/hobby based groups simply because pinterest has already indexed and categorized subjects into specific boards and pins. I see this being a win/win/win for general pinners, bloggers & businesses and ad revenue for pinterest.
Hello, I am thinking of opening a pinterest account to post images of my artwork on it, can some one please tell me how long the images will stay on Pinterest? I can’t find any info’ on that question.
Many thanks
Pedro