I discovered Pinterest at the time when everyone had to request an account
and its administrators would then send you an invitation to create one.
Those
who know Pinterest are aware that this wasn’t such a long time ago; Pinterest
has been available to everyone without having to request membership since
August of last year. It was founded in March 2010, but I was taken under its
spell only this year. I think it’s a great tool; not only to amuse
yourself while lying in the bed with flu, but also as a place where you
can search for inspiration on any topic that comes to your mind or for working
on projects for various clients.
If you haven’t been lucky enough to get to know
Pinterest, I can tell you it’s basically a virtual notice board. And, not just
one board. Each user creates their own boards devoted to topics they are
interested in and pins images on them; photos and videos related to the topic
in any way. The topic can be broad as you like – from sport in general to the
very particular activity of orienteering, which is a topic of several boards
too. Just like on Twitter, you can choose a person on Pinterest (or a
particular person’s board) that you would like to follow and whose
contributions will be displayed on your home page. Also, others can follow you
and your boards. And if you like someone else’s image, you can simply re-pin it
onto your board.
Pinterest is not just a pin-up board where you can
look at beautiful and inspirational images. As entertaining as it might be to
users, it is also very useful for marketing and PR people. Apart from the
opportunity to find out what people like, what they like to pin on their
boards, and many other useful things, you can see in the example of several
successful campaigns that similar to Facebook, you can use Pinterest to
increase interest in your product or service.
The first and at the same time the most often
mentioned Pinterest campaign is the one realized by the feminine hygiene
producer, Kotex, in Israel. Kotex chose 50 female
Pinterest users, who had a certain number of followers, who were active on the
site, and whose pins were often re-pinned. They subscribed to follow the pins
of these ladies to get to know them better and then prepared a special package
for each of them with items inspired by their boards, and then sent them a
photo of these. To receive these gifts in reality they had to pin the photo
onto their board. Users then published a photo of the real gifts not only on
their Pinterest board, but also on other social networks.
Fashion house Oscar de la Renta used Pinterest in a great way too.
During their wedding gown fashion show they were pinning photos of models and
showing their wedding dresses live on their profile. As well as the photos
taken during the fashion show, they also pinned photos from backstage.
American retail chain HSN used a simple idea – they let their
fans create a board with the perfect autumn outfit according to their style.
They were supposed to create it from clothes they found on their website and
also elsewhere on the internet. Those who chose the creator of the best outfit
weren’t representatives of the chain, but a celebrity jury.
The number of campaigns that have successfully used
this social network is still on the rise; however, they are still quite rare in
the Czech Republic. The number of Czechs using Pinterest is only around 15,000,
although it’s growing. I think that Pinterest is, above all, an interesting and
playful tool for the communication of products and services, and possesses a
great future.
And how do you plan to use it?
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