A GUIDE TO… SOCIAL MEDIA

Pinterest

WHAT IT IS:

Pinterest is essentially an online pin board, with a strong focus on visual information. Users can make “boards”, like collages, on a variety of topics and each “pin” has a meaning and a URL (web address) behind it. Over 80% of users are women, who use the site to plan their wedding, decorate their homes, shop for clothes and more. Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networking sites. In fact, it drives more referral traffic to websites than Twitter, LinkedIn and Google + combined.

HOW IT WORKS:

1. Keep each board organised with an underlying theme. “Be as specific as possible about your boards”, says Vicky. “So for example a board of recipes might be considered too vague – it would be better to have chicken recipes, for example”.

2. Companies that aren’t naturally visual, like accountancy firms for example, can still make great use of Pinterest by using “infographics”. “These are kind of a visual way of talking people through a process”, explains Vicky.

3. Similarly, photo badges (where you’ve got text on top of an image) are being found to encourage even more clicks through to your site. “For example, your expertise might be furniture restoration, so you could have a picture of a lovely chest of drawers with ‘furniture restoration in 5 easy steps’ over the top” adds Vicky.

4. “Re-pinning” other users’ images, posts and infographics is important, as users don’t like boards that are too self-promoting. Always remember the “social” element, to all social networking sites!

DO: Be aware of copyright issues. It’s currently a very grey area. Users are theoretically subject to copyright infringement, which is obviously counterproductive to the whole idea! Although this is unlikely, as most people want their posts to be re-pinned, the issue is under revision to protect users.
DON’T: Forget the descriptions! Pinterest is mainly about the visuals, but it’s important to give people a little context.