Pinterest is perhaps one of the most innovative social media platforms because of the idea of an “idea board.”
In this video, I’ll explain the basics of Pinterest, including some tips on how to search Pinterest and how to conceptualize using “idea boards” for your marketing efforts. I’ll also cover how to search Pinterest for ideas for your own company, product, and/or service. Let’s get started!
- Watch the Video
- Links and Resources (scroll down below the video)
Watch ‘Pinterest Basics: How to Use Pinterest for Marketing‘ on YouTube!
First of all, who’s on Pinterest and what are they doing? Pinterest has its strongest reach into two interrelated demographics: shopping and women. Let’s face it: women do more of the shopping than men, and women like to shop more than men (speaking very generally). Now, we don’t want to be politically incorrect but it is a fact. Pinterest thus reaches the “shopping demographic” and “women” in a very heavy way. It’s especially good for people who are planning something “big” like a wedding, a new dorm room or bathroom set up, a destination wedding, etc. It’s also strong among cooks (recipe collections), and in the DIY communities (e.g., quilters). For men, it has some reach into shopping / DIY / camping, etc. 
So, if you are retail, if you’re fun, if you’re selling something like weddings that people “plan” and want to share ideas around, then it’s a great platform. If not, not. For the official Pinterest business channel, click here, and for official Pinterest help, click here.
Pinterest Idea Boards and Pins
The most novel concept in Pinterest is this idea of an “idea board.” Let’s suppose that I (Jason McDonald) love dogs, and that I am collecting dog toy ideas for my very expensive but very loved Lab, Buddy. I then create an “idea board” of my own on “dog toy ideas” and I can start pinning things from anywhere on the web to this “board” using the Pinterest browser button. I can collaborate with others – by following either their whole account, or just their boards, plus I can pin / repin their pins to my own boards and vice-versa.
As a company, therefore, we can create “boards” that consolidate our own ideas or group them for demographics. We can then “help” our customers brainstorm by pre-brainstorming for them. And we can even invite customers to collaborate with us on boards, etc. It’s “social” media marketing after all.
Here are some examples –
- Target on Pinterest and boards, for example, on back to school, entertaining, and baby nursery.
- REI on Pinterest and boards, for example, on rock climbing, snow shoeing, and gifts for gadget lovers.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Pinterest and boards, for example, on New York City, Love, and From the Met Store.
- Home Depot on Pinterest and boards, for example, on easy DIY projects, DIY wedding ideas, and home improvement 101.
Basically, any retailer can create these “themed” boards that “help” their customers brainstorm ideas and nifty todos / DIY’s / products / services for some project, idea, event, etc. In this way, the unique niche of Pinterest is the “idea board” and the collaboration among vendors, customers, and other to “pin” ideas and tips, tricks or secrets about todos / DIYs, products, services. ,etc
Finally, you can search Pinterest directly or go to Google and use site:pinterest.com {keywords} to discover boards and people easily. You can also paste in a URL such as https://www.pinterest.com/source/nytimes.com/ where that last bit is the “domain” of a competitor to see what people are “pinning” from a given domain. That’s a great way to ‘cheat’ and ‘reverse engineer’ competitors on Pinterest, namely what are their customers reacting to in such a positive way as to frequently pin it? Happy Pinning!
