Do you need a Pintervention?

Pinterest is addicting…we know this. How do we know this?  Well, I know at least three people that I follow on Pinterest have “pinned” 472 things to their boards over the past two days. Yes, that’s a real number. No, I can’t share who those people are for fear that they’ll lose their jobs. 

Pinterest is a virtual “pinboard” where you stick, organize and share all ideas you might find on the web.  It’s kind of like a visual bookmark sharing website. As with all social media platforms, there’s some good and some crap. Recipes, craft projects for your kids and gardening are my three primary uses. 

Just the categories will indicate to the uninitiated that Pinterest screams to women (recipes, baby stuff, fashion and wedding stuff…good lord the wedding stuff). And that’s fine. Just about every woman I know is on it in some form or another. I only know of three other guys on it…and they don’t really use it, I think they’re just keeping an eye on what their wives are up to. Various reports show the percentage of women on the site in the 80 percent to 85 percent range.  

Bloggers are finding it useful to share content and drive traffic to their site. Some are seeing it as their biggest referral source. 

One of the biggest issues is copyright and intellectual property infringement, and there’s quite an argument that goes on behind that. It all depends on how you pin something. If you pin it and it links back to the original owner of the content, great. If you pin it with all the instructions say to a recipe, and it doesn’t link back to the original page, no credit is given and it can be considered “stolen” material.  It’s all meant to be sharing so of course no one is trying to hurt anyone, but some have strong opinions on that matter.  

Here’s a very interesting piece about a photographer who is also a lawyer, removed her Pinterest account until she fully understands the potential dangers.  

As with all social media outlets, the ugly side of it pops out eventually. There’s copyright violations, it’s a major time suck for those who get really involved, it could either help or hurt originality, there’s virtually no privacy settings and there’s reports of Pinterest embedding codes into pins as part of their revenue generation. I’m not saying all of these are bad, but they can be. Time will tell if Pinterest will react and adjust accordingly, just as the other social networks have done.  

Clearly Pinterest has an audience, and one that is growing very rapidly. It was listed in Time Magazine’s “50 Best Websites of 2011”. As of January’s numbers, they had close to 12 million unique visitors.  

Pinterest definitely has the potential to be used for small businesses and brands.  Have some great images out there and people can pin, re-pin, like, comment and go nuts. It’s hard to say how Pinterest will play out in terms of marketing but they’ll find a way. There’s always a way. In other words ladies, they will find a way to get more money out of you, it's just a matter of time. Lowe's already has a Pinterest account/page and I think they’re headed in the right direction.  

I’m not one of the self-proclaimed Pinterest addicts. I browse around there when I have nothing else to do, like for a specific 10 minute or so period of every day, and that’s about it.  And I don’t really see how I can get addicted. Quite frankly, I was using Evernote web clipper and “pinning” things I’m interested in for a while now. Difference is, Evernote is just for me so I can recall things later. But Pinterest is an entire social event. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve already made four recipes I’ve found on Pinterest and plan to make some kids crafts I’ve found on there. But it’s just not screaming to me like it is many others.  Then again, they say that’s how it starts…

Do you pin? Are you a Pinterest addict? Do you need a Pintervention? Maybe you have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest? I’d like to hear about it. And go ahead, pin this post...you know you want to.