There’s a new social media giant in the making, and it’s one you might want to consider taking some time to familiarize yourself with—Pinterest.

Just what is Pinterest? If you’ve already acquainted yourself with Twitter, then you’re aware of the power of social media and how easy it is to share your school’s events, successes, and news with your followers. If your school has included social media as part of its marketing plan and development practices, then you might also be aware of how profitable social media can be. Just a few minutes a day can go a long way.

Pinterest is much like Twitter in the sense you’re sharing with your followers and curious "peepers" items of interest pertaining to your school. Only with Pinterest, you’re pinning images to various boards you create that link back to news sources or your Web site instead of wordsmithing a crafty message in 140 characters or less.

There are already some schools experimenting with the possibilities. Here are some sample boards to help give you a better idea of what Pinterest is all about.

• Harmony Schools
  
• Fulton Schools
  
• Newpoint Schools
  
• Edible School Yards
  
• 21st Century Schools
  

Now that you’ve seen a few samples of what others are starting to experiment with, you might be asking if Pinterest is worth the time and cost for someone in your Development or Admissions Office, or even an external marketing group or parent volunteer to begin planning for and working with. The truth is, although Pinterest is two-years old, it’s still relatively new. Organizations have recently started to create boards and actively update them in hopes of being re-pinned and broadening awareness, but there isn’t a lot of research available to support or debunk the pay off. However, there are some interesting statistics you can take into consideration before your school decides to either start pinning or to avoid the craze until it’s simply unavoidable like Facebook and Twitter have grown to be.

• Pinterest is now the third most popular social network in the U.S. in terms of traffic. (Experian)
• Pinterest is retaining and engaging users as much as 2-3 times as efficiently as Twitter did at a similar time in its history. (RJMetrics)
• Daily Pinterest users have increased by more than 145% since the beginning of 2012. (Mashable)
• Pinterest users in the U.S. are more likely to live in midwestern states than your typical social networker. (comScore)
• The quality of the average new Pinterest user (as defined by their level of engagement and likelihood to remain active) is high but declining. Users who have joined in recent months are 2-3 times less active during their first month than the users that came before them. (RJMetrics)
• As of January 2012, Pinterest accounted for 3.6% of referral traffic. (Shareaholic)
• With over 11 million unique monthly visitors (and counting), Pinterest became the fastest standalone Web site to eclipse the 10 million per month mark ever. (PR Daily)
• The best time to pin during the day is between 2 and 4 PM EST. (Pinerly Study)
• The best time to pin in the evening is between 8 PM and 1 AM EST. (Pinerly Study)

Learn more about online marketing and its capacity to bring your school into the 21st century. We’re offering a new Summer Institute course this summer—Online Marketing for Schools: Prospects, Constituents, and the Social Web.

Additional ISM resources of interest
ISM Monthly Update for Admission Officers Vol. 10 No. 3 Pinterest—A Visual Solution to Social Sharing
ISM Monthly Update for Development Vol. 10 No. 7 Pinterested?