There’s a new social network in town and its popularity is rapidly spreading across the Internet—Pinterest.
Pinterest is a visual bookmarking social sharing site. If you're familiar with Twitter then you’re already aware of the power of sharing newsworthy articles you come across with your followers. Regardless if you're tweeting for your school or for your personal interests, you’re probably well aware of the positive impact social sharing can have. But you’re probably also aware of the lack of visual splendor. Scrolling text boxes can become mind-numbing after just a brief amount of time. Pinterest is a visual solution for those who are more inclined to engage visually—which is most of us.
Pinterest is the fastest growing social media platform in history, surpassing Facebook’s growth speed. To date, Pinterest has over 10.4 million registered users, 9 million of which are connected to Facebook. Two million members log on everyday, and 12 million unique visitors visit monthly.
How can this new social site help you perform your job? Its potential is vast, and there are many details we’re still trying to grasp ourselves; however, we have several ideas on how this can impact your position.
- Research! Much like Twitter, Pinterest allows you to connect to the latest news of your choice as well as share news you stumble upon and find interesting. Yet instead of a blog feed, Pinterest provides a visual “pinning” board of your interests. You can search and follow others who you’re interested in, and of course, connect to your Facebook followers.
- Inspiration! Sometimes we need to be inspired to push through a project. Whether it’s an Excel spreadsheet or a layout for your upcoming school newsletter, finding related imagery can help inspire and motivate you.
- Marketing! If your school has a Flickr account, then you’re already aware of the benefits to keeping it updated with recent events from your campus for both your families' and for your faculty and staff's benefit. Pinterest allows you to create different boards that can be anything from “Football State Champions” to “Senior Class 2012” to “In Service Day.” You can be as creative as you would like when creating a board topic, and from there include not only your school’s photos, but also related news that might be of interest. For example, if you’ve created a board for your school’s football team you might want to include online newspaper articles along with your photos, or even pin an article about sports safety along with it.
Interest in learning more about Pinterest? Here’s a link to a free Webinar.
