Is it Too Late to Call it Pinsanity?

 About a month ago, I was introduced to Pinterest.com, the smorgasbord site that allows users to “pin” their favorite images.

The typical post (or “pin”) ranges from Martha Stewart-esque recipes, to witty quotes, to pictures of fuzzy animals dressed up in mini outfits, sitting in baskets atop clouds raining sparkles.

Okay, maybe the last example was slightly exaggerated, but you get the point. 

Pinterest is a series of online bulletin boards where users can share photos they find across the web with their friends. Women dominate Pinterest, as they make up about 82% of the site’s active users. Smart companies have made use of this statistic, and Pinterest has now become a driving traffic force for many popular women’s magazines.

After signing up for Pinterest, I quickly became hooked. Each click of my mouse led me to a new craft or recipe that bloggers swore was easy and simple to make.

Every image made me want to leap out of my chair and become the next Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray. Why bake an average dessert when you can bake an average dessert in the shape of a caterpillar or butterfly? Why paint your bedroom door with normal paint, when you can paint it with chalkboard paint?

I soon spent a majority of my evenings staring at my computer screen, hypnotized like a teenage boy with an Xbox. I was surrounded by everything a self-proclaimed cupcake-aholic “girly girl” could ever want in life: floral dresses, inspirational sayings, luscious baked goods, interior design oases.

Male friends and co-workers quickly learned about my addiction and asked me, “What’s the point?”

OK, maybe learning to make deviled eggs in the shape of baby chicks isn’t a necessity. But used correctly, Pinterest can have a real purpose, as a new and exciting outlet for companies to showcase their products and engage with customers.

You see, Pinterest is mesmerizing in a way other social media is not. The way I see it, online pinboards are like the eye-catching display windows we walk by everyday on our morning commute. But  through Pinterest, we can see these displays almost anytime or anywhere: in our bedrooms on our laptops, walking through the park with our iPhones, on the train on our iPads. Like a good display window, if we like what we see, we are driven to go in and buy it. On Pinterest, if we like what we see, we’ll click on the link, read the article, go to the website, buy the product, and then share it with all of our followers.

Receiving 103 million total visits in February alone, it’s no surprise that Pinterest has attracted companies such as Nordstrom, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Whole Foods Market. Businesses that take advantage of Pinterest’s unique platform are able to create stunning visual displays of their products, marketing them in a way that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also bold and direct, literally showcasing their brand to millions of visitors.

Even smaller companies are eager to join the online community. Aside from displaying their inventory, businesses can also share their inspirations, promotions, and deals on their online pinboard.  

Why should you jump on the Pinterest bandwagon, you ask? If you’re a business owner, the site provides the ideal means of communication between you and your customers. In fact, statistics from RJmetrics show Pinterest is retaining and engaging users as much as two to three times as efficiently as Twitter during its launch.

Still not impressed?

Well, did you know that Pinterest gets more monthly usage per user than Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn combined? Additional stats show that over 80 percent of pins are “re-pins,” proving the site’s community-driven, viral nature. A study performed on Twitter showed that only 1.4 percent of tweets were re-tweets during its early history.

Essentially, Pinterest provides an image-focused sharing space, unique to other social media forms. It has the ability to expand commerce through “Word of Mouth” (or in this case “Re-Pin to Board”) publicity and can do for your business what Oprah did for Dr. Phil’s career.

When speaking about social media, Bob Warfield, CEO of Helpstream, said, “Twitter is like a tragically hip New York night club. It is a cool, easy way for companies to engage customers in social media. But the experience can be loud and crowded.”

Well, if Twitter is the hip club, then Pinterest must be the trendy coffee shop we visit when we want to escape the rest of the world: addicting—pointless according to some—yet always reliable when we need a perky pick-me-up. (And any of you who walk by Starbucks on a daily basis can see just how lucrative trendy coffee shops are.)

While some claim it’s just a fad, I believe that as long as the comforting image of a wide-eyed puppy dog (dressed up in a cute outfit, sitting in a basket atop a cloud raining sparkles, of course) is only one click away, Pinterest will continue to thrive, allowing businesses to capitalize on the craze.

[Image: Editor B]