Michael Litman (@mlitman)Pinterest: What is it and why should you care?

#SMM1225th October 2012

Hello!

Who am I? • Hello! I’m Michael Litman and I’m a Senior Social

Strategist at AnalogFolk where we make and market interactive experiences globally.

• Some of you might be nice people and read my blog at litmanlive.co.uk/blog.

• Others might follow me on Twitter as @mlitman.

• The extra special ones may even be following me on Pinterest at pinterest.com/litmanlive

• The hashtag for this talk is #SMM12. Hi mum!

Chicken Wing Cupcake!

Beer Cupcake!

Peacock Cupcake

Bacon and Egg Cupcake

Halloween Cupcake

Jabba The…. Cupcake

Corn-on-the-cupcake

But in all seriousness, there really is more to it..

An anthropological

take on the

furore around Pinterest

In current foraging and horticultural cultures, a large portion of daily activity revolves around finding and preparing food (e.g, Hill & Hurtado, 1996).

In modern societies, much less time is spent on food acquisition and preparation.

Modern humans still devote considerable time and effort to foraging, although the foraging context is now in the settings of shopping malls, grocery stores, and Internet sites (Hantula, 2003).

What I’m going to cover today:

What I’m going to cover today:• What is it?

What I’m going to cover today:• What is it? • Why is everyone eating it?

What I’m going to cover today:• What is it? • Why is everyone eating it?• Who is eating the most of it?

What I’m going to cover today:• What is it? • Why is everyone eating it?• Who is eating the most of it?• Which brands are finding the right mix?

What I’m going to cover today:• What is it? • Why is everyone eating it?• Who is eating the most of it?• Which brands are finding the right mix?• Established sites now grabbing a slice

What I’m going to cover today:• What is it? • Why is everyone eating it?• Who is eating the most of it?• Which brands are finding the right mix?• Established sites now grabbing a slice• The icing

What I’m going to cover today:• What is it? • Why is everyone eating it?• Who is eating the most of it?• Which brands are finding the right mix?• Established sites now grabbing a slice• The icing • Key cake-aways

What I’m going to cover today:• What is it? • Why is everyone eating it?• Who is eating the most of it?• Which brands are finding the right mix?• Established sites now grabbing a slice• The icing • Key cake-aways (sorry)

1/7. What Is It?

How the idea came about…

"I was always collecting images on the web in folders on the desktop of my computer, but it wasn’t a very good system for remembering where things came from or who made them. We wanted to create a place where you can go to upload or collect things on the web and simply organize it the way you want to.”

Evan Sharp, Pinterest Designer and Co-Founder

Put simply…

”Imagine getting to do window shopping of all the best and most creative things in the world without having to go to the mall? That’s what Pinterest is.”

Tuhin Kumar, Designer, Pulse (A personalised newspaper app)

In more detail…• Pinterest is a content curation

platform which allows users to organize and share beautiful and interesting content they find on the web.

• Think of a bookmarking site, a social network, a gift finder and a platform for collaboration all rolled in to one.

• Content is organised in “Boards” that work as categories. Each piece of content is called a “Pin” (see right).

But there’s a social element too…• People can ‘like’ your pins or they

can “repin” them on to their boards, comment on them and share on Facebook and Twitter.

• You can follow people and they can follow you.

• Or you can just follow a particular board of theirs rather than following them which automatically follows all their boards.

2/7. Why Is Everyone Eating

It?

The fastest website ever to hit 10m unique users…

It’s got search engines worried…

Source: Shareaholic

More time is already being spent on Pinterest than others…

Only Tumblr and

Facebook beat it in

terms of minutes

spent by users

Source: Comscore

51% of Interbrand Top 100 Brands have a presence on it.

Source: Simply Measured

3/7. Who Is Eating The Most

Of It?

Well, apart from my Dad

Gender splitHugely popular in

the US with a largely female audience

Whereas it’s more heavily weighted

with males in the UK

Source: visual.ly

AgeOlder than

you’d think. Largely 25-44 years old.

What are they interested in?

Source: visual.ly

Design

relatedBusiness related

UK users are more business centric

Source: visual.ly

Significantly more so when

compared to US data

30% of UK users in

highest income

bracket compared to 5% (US)

4/7. Which Brands Are

Finding The Right Mix?

Here’s just a few, illustrating the platforms breadth…

Travel Channel Visual inspiration

of where to take

your next holiday…

BurberryA powerful

illustration of what

premium imagery

can do on a visual platform

General ElectricPinning things that

inspire them to

build, move and

cure the world

TIME MagazineRe-inventing the

magazine itself through visual

representations of

past and present

UNIQLO Scrolling Campaign

Gucci Pinnable Banner Ad

#pinnablead

Peugeot Panama Puzzle

Kotex Personalised Gifts for Pinners

#pinneroutreach

5/7. Established Sites Now

Grabbing A Slice

eBay Redesign

Facebook Introduce Collections

AOL - “Alto” Email Service

MySpace Is Even Coming Back

6/7. The Icing?

Showcase your products (and £) Pinterest is proving

to be a huge traffic

driver for online retail…

It’s not just imagery! You can pin videos

from YouTube and Vimeo too…

And there’s a video section on site:

So you can see what’s popular.

Where you and

colleagues / friends

/ clients can also

pin content to the same board

Go create collaborative boards…

Find out who has pinned your content… Insert your or

indeed any URL

after/source. You might be

surprised…

Is there any Pinterest functionality I can add to my browser / site / blog / shop?

Add to your browser

Add to your blog

Show what’s being pinned

from your site

Add to your shop / news site

7/7. Key cake-aways

Key cake-aways (sorry)•Identify your position on the interest graph and start creating and sharing relevant content •Don’t forget about video and audio•Add prices to your products to create your own beautiful shopfront•Ensure your site content is pinnable•Add social technologies to enable users to share your content to Pinterest for others to discover•Use collaborative boards as ways of bringing your team or community together•Be creative with the platform (eg Uniqlo, Gucci, Kotex)

See, it’s a piece of cake!

Thanks for joining me today…

Questions? Questions?

How To Get In Touch

• Follow me on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/litmanlive • You should also check out http://allaboutpinterest.co.uk • I’m a Senior Social Strategist at AnalogFolk, a digital creative agency. • If you want to get in touch, then its michael.litman@analogfolk.com or @mlitman on Twitter.