Pinterest - Worth the interest?

JUST when you thought we had a full house of social media sites another one appears and threatens to raise the roof. The latest social offering, called Pinterest, is the fastest growing social media site of all time achieving 10 million unique visitors in the last 10 months. Only Facebook and Tumblr have more social media time that Pinterest and it already achieves a greater referral rate than Twitter.

What does Pinterest offer us that the other social media sites don’t? And, are there any tangible benefits to the telecoms and IT industry? The mission statement of the site is to ‘connect everyone in the world through the things they find interesting’, and it fulfills this through a series of pin boards where subscribers can share any image they find interesting. The key to Pinterest is the ease of use: Just type in a search word and you receive a single page of imagery you can browse through. It operates through a subtle ‘discovery’ mantra forcing you on an addictive journey of ideas and pictures you never knew you were interested in. The most notable business benefit is the possibility to manage your brand, promote your people and products, and breakdown the stuffy wall of professional business protocol through imagery. The beauty of Pinterest is that you engage with ideas and themes over people. Pinterest reminds me of Google images, albeit more accessible with the integration to other social sites making pinning and sharing simple. Content is restricted to images which puts the voyeur in complete control, stripping out the often irrelevant twittering and postings of its contemporary sites. And for realising business benefits? This remains to be seen but the best way to find out is to join up and get pinning – www.pinterest.com/blabbermouthltd/