Presentation made at Social Media Marketing 2012 on October 25th. Dispelling the myth that Pinterest is solely the preserve of middle aged American women pinning about cupcakes.... with a couple of cupcakes.

1. Michael Litman (@mlitman)
Pinterest: What is it and
why should you care?
#SMM12
25th October 2012

2. Hello!

3. 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!

4. Chicken Wing Cupcake!

5. Beer Cupcake!

6. Peacock Cupcake

7. Bacon and Egg Cupcake

8. Halloween Cupcake

9. Jabba The…. Cupcake

10. Corn-on-the-cupcake

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

13. 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).

14. What I’m going to cover today:

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

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

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

18. 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?

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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)

23. 1/7.
What Is It?

24. 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

25. 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)

26. 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).

27. 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.

28. 2/7.
Why Is Everyone Eating It?

29. The fastest website ever to hit
10m unique users…

30. It’s got search engines worried…
Source: Shareaholic

31. More time is already being spent
on Pinterest than others…
Source: Comscore

32. 51% of Interbrand Top 100
Brands have a presence on it.
Source: Simply Measured

33. 3/7.
Who Is Eating The Most Of
It?

34. Well, apart from my Dad

35. Gender split Age
Source: visual.ly

36. What are they interested in?
Source: visual.ly

37. UK users are more business centric
Source: visual.ly

38. 4/7.
Which Brands Are Finding
The Right Mix?

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

40. Travel Channel

41. Burberry

42. General Electric

43. TIME Magazine

44. UNIQLO Scrolling Campaign

45. Gucci Pinnable
Banner Ad
#pinnablead

46. Peugeot Panama Puzzle

47. Kotex Personalised Gifts for Pinners
#pinneroutreach

48. 5/7.
Established Sites Now
Grabbing A Slice

49. eBay Redesign

50. Facebook Introduce Collections

51. AOL - “Alto” Email Service

52. MySpace Is Even Coming Back

53. 6/7. The Icing?

54. Showcase your products (and £)

55. It’s not just imagery!

56. And there’s a video section on site:

57. Go create collaborative boards…

58. Find out who has pinned your
content…

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

60. 7/7.
Key cake-aways

61. 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)

62. See, it’s a piece of cake!

63. Thanks for joining me today…
Questions?
Questions?

64. 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.