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Pinterest
Best Practice
January 2012




http://www.greenlightdigital.com
What is Pinterest?
A new social platform

  In basic terms:



        Pinterest is a visual discovery social
        network. It is a way of sharing images
       of anything, from fashion to pets to pot
       plants. You can create your own online
       pinboards to suit any theme and share
              it with likeminded people.

                                       © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Why do people use it?

 •   To share, interact and discover.

 •   Pinterest completely revolves around the
     premise of being creative and visual.
     Imagine all of your Facebook friends only
     ever posted photos and you’d be getting
     close to the kind of content available.

 •   It is used for inspiration. Fashion lovers,
     interior designers, brides-to-be, expectant
     parents, budding chefs – they all use it to
     share their ideas and also get ideas from
     other users.




                                                   © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Who is using it?

    •   Exact number of users has not been released
        yet, but in December 2011 Hitwise reported
        Pinterest were reaching 11 million visits a
        week.

    •   70% users are female and aged between 25
        and 44.

    •   Pinterest is now one of the top 10 social
        networking sites tracked by Hitwise.

    •   It was listed in Time Magazine’s Top 50
        Websites of 2011.




                                                      © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Who is using it?




                   © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
How to use Pinterest
Homepage                                    Add a pin from a             User panel including
                                            URL or your                  Settings, and your
                     Choose which           computer, or add             Boards & Pins.
                     category you want to   a new board.
                     look at.
        Search box




 How other
 Pinners have
 interacted with
 your pins and
 boards.




Most recent
pins from the
people you
follow.




                                                               © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Profile page                                                                Rearrange how
                                                                            people see your
                              See your       See which other                boards.
                   See your   pins           pins you’ve liked
                   boards     individually

 Followers and
 following.




 Other social
 media profiles.




  Your recent
  activity.




                                                                 © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Glossary

    Pins: These are the individual images users post
       onto Pinterest.

    Boards: These are themed areas where users can
       collate a selection of similar Pins. A Board
    contains Pins.

    Repin: When users copy a Pin they’ve seen onto a
       Board of their own.

    Like: Sometimes users may not want to repin a Pin,
        so will just show their appreciation
    through ‘Liking’ it instead. They can also leave a
        comment.




                                                         © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Sharing from Pinterest
                                   There are a number of sharing
                                   options available when you
                                   click on a Pin.
                                   Social sharing: Facebook ‘Like’ and
                                   Tweet options.

                                   Embed: Allows the pin to be shared on
                                   blogs and external sites.

                                   Email: An image URL that can be shared
                                   over email.



                         Pinterest has just been introduced as one of
                         60 new apps available on Facebook’s Open
                         Graph. This is bound to vastly increase its
                         usership and raise awareness.




                                                     © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Pinterest and link building

  HOW DOES IT WORK?

  -   Pinterest allow you to share the
      images by copy and pasting the
      code on blogs and websites



  -   The “source link” generated is
      crawlable and followed which
      can pass authority to the
      original source where the
      image was found in first place




                                         © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
All pins are links
    When someone pins an image from your website, it is added to a collection of all pins from
    the same site.




                                                                              © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
How brands can use Pinterest
It’s different

 •   Pinterest is not a broadcast mechanism in the
     same way as other social networks. Brands will
     need a different approach to Twitter and
     Facebook.

 •   It does not encourage product pushing, this
     means brands must look at creating Boards that
     are culture and lifestyle related. You can create
     Boards on trends, behind the scenes, preliminary
     sketches for products etc.

 •   Pinterest is creative, so be creative in your
     output!




                                                         © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Interact with other users

    •   Brands can learn a huge amount from their
        followers on Pinterest, as they are offering
        up a lot of information about their personal
        interests.

    •   Pinterest provides great crowd sourcing
        opportunities. You can ask people to pin
        pictures of themselves with your product
        and then repin them onto a themed Board.

    •   You can utilise the option of having open
        Boards to come up with competitions such
        as pinning an outfit to a Board or asking
        users to come up with their Board to share
        with others.




                                                       © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Look out for affiliate linking

    •   Pinterest is driving the social shopping
        experience. Users are often buy
        hungry when visiting the site, creating
        an opportunity for brands to sell
        product to users who are actively
        seeking it out.

    •   In reaction to this, Pinterest is testing
        affiliate links using skimlinks. Skimlinks
        is an innovative service that
        automatically replaces links to a
        product to an affiliate link if there is a
        program associated with it.

    •   Brands should be aware that Pinterest
        can and will change links for their
        products if an affiliate program exists.



                                                     © Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012
Greenlight
                                   Level 14
                                   The Broadgate Tower
                                   London, EC2A 2EW
                                   +44 (0)20 7253 7000
                                   rfi@greenlightdigital.com


                  Thank You        http://www.greenlightdigital.com




© Greenlight Marketing Ltd, 2012