The Pinterest Interest

It's not like I need another social media platform to keep me busy.  Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (the big 3 as they say) keep me quite connected.  Sure I've dabbled in Google+ and even Quora, but haven't found the value quite yet.  I'm not big into posting pictures, so those picture-perfect platforms have not caught my attention.

Enter Pinterest.

I have to say that I've resisted the temptation to jump onto Pinterest, mostly because I figured it was going to be another "thing" that the early adopters gravitate toward but then it never really catches on with the masses.  But with all the hype and the huge uptake, I finally thought I'd give it a try. I wanted to know - what's the Pinterest interest?

It's fun!  Really fun ... and easy to use since it fits right in nicely with regular "surfing" behavior on the web (did I just date myself by saying that?).  I've only been on it for 24 hours, but I've already "pinned" a pair of cuff links from my favorite brand Paul Smith and a recipe for "envelope" wontons from Family Foodie that I'm going to make for The Academy Awards Twitter party I'm hosting (live in my house and on Twitter at #OscarExp).

But something funny struck me as I was doing my very first pin.  This is perhaps the FIRST social media platform that is absolutely undeniably perfect for brands.  It's like it was meant for brands ... it is so brand behavior-based that it's not even funny. There is an inherent linkage to the brands we love - and perhaps now an even easier way to incorporate them into our lives.

A few "early adopters" have figured it out.  Like Gap who has created their own proprietary boards.  Or Chobani yogurt who has crafted easy-to-pin recipes.  Always good to be first.

So while brands at first struggled with how to use Facebook and Twitter, and in many ways are still shut out of places like Google+, along comes a site that is tailor made for marketing.

The question isn't how to get there, it's how quickly can you get there!

What's your experience?  Jim.

Jim Joseph
President, North America at Cohn & Wolfe
Author of The Experience Effect Series
Professor at NYU