Hey! I suppose you are already aware of Pinterest and now your mind is constantly asking reasons for its birth. Why was Pinterest born? What is the need for this platform? How to make use of Pinterest if we already have Instagram and Facebook to share pictures? And many similar questions that are floating on the top of your mind. I know this feeling, I was also curious when I first came across this platform and asked similar questions. I had a hard time finding the answers as to why they created this platform and what purpose does it solve. However, there is a substantial reason behind the birth of Pinterest and that what I’m about to tell you in this article. I’m sure you will start enjoying it more once you know the reason behind its birth and how to use it.
Table of Contents
The Birth of Pinterest
Just like every other social platform, Pinterest was also born out of the necessity. The necessity was not to connect people together rather create a platform where people can share their ideas and organise those ideas in a better way. The Ideas are growing at the speed of light. Today, each and every person has the power to share their ideas with the world and with ease. There are so many ideas and content floating on the internet today, that we need to find a way to organize it. There was a need to organize these ideas in a better way that they can be useful for others. To better understand the need we would need to go back in the era where there was no Pinterest.
I don’t know if you have seen the era before Pinterest (before March 2010) otherwise you would have a good idea about the problems that existed in those times. I was lucky enough to have had access to the internet early in my childhood days and I have seen and faced the problems that these platforms have solved over time. The internet was pretty young back then and there were a few tools and utilities to help you complete your most basic tasks.
One such task was to keep a track of useful images and content that you find on the web while surfing in a well-managed environment which you can later share in your close circle. Of Course, there was facebook and other social networks available but they did not fill the gap to organise images & content in order to share them with the world. For that, you would first have to download the image to your personal computer and upload it to the facebook. This was not at all feasible. Plus the images are not at all managed. You would have to put a lot of extra efforts from your end in order to manage it efficiently. ?I remember “MY PICTURES” folder on my PC was full of folders and then those folders were full of images. It was so cumbersome to open each folder and scan through the images just to find that one perfect pic that you need to share with your friend at that time. I don’t know whether you can relate to this or not but it was brutal and unkind. Those are one of the most dreadful moments of my childhood.
After the launch of Pinterest, this problem was solved in a graceful manner. Now, if I liked any image on the web while surfing, I can simply pin it down and share with my friend. Pinterest gave me a way to share my ideas with the world instantly and efficiently.
Pins are just Ideas
Pinterest’s sole objective was to find a way to share ideas among people across the world. It was indeed a unique idea of that time. Just like every other social media platform, Pinterest is also build to share the common interest among the people across the world. The only difference here is the sharing commodity. The sharing commodity here is the IDEA.
Earlier I used Pinterest just to save images and organise them into beautiful pinboards. I really started liking Pinterest when I spent more than an hour surfing different pinboards shared by various people across the world. People are amazing. That one hour filled my mind with various different ideas. If you are actually looking for a unique idea to work on, Pinterest is no doubt the best starting point for it. You will be amazed to see how a simple idea is capable of taking various forms, from a recipe to those perfect pair of shoes. The idea is filled all across the web.
Pinterest has found a pretty awesome way to organise every idea. They replaced the idea with the concept of PIN(s). Each idea is represented by the PIN, so the name Pinterest. Each PIN takes a form of the image which has a description and a link pointing back to the source online. If you are intrigued by the image (PIN), you can click on the link and further explore the idea on the website.
Ideas come from All Over the Web
Pinterest has very well understood the fact that ideas are present everywhere across the web. They studied closely and created a very efficient way to convert every idea into a PIN (the image on the web page) and provided a way for the user to save it to their PINBOARD or, to say, pin it to their respective PINBOARD. You see, your ideas are like a bubble that might hold many other small bubbles. You need a way to organise it all it in a single place. Pinterest provides a perfect solution for your problem.
If you want to test how this thing work, ?click on the Pinterest button at the bottom of this article, it will present you with all the different images used on this page. Select the image you would like to pin to your Pinboard by clicking on it. The pin will be saved and you will be taken back to the previous page. It won’t affect your usual surfing experience. Pinterest also provides a browser extension which you can install on your browser. This extension will make it really easy for you to pin individual images on the go. The plugin will detect the images used on the web page and show a red PIN button as you hover the image. You can install the plugin from the following link – Pinterest Save Button.
As soon as you pin any image to your board, that image gets saved forever along with its description and a link pointing back to the original page on the web. It is like you have archived that pin forever. You can later visit the link anytime you want just by clicking on the pin that you have saved before.
Better way to Organise different Ideas in One Place
Pinterest provides the concept of “boards”. Every pin is pinned to a board. If I have to put it in another way, then you can think of a board as a container that contains the cluster of different pins. This provides you with a great option to organise your related pins. ?Have a look how you can organize your pins with different boards.
This does not end here, the social media part of Pinterest gives it the meaning and value that it holds. The boards and pins that you have pinned down over a period of time are like your asset. The asset which other people might be interested in. Pinterest provides you with the power to share your boards with different people. It also allows comments and like options to every pin which makes it a little bit more addictive. Who doesn’t want their ideas to be liked and shared with other? Take a look at my board http://pin.it/xUaK7Ky. I have made this board where I keep a track of all the blogs I would like to visit again later. A perfect way to organise all the useful contents just with a click. Isn’t it cool? I’m sure it is 😉
If you liked my board, you can also comment and share it further with different people in your circle. This sharing power further opens up a whole new market for the marketers to market their products.
Follow Others Or Follow Boards
Pinterest is a Social Network of ideas and just like every other social platform it has a feature to follow each other. Plus, it gives you the power to follow just the board. If you love someone’s board and you wish to subscribe to that particular board, you can do that. This is really a necessary one especially when you are in love with someone’s board. Following someone’s board is really simple. Just click on the board name mentioned below every image and tada you will land to their board page with a follow button at the top right corner. It looks similar to the image below,
Suppose this is not all. Now, you have liked the board so much that you have started loving the person and wants to follow him/her. When you love someone, you want to follow each and everything that person does. You would not want to search that person every time just to see what he/she has uploaded next. You would want to bring its latest uploads straight to you. This is where you can follow that person. You will click on the person’s image and it will take you to their profile page where you can follow him/her. Refer the image below,
If you happen to like someone’s pins and boards you can simply follow them. Now whenever they will upload any new idea/pin, that pin will directly show on your dashboard. It is a great way to say someone that you love his work.
Looking it the other way around, it is also a great way to increase your fan following. You can make a lot of followers and offer them some of your awesome products that they would want to buy. Thus, it can help you in your business. Many marketers are emerging from Pinterest by selling their product simply by using the three things that Pinterest offers with every pin e.g. Image, Description and Link. That is all which is required to attract potential clients to your product page where they can read more about it. And if the product is of use to them then BINGO you have a sale. Pinterest is one of the best places to sell your products and increase your market. If you are a marketer then this is your marketplace 😉
Search Your Interest
The power of Pinterest is increased by many folds with their search features. I must say, they have a pretty nice search feature. I don’t know what others think about its search features but I found it pretty darn sexy, Yo. Here, the snippet how search attractive Pinterest search really is.
Nothing came in my mind except the search term above. I know boys will love it 😀
As you can see the search feature is really very attractive and on top of that, it suggests you the category you may want to look further. It was easy and sexy and eye pleasing (talking about the search feature).
Visual Marketing
Pinterest is all the about visual show. This place is meant to share images in the form of ideas and thus, it is filled with images from different people and about different products. Marketers have started exploiting the opportunities that Pinterest has within itself. It has given them the power to market their product to the people in a more appealing and personalised way. Businesses often create pins to highlight their products and build brand awareness. They are also using Pinterest to increase the sale of their product by providing a backlink to their product page.
It is a proven way to increase the sale on your website. You can create your own pins and link those pins to their respective product page. Thus, anyone who clicks on the link will be taken directly to that link and might end up as a potential buyer of your product. It is proven that Pinterest has the ability to increase your sale by a factor of 3x. It is true and it is increasing at even faster rates. If you are not using Pinterest yet, I think it is time for you to make some changes in your marketing strategies to include Pinterest as a major part.
I hope this article helped you understand the purpose and hidden opportunities of Pinterest in the most naked way. Pinterest is simple, it does not have many features to mesmerise a newcomer. I think this is a good thing about Pinterest. They have kept it simple and to the point. ?Nothing too flashy. In the beginnig I even thought – “Is it all?”?Well turns out they have just been focussing on one thing at a time. It was a photo sharing platform earlier, it is the same now. Although, the performance has increased by many folds
For Developers
Pinterest is not just limited to its users. They offer a powerful rest API to help developers to use their features to create an application to use in their own terms. It does provide you with a great deal of power and optimisation on how you would want to create, delete or update your board.
I’m yet to use their API to build something useful but I’m definitely using their widgets.
I’m using their board widget to portrait my pins on my contact page. It offers multiple widgets that you can use on your website with ease. Have a look at their widget builder.
If you want to see how does it look like, visit my contact page and have a nice look at it. It is visually attractive, don’t you think.
Pinterest is doing a great job in extending their platform and I can say with authority that they are going to make a difference in the future. Very soon you may expect new features to come in. ?
What do you think about Pinterest? Do you think Pinterest has the ability to become one of the most beloved Ideas?across the Internet? How do you use Pinterest to promote your products/blog?