Just when you think there can’t possibly be ANOTHER social network to add to the crowded list – along comes Pinterest. Not only has Pinterest been able to garner an audience – it’s one of the fastest growing social networking sites in history, generating 11.7 million visits in the month of January.
My view is that this growth has been spurred on largely through integration with the Facebook Open Graph (Pinterest was one of the first 60 partners). The strategic alignment of platforms like this will see new entrants having to take sides in what will become a war of ecosystems – Google v Facebook. It will make for interesting times – and certainly lead to consolidation over the coming year.
But coming back to Pinterest – we can certainly expect to see an increasing use by brands hoping to share in the massive volume of click through traffic that the site generates. The cool thing for brands and for businesses is that they will need to focus on topics not products or risk having their pinboards deleted. That means that – perhaps – brands will start to understand the nature of “adjacent conversations” and the power that they lend to your social media marketing efforts.
Note: Before you get too excited about Pinterest, take a quick look at an alternative view – the RISKS of using Pinterest.
MDG Advertising has created this neat infographic to highlight some of the more salient facts and figures.