Recently I raised my bushy man eyebrows at the latest news about Pinterest. The media has reported that 90% of the Pinterest users are women – and then there’s me. On Pinterest, I’m Outnumbered! Personally I feel like the luckiest guy on the inter-webs because the odds are in my favor (JK). For me though it is just one more time where I find myself surrounded by women and quite OK with it. When I was growing up, the men in my family were the ones in the kitchen. Not that the women in my family didn’t cook but the men felt just as comfortable in the kitchen cooking the Sunday family feast as did the women. In high school, when given a choice of elective classes, I wanted to be with the women so I chose “sewing” and “cooking” classes over shop and wood-working. In college after a failed attempt at chemistry I ended up in psychology with a majority of women. And today, you can find me in the kitchen, doing the weekly grocery shopping, and more likely to bake cookies for the softball team than coaching the team (which my wife does willingly and well). So it was not much of a surprise to me that I am outnumbered 9 to 1 on Pinterest — and surrounded by women.
I do quite a bit of consulting on social media, communications and marketing; and therefore, explore most of the new emerging sites 
like Pinterest. Similar to Twitter (and years ago with MySpace), I did not really see the value in Pinterest at first. The main reason I was drawn to Pinterest was to cross-market my content on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and WordPress. I soon realized that it is quite addictive. I am intrigued and slightly obsessed with Lists. Pinterest is an ideal platform for list-o-maniacs. Within a short time, I created boards based on lists like: My Favorite Books, Celebrities I’ve Met, People I Admire, Favorite Places in NYC, Cars I’ve Owned, etc. In some cases I created the lists from PC Pop blog posts of mine. This is a great way to get started on Pinterest with minimal effort.
What I have found from my limited use of Pinterest is that it is useful for collectors (and hoarders). If you have a number of recipes that you refer to often online, Pinterest gives you a place to collect them, store them, share them, and easily retrieve them whenever you need them. My favorite guacamole is Alton Brown’s recipe which is posted somewhere on the Food Network website. Each time I need it, I have to do a Google search and hopefully find it. Well, now, Pinterest allows me to create a “recipe” board and pin Alton’s guacamole recipe – very convenient. Pinterest has also become my “go to” web-place to search for recipes. If you search Pinterest, you get quite a few hits and the results have photos and reviews right there at your finger-tips.
I have noticed though that there are a gazillion blogs about food, and these bloggers repost other people’s recipes. They credit the original chef and link to the original post of the recipe but it is bit annoying. It’s annoying because you may have to click through a 
couple of blog posts before you find the original recipe. The other thing I have noticed is there are a lot of very ambitious DIY bloggers who share their latest theme-related, holiday craft project to do with your kids. These craft projects are beautiful and inspiring but how in the world would anyone (especially a parent) find the time to do all of these things with your kids. Personally I struggle getting the Pumpkins carved by Halloween, Easter eggs colored before Easter Sunday, getting the Christmas tree up soon after Thanksgiving (and putting it all away before Valentine’s Day), and getting food on the table for dinner every night. Making my sandwiches look like Mater from Pixar’s Cars is not a top priority for me most nights. You have to be careful to not let Pinterest make you feel like a neglectful, under-achieving parent. That being said, our new favorite potato dish, baked ham glaze, and Irish soda bread came from Pinterest.
Similar to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and my blog, Pinterest gives you great joy when someone follows your boards or “repins” one of your pins. I recently pinned a recipe for cinnamon sweet potatoes and was on cloud 9 because it got close to 100 repins. Sounds silly but you know you’ve been there. But seriously, like any social media and marketing site, it only has an impact if it is engaging, people are following you, you’re getting comments on your pins and most importantly with Pinterest, your pins are getting “repinned.” To make this happen you have to explore other people’s boards, follow others, comment on pins, and repin other’s posts. You also need to add pins regularly.
Lastly, Pinterest is a great place to practice cross-marketing. If you have a collection of videos on your YouTube channel and several posts on your blog, Pinterest boards give you a place to market and share them. Create a board on Pinterest with a theme and pin your videos and blog posts. When your Pinterest followers click on your pin it takes them directly to your blog post. With videos, it plays the video on Pinterest and allows you to click through to YouTube and watch it there as well. Another way to increase traffic back to Pinterest is to create a hyperlink within your photos on your blog to a board on Pinterest. If you click on the photos in my blogs about Survivor Leadership, you will be directed to a board on my Pinterest site called Survivor Leadership. This board contains all of the photos from all of my blogs post about Survivor. The pins on this board then link my Pinterest followers to my blog posts. Cross-marketing is the best way to increase traffic across all of the platforms you’re using.
More and more people are finding Pinterest and joining the fun. Pinterest’s numbers have exploded in early 2012. Pinterest is nowhere near the world domination status of Facebook or Twitter. But another measure of success is the amount of media attention a site is getting – and in this category Pinterest is winning the race. Pinterest is dominating the media lately. I hope I have given you some ideas in this post on how you can join the party and use Pinterest to increase your presence online. You will be sucked in initially and spend hours exploring, creating boards and pinning. (At one point, I thought I needed a Pintervention.) Each day there are more and more companies, politicians and universities jumping on board but for now it is just me and all of these women. And just like high school cooking class, I’m enjoying being outnumbered and part of the 10%. Check out my boards, repin my pins and follow me.
Read other PC Pop blog posts about Social Media & Marketing:
- NPO Social Media & Marketing – Unique Culture of Non Profits
- Kids Using Social Media — A Guide for Families & Educators
- How to Say NO to Facebook – Advice for Families & Educators
Read other PC Pop blog posts about my issues with being a man (and a feminist):
PCPop w/ Pablo 