Move over Facebook, here comes Pinterest! [ Edited ]

[Marissa_R Moderator]

How Pinterest Is Becoming the Next Big Thing in Social Media for Business

By Jason Falls

Jason Falls, of Social Media Explorer, delves into Pinterest and what you can do as a business to attract people back to your website to increase your sales.  The main takeaways I found were as follows:

• Don't be too promotional focused. Find products and images you want to share besides those of your business.
• Create boards that are fun for you as well as those that are promotional based
• Interact with those that follow you and follow them back
• Create a board for Deals and see how fast coupons get shared. Run a contest to find out who has shared it the most and how viral it went. Reward that person with a special deal.
• Add descriptions and pricing of the images that you post and always link it back to your website.  The Pin It bookmark is extremely helpful for pinning directly back to your website.

The best way to get started is to open an account.  It's free and I personally love it.  I spend more time on Pinterest now than I do on Facebook.  And I'm not the only one.  Earlier this week, Shareaholic reported that "the site registered more than 7 million unique visitors in December, up from 1.6 million in September.  It's driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined."  Yes, I said combined!

And well, try it out for yourself if you want to give it a whirl before using it for your business.  From my own personal findings, it took me about 2-3 hours to LOVE it.  At first, I was confused.  But the more I played, the more I liked it!

So try it out and share with us here how it goes!

Are you already on Pinterest?

What type of boards do you have?

What brands do you follow?

[CorpColl]

Yezbut....,

Here's another article about the dangers of copyright violations. It's everywhere on the web, 'everyone's doing it'... but that doesn't make it OK, nor legal for that matter.  We all have to be careful about others' legal rights. Check out the article below for some eye-opening information (if you didn't already know this).

http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Pinterest-a-Haven-for-Copyright-Violations

It took me all of 5 minutes to get hooked on Pinterest, but I never signed up due to the copyright implications. I'm a struggling small business and really don't need the hassle of copyright infringement. I am concerned that similar to the song downloading epidemic, Pinterest could become a target for lawsuits, and the violators are ripe for the picking, all in one pace. It really is all too easy to just repin something that you legally should not. Even if you're trying to help promote, it can have consequences. Copyright is not to be taken lightly, and I think too many of us internet users are totally ignorant of what it entails. It would behoove us all to self-educate ourselves regarding copyright laws.

[Marissa_R Moderator]

Thanks Jeanne for posting that article! I never really thought of anything legal when using Pinterest. If I use the "pin it" bookmark, I always do it from the actual site so that it links back. I hope this doesn't turn into Napster!

Thanks for letting me know!

[CorpColl]

I understand. Just keep in mind, and I quote from the article I posted:

"...Therefore, giving credit and a link back does not satisfy copyright. You still have to have permission.

Fair use does not say "it's okay to repost someone's work if you don't make money on it." Even if you don't, the copyright holder could — unless someone else is giving away that work for free!

Also, an image doesn't lose copyright when it's posted on the web."

It's all very annoying to have to go through proper steps, just like in email marketing through Constant Contact (think about having to contact everyone individually when an email address comes back abandoned or no longer in service, when you know for a fact that it actually still is in use), but you have to ask yourself, if I was that artist, photographer, blogger, who worked long and hard for the results everyone likes so much, how would I feel if someone used my work without even asking? Or even profitted from it when it is *my* work? It's certainly not going to stop copyright infringement from happening, but I feel it's important for us to educate ourselves about these issues. Knowledge is Power!