If you haven’t heard of Pinterest yet, you will!  Pinterest is a social media site that enables users to create online collages (“boards”) with images from the internet.  It’s catching on like wildfire, and may offer significant opportunities to marketers.

In a fascinating article on copyblogger.com, Beth Hayden writes about “56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest.”  (Thanks to my friend Christine O’Kelly, co-founder of Online PR Media, for pointing out the article.)  Some of my favorites:

32.   Pin tutorials on your boards. Need to walk a client through how to use your products or services? Or do you want to create free how-to videos to use as promotional materials? Pin your videos and presentations on special “How-To” or “Tutorial” boards. Anything you teach your clients can be made into a tutorial.

47.   Allow your best customers or star students to join in on certain boards and pin ideas and suggestions about how to use your product, or themes that go along with your products and services.

49.   Use Pinterest boards to tell client stories. Turn boring written case studies into powerful visual stories.

Pinterest can also be a great way to conduct research to find out what types of things people want currently (many of the boards are “things I love” or “things I want”).  Note that Pinterest users are not necessarily representative of society as a whole; they tend to skew female – you know, those people who have a disproportionate say in most purchase decisions!

A word of caution, though.  There are some questions regarding the legality of re-posting (“pinning”) copyrighted material.  Business Insider interviewed a media law attorney on that topic, here.

To learn more about what your customers and prospects want, talk to them!  Give us a call at (818) 752-7210.

Sources: “56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest,” Copyblogger.com, 2/14/12; “Pinterest Might Be Enabling Massive Copyright Theft,” Business Insider, 2/17/12; Bureau West research