Pinterest is described by Wikipedia as a; web and mobile application company that operates a photo sharing website. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann summarised the company as a “catalog of ideas,” rather than as a social network, that inspires users to “go out and do that thing.
I absolutely love the way Ben Silbermann defines Pinterest and as an avid user, I can say I agree. I myself don’t really use it as a social communication network, but I do find people I want buy products and services from via Pinterest. For me the beauty of Pinterest is the way I can use it to help me with brainstorming and bringing ideas together. It is amazing how much clearer an idea can become after a curating a Pinterest board, filled with images that reflect your vision. As is the case for many wedding professionals, Pinterest is very often an essential component of the work I do with clients, when designing weddings and just this week I was asked by our website designer, to put a board together to share my vision for how this blog should look (ooops did I just give away that we are working on a redesign of our blog?). Pinterest helps to inspire every aspect of my life; from business, right through to home and mind/body/soul and the boards I create are a type of visual Journal I guess.
How do you use Pinterest and do you agree with Ben Silbermann’s definition? I would love you to share your comments about Pinterest with us in the comments section.
Pinterest officially launched in 2010 and here at the Academy we have been using the platform for most of the years since then, but recently we switched things up ‘a lot’, by moving away from having a separate account for each of our campuses around the world, to having one single account, with boards curated by our student body. We talked about this in Students Take Over Pinterest. This has been such a rewarding experience for everyone involved; from our team right through to the students and it is one of the ways we are giving our students experience of working in the industry, because, managing your social media presence is something you will need to do as a wedding business owner and even an wedding business employee. Letting our students work on our own Pinterest account is just one of the ways we help them gain this experience, another is our monthly Instagram challenge Wedgram (open to all wedding lovers) and of course, we cover social media in our courses too.
If you are interested in learning more about how to use Pinterest for business, Pinterest itself has some great information to help you get started and you may also enjoy the below video with our tips for how to use Pinterest for business. Social Media has revolutionised how we do business as Wedding & Event Planners and Designers. Tools like Pinterest have been around longer than others but that doesn’t mean that they don’t still have a place but sometimes how you use them does change, as it did for us. If you have an experience of changing the way you use a social media platform in your business, please add your story to the comments below.
