Why the interest in Pinterest
Update: Since writing this Pinterest has changed its Terms of Service
Pinterest is a visual online sharing facility.
It launched in closed beta in March 2010 but has since opened itself up to the ‘general public’, but only by invitation after a request is made, and then the account has to be linked to a Facebook or Twitter account.
It has grown in popularity this year and, according to comScore, had 11.7 million unique users in January. The main reason it has really started to pique interest though is through its ability to drive traffic. In January it drove more referral traffic to retailers’ websites than LinkedIn, YouTube or Google+…
Infographic courtesy of modea.com via mashable.com
At the moment it has a very warm, cosy feel to it. Its users are predominantly female and the content shared tends to be images of art, fashion, nice places and nice ‘things’. It has great potential for those who are in the creative industries as it is a platform for sharing ideas and thoughts in the form of images and pictures. It removes the need for over explanation and is good forum for those who ‘think in pictures’.
However, as with all that appears to be too good to be true, there is currently a downside. Pinterest’s Terms of Use for posting content to the site states the following:
‘By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs [owners of Pinterest] a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.’
This statement, understandably, is putting some potential users off as it implies that, for example, if an artist posts an image of one of their works then that image could be used by Pinterest for commercial gain.
Pinterest has a lot of potential in becoming the ‘next big thing’ in social media as it is well designed, has a nice feel to it and is easy to use. Hopefully their Terms of Use won’t bring them the same amount of adverse publicity that Facebook has encountered time and time again with privacy though…
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Why Social Media Works Well for Charities
Social Media (the likes of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+) are on-line communication channels that allow individuals and organisations to engage with each other.
With their popularity, and numbers, growing (Facebook currently has over 800 million users worldwide) they are a real alternative to spreading your message on the, often very expensive, traditional media channels.
Charities, more than any other organisations, normally have very little budget for advertising. One of the reasons being that, even though they need to compete for the donors’ pound, they don’t feel comfortable using other donors’ pounds to do this.
Traditional media channels, such as television, radio and newspaper, are often put out of the reach of charities because of this reason. However, setting up and using social media to communicate only costs time. Even if charities employ the use of a social media agency they are unlikely to be charged the full rate and it would be a lot less than paying for advertising in traditional media.
The main reason that social media works well for charities though is that it is all about engagement, and those who support charities want to feel they are engaged and part of that charity. So setting your charity up on Facebook, Twitter and maybe even putting some short films on YouTube will invite your supporters in and once they have connected with you, talk to them, tag them and keep them up-to-date with what you are doing – they will feel included, valued and keep on supporting you.
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