Right now, you may be thinking – great… I still don’t get it.

If you’re looking for more information on the platform check out our post here.  If you’re ready to build your own Pinterest account keep reading.

Let’s get started!

Who is talking about your brand?
A great first step to getting involved in Pinterest is to see who is talking (aka “pinning”) about your brand already.

You can do this by typing in your brand’s website here but replacing the URL “WEBSITE.COM “with your own.
http://pinterest.com/source/WEBSITE.COM

After doing a bit of research on what others are saying about you, you are ready to make an account. Currently, to use Pinterest, you need an invitation. To get an invite, ask a friend on the platform to invite you from their account in the top right corner. If you don’t have a friend on Pinterest – send an an email to arianna@social3i.com and we will send you one over.

Signup

During the signup process you can choose a username and follow users that you’re connected to on Facebook and Twitter. This is a great initial way to build followers on the service – by embracing the network that you already have. By following others on Pinterest you’ll immediately receive a stream of content to start “pinning” and “liking”. As you sign up, you can choose privacy settings and whether or not you would like your posts to be pushed to your Facebook and Twitter account.

Creating your first board

To create your first board on Pinterest simple click the +Add button in the top right hand corner. You’ll then see a screen that looks like this :

Click the “Create a board” icon on the right.

Then, name and categorize your board. It is important to properly categorize and name your board so users can easily find you and re-pin your content.

That’s it!

Hitting the create board will create your first board. From this point, you can now start pinning on your board.

Have unanswered questions about using Pinterest? Leave us a comment below!

A site that has been gaining traction this year is Pinterest. Pinterest is a social sharing website that allows users to create their own personal pin boards. Much like the bulletin board you would find in a bedroom, Pinterest lets you visually categorize your interests on a digital board. Pinterest launched in 2010 in private beta and to this day an invite is still required for access to the site. The viral growth of the platform has been incredible and businesses are already finding ways to incorporate the site in their marketing mix.

Pinterest’s mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” This mission has since resonated with individuals around the world. Millions has since flocked to the platform and an active and engaged user-base frequents the site often times multiple times a day.

Pins, Re-pins, Likes…. What does this mean for businesses?

According to a recent study by Hitwise, Pinterest drove more traffic to retailers than LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+ combined. While many social sites come and go, Pinterest managed to establish itself as a leader and giant in the social media space. Pinterest is the fastest site in history to break the 10 million unique visitor market. Since then, many brands have integrated the platform into their digital efforts.

• Pinterest is optimized for sharing – A user can re-pin something to their own board in a matter of seconds.  With great content, proper naming, and correct categorization, the likelihood of virality on this site is much higher than platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Not only does can your content go into your own feed, but can be found in the feeds of others once re-pinned.

• Pinterest is a referral engine - With proper tagging and board categorization, Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your website. The top pins have been repinned as many as 10,000 times. Many brands have seen their traffic increase from just a few posts on the medium.

“In the last six months, the retail deal site ideeli.com has seen a 446 percent increase in web traffic from Pinterest and sales resulting from those visits have increased five-fold.

“We continue the Pinterest conversation with [the] members by following their pins, and we love to give feedback outside of the shopping category — whether that means commenting on a great recipe or [giving] a heart next to our favorite pet pics,” says ideeli.com social media manager Sarah Conley. “We also see Pinterest as a growing resource to better understand our members and the larger retail landscape.” via Entrepreneur.com

What are users saying about Pinterest?

Who is using the platform?

Brands like your local mom and pop clothing store, to retail giants like Forever 21 have all embraced the platform as part of their digital strategy for 2012. Here are 14 Brands on Pinterest for you to check out.

Here is an example of how one of our clients, Merrill Gardens is participating. Over the past week, Merrill has began creating boards catered towards the interests of their residents. In just a week, Merrill has been re-pinned hundreds of times and has begun to build a following of those with similar interests.

Ready to start? Check out our post tomorrow on “Getting Started With Pinterest”.

Need an invite to the service? Shoot a mail to arianna@social3i.com and we will be sure to send you one.

Already a Pro at Pinterest?

Have you tried these neat hacks?

How to Give Your Pinterest A Digital Edge

How to Integrate Pinterest with Your Facebook Fan Page

This week, Google launched a new feature called Google Personalized Search. What does Google have to say about their new feature?

“We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction by introducing three new features:

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;
2. Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and,
3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.”

The first thing I did when I heard about this was open a second browser, one which I was not logged into any Google profiles. I made the same search and compared the results I got back from the two browsers – one where Google knew who I was and one where it didn’t.

It will be interesting to see if Google chooses to keep or can this new feature.

Kirk and his girlfriend Aly will be travelling with a group lead by former Mariner Dan Wilson, to build baseball and soccer fields at some schools that Wilson’s Foundation established a few years ago. Aly will be shooting the whole 3 week trip and preparing a full documentary of the event. The footage should be unbelievable.

We look forward to having Kirk and Aly back safe and sound at the end of the month. But as we get some communiques back from them, we’ll be sure to post the information, photos and footage up here and on our Facebook page.

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On one hand, it is funny that they thought their private Twitter conversations wouldn’t become public. Either they don’t understand partisan politics, or that social networks are open for anyone and everyone to see your ugly exploits, or they’re too immature for those realities to register.

But on the other, the fact that congressional staffers, in highly desirable positions, would waste taxpayers money by treating their jobs like a college party on a Saturday night was galling.

While partisan politics will fuel the discussions around this ugliness, it’s worthwhile to remind ourselves that A) this wasn’t the elected official, B) this may be more of the norm for young 20-something congressional staffers in DC (just that these were dumb to publicize their exploits), C) there are still problems with adults drinking at lunch or medicated on prescription drugs all day while they work. But in the end, this was a reprehensible act, and I’m glad that Congressman Larsen fired these 3 staffers within an hour of being informed of their stupidity.

Since we work in social media, we understand that anything we do might enter the public domain. But this is a good reminder for everyone, that we can’t tweet or post about malicious or nefarious actions with impunity. It’s also a painful reminder that young employees, despite their college educations, may need oversight and are at times immature.

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the Pinnion below.

Anyway, he’s kind enough to post it to his blog with an embed link, and so we are embedding it below as well. Take a few minutes and run through it. Definitely worth reading and sharing with your team.

Every quarter or so, the crew from Social3i goes down to SVC, thanks to the invitation of Larry Asher and Linda Hunt. It’s a great chance for us to dust off our case studies and examples, and spend a day talking about social marketing.

We’re going on our 14th or 15th workshop, and we keep getting asked back, so the attendees must be seeing some value or they’d be telling Larry to find new instructors. It’s a nice setting to spend some time talking with peers and colleagues.

I think there are still spots available, so come on by the School of Visual Concepts if you feel like a session in B2B Social Media. Get all the details at www.svcseattle.com.

So, when a publisher like Geekwire sets up a Fireside chat with Rich Barton, it’s kind of a can’t miss event. I’ve seen Rich speak a number of times, and his mantra about online marketing carries with me whenever I see a new business plan. His line is simple to remember and generally dead on: “Whatever can be free will be free, whatever can be found will be found, and whatever can be rated will be rated.”

But last night at Spitfire, Rich added one more message to the Seattle VC and entrepreneurial community. He said (and I paraphrase here), “The problem with the Seattle Entrepreneurial community is that no enough people swing for the home run. It takes just as much energy to walk out of the dugout and bunt as it takes to walk out of the dugout and swing for the fences.”

It’s a fair and accurate comment, and something even more extraordinary when you consider that besides Barton, there are at least 4 or 5 other Seattle based entrepreneurs who went long a decade or more ago:
- Bill Gates, who put a PC on every desktop.
- Howard Schultz, who put a $4.00 cup of coffee in everyone on the planet’s hand.
- Jeff Bezos, who made it possible to buy anything from anyplace, anytime for a market price, and get it delivered almost overnight.
- Paul Allen, whose goals are so big and audacious he probably overshoots them by a few years (ie space travel.)

Barton’s message which every marketer should hear as well – “Pick a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and don’t surround yourself with any team members who don’t think that big. People have an amazing capacity to do huge things if a huge goal is set before them.”

It seems like a good lesson for all of us in social media and digital marketing.

Over the course of the last year, we’ve maintained our solid client service relationships while also developing product based solutions to help us be more efficient in our day to day operations.

Now, thanks in part to the NWEN First Look Forum, we’re preparing to spin out our new company, Relaborate. Without spoiling the surprise, Relaborate directly solves a content development conundrum facing most of our clients, as well as many of our agency friends. We’ll debut the platform to the angel investors at First Look Forum on October 18.

Now on another note, we quietly launched a new project called Animakast, in partnership with our friends at Flying Spot. This is another content generation program, but focused on animation and podcasts. We’re working on a few alpha tests with this now, but will start rolling it out for real in the coming month or so.

Finally, during all of this work in the product development process, we’ve had the opportuninty to talk and collaborate with a number of analytics and tools companies. One of our favorites, Lithium, has now become a closer partner. We’re happy to announce that Social3i Co-Founder Xavier Jimenez has joined Lithium as a Director of Product Development. Xav will continue to serve on the Board of Directors of Social3i and provide advice and guidance in the area of social analytics. His role in the management team will be filled by Michael Neu, who has been with us for more than a year now as a Director of Campaigns.

All in all, an exciting few months. Let us know if you are interested in applying to the alpha programs of Relaborate or Animakast. And after October 18, we’ll be available to provide more information to investors about Relaborate.

Thanks.