First impressions using Pinterest…

Today I FINALLY setup my page on Pinterest, and I will be testing a few different types of content for business use in the coming months.  If you are a female, you might be saying, “what took you so long?!?”  And if you’re a guy, you might be saying, “what’s Pinterest?!?”

Here are a few first impressions.  Two of these are obvious if you have used it, but this post is also written for all those men (err people!) who don’t yet know anything about it.

1. On Pinterest, Women Rule. As I knew already, the Pinterest userbase is dominated by females.  I knew it was used primarily by women, but I was struck by just how strong the divide.  Of my 600+ facebook friends, 150 were on Pinterest.  Of the 150, 125+ are women.  WOW. 
2. It’s 100% Visual.  Think of Pinterest as the anti-Twitter.  Everything is visual.  Ideas must be conveyed visually.  If you’re a photographer, you’ll find it easy.  For the rest of us, the trick is to find visual ways to communicate your ideas.  Not all your ideas fit on Pinterest.  But if you can figure out how to make an EMOTIONAL connection with people in a VISUAL way you’re going to do great.  This is what I will be testing in the coming months.
3. Pinterest is “Noisy” but Easy to “Tune In” to Your Interests.  At first, I followed all my facebook friends on Pinterest, but was immediately struck with a page full of posts that I had no interest in.  I promptly “unfollowed” everybody, and then just followed a few people.  But here’s the part I was impressed with. Every person you follow has some interests that intersect with yours, and some that don’t.  So my next step was to click on my friends and only follow the boards that intersected with my interests.  After doing this, I was very pleased with my home screen — lots of posts from people I like, about stuff I’m interested in.

If you’re a small business leader wondering how you can leverage it for YOUR business, stay tuned!  I’ll be following up later with my ideas, and the results of what I’m about to learn.