Expanding our Pinterest case study, this post provides updates on the growth and changes experienced by SMinOrgs since mid August, including new board updates (expanded, freshly populated and new), some favorite pins, and a quick popularity assessment. Our goal is to inspire people to think about how they can use Pinterest not just for fun, but for work too. Come pin with us!
In August we published Pinterest for Professional Purposes? Not as Preposterous as it Sounds!, which offers a case study based on our initial experience to help people understand the ways in which it can be used by individuals as a professional development tool, as well as by organizations that aren’t focused on individual consumers (i.e., BtoB enterprises, nonprofit organizations, professional associations, public sector entities, etc.). In that post we promised to provide updates on how our presence is evolving. This is the first of those updates – and we have a lot to report!
Our goal with these posts is to inspire people to think about how they can use Pinterest not just for fun, but for work too. We hope our pins – and our progress - provide some “pinspiration” for your own boards. If you’d like to stay abreast of our Pinterest updates, please follow our Pinterest Resources board. You can also subscribe to the S.M.A.R.T. Blog to receive other great SMinOrgs content.
And as always we welcome feedback and other great examples of how individuals and organizations are leveraging Pinterest in professionally-oriented ways.
- Courtney Shelton Hunt
My How We’ve Grown!
In our mid-August post, we reported that we had 14 boards, 81 followers, and 55 likes on over 100 pins. Now we have 16 boards, 150 followers, 88 likes, and 298 repins on 230 pins! We also follow 49 boards related to our focus on social and digital technologies and are always on the hunt for more great content.
If you’re already a pinner, you can find our boards here. Here’s a quick update on the boards we’ve set up so far:
The Established (but still Growing) Boards
- IT Infographics (formerly Social Media Infographics): 56 pins (+12)
- Technology Ticklers: 31 pins (+7)
- Digital Era Images: 29 pins (+8)
- Very Modern Media: 21 pins (+7)
- THIS is Social Media: 17 pins (+7)
- Technology over Time: 11 pins (+3)
- SMinOrgs Images: 11 pins (+2)
Newly-Populated Boards
- Presentation Decks (formerly SMinOrgs on SlideShare): We have now added 13 pins that link to slide decks for presentations about social and digital technologies given by Courtney Shelton Hunt to various audiences.
- SMinOrgs Email Archive: We have added 15 pins that link to select posts from our email archive. These posts provide Community updates and/or consolidate some of our original content and other relevant resources.
- Digital Era Photo Essays (previously SMinOrgs Photo Essays): We’re up to 5 pins that link to blog posts, slide shows, and photo albums that primarily use visual images to tell a story or convey important ideas.
Newly-Created Boards
- S.M.A.R.T. Resources (11 pins): White papers, articles, videos and other resources created by and/or featuring SMinOrgs. Can also include material sponsored or supported by SMinOrgs.
- Social Media Primer (18 pins): Targeted to organizational leaders, the initial parts of the primer emphasize the conceptual and strategic issues associated with social media. Later parts focus on more tactical issues. Pins include links to original blog posts and corresponding SlideShare versions.
- Pinterest Resources (15 pins): A collection of resources on how to leverage Pinterest for Professional Purposes, including our own S.M.A.R.T. Blog posts.
Having just returned from a social media conference in Dublin, I've got lots of images to pin to our Digital Era Images, THIS is Social Media, and Digital Era Photo Essays boards. I'm also hoping some of my fellow presenters will pin some of the great cartoons they shared on our Technology Ticklers board.
Our Favorite Pins…
I asked Marci Stewart, SMinOrgs’s Assistant Community Manager
(and Pinterest maven), what her favorite pin was, and here’s what she said: I adore most of our pins, so finding a
favorite was tricky. Some are insightful, others are ironic and a few
make me laugh. This
one in particular is from our Technology Ticklers
board. I like that this pin because it is both funny and true. It demonstrates
in a humorous way how quickly technology has changed in only the past two
decades.
I decided to complement Marci’s tech-oriented favorite with this image from our THIS is Social Media
board. I took this photograph in the fall of 2010, and here’s what I wrote
about it: In addition to the play on
Twitter and the way in which this watering hole is trying to leverage new
technology to attract customers, what I love about this sign is that it
reinforces how high tech outreach can promote high touch interactions.
We’ll share more favorites in an upcoming post. In the meantime, we’d love to know what your favorites are – and why. : )
Assessing Our Pin Popularity
According to PinPuff, a tool that measures “pinfluence,” we have an above-average following and strong activity and virality scores – yay us! Our IT Infographics board has the most followers and pins, but Technology Ticklers is more popular, with the most repins and likes – by far! We all love a good chuckle… Rounding out the top three, Very Modern Media has more than its fair share of likes and repins too. Click here to see the complete assessment.
Our Pinterest shares on Twitter (via @SMinOrgs) are very popular too – according to HootSuite, the five of the top eight click-through links in September were all Pinterest shares. Every Monday through Friday (at 11:10 am ET) we share a Pinterest-focused item, which are easy to spot (and find) as they all have the #SMOPin (Social Media on Pinterest) hashtag. These tweets often follow a daily “Pin of the Day” (POTD) theme – Movie Monday, Tech Tickler Tuesday, What We See Wednesday, Technology Over Time Thursday, and Infographic Friday – but we also use that daily post to highlight our other boards, share SMinOrgs Pinterest milestones, promote engagement, and ask for your feedback.
Now that we’ve also established a presence on Tumblr, we’re cross-posting content on the two platforms – and it’s no surprise that our shared images are gaining some of the best traction on Tumblr. To learn more about our Tumblr activity, check out:
Come Pin with Us
There are many ways for people to engage with us on Pinterest and contribute to the ongoing evolution and success of our presence there:
- Follow one or more of our boards. We follow back! We check out every Pinner who follows us and follow any boards they have that are focused on social and digital technologies.
- Repin our content to your own boards. We’ll thank you with a like and/or a comment.
- Like/comment on our pins. It’s a great way to let us know what you think.
- Suggest pins for us by adding @SMinOrgs to your own pins.
- Tell us about some of your favorite Pinners by sending a message to pinterest@sminorgs.net.
- Become an SMinOrgs Pinner by requesting access to our Community Pins board. Just send an email to pinterest@sminorgs.net with your request. We’d especially love people to share their own original images for our Digital Era Images and THIS is Social Media boards.
Also Check Out
To learn more about SMinOrgs’s Pinterest presence, check out the following: