I know, I know…it’s a love /hate relationship with this social site. Personally, I HATE the FB posts that someone just pinned the latest Kate Spade cupcake foil to their board but LOVE the inspiration that can be reaped from a well-edited collection.  No matter what your opinion, this has been the week of Pinterest from a news coverage standpoint, every time I turned around I was blasted with some new article or blog post on Pinterest – its growth, its viability, its brand building/product selling benefits, even its legal standing.

The folks at Pinterest (a rather small team of 12-15 people depending on your source) either turned on the PR fire hose or this is a great example of Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point because there are seemingly a whole lot more eyes on this company this week than there were last month.  Here are a few of the most recent news pieces:

Even The Army Has A Pinterest - MediaJobsDaily <http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/even-the-army-has-a-pinterest_b10006>
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Pinterest, One Of The Fastest-Growing Startups In History, Might Be Enabling Massive Copyright Theft

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-illegal-faq-2012-2#ixzz1mflKW6Bv

           
Pinterest dos and don’ts for brands
http://www.nbr.co.nz/node/110244

Learning how to use Pinterest for business? Watch these 6 companies   

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/02/6-businesses-to-learn-pinterest-from.html              

-Sara

Pinterest - It’s an addiction; there have been many nights where I look at the clock and somehow over an hour passed while I was pinning.

This interesting article was shared in the office and it particularly caught my attention, Pinterest: Link Building and SEO Strategy.

Think of Pinterest SEO in terms of linkable image assets. Which image properties do you own that people might want to pin. Pinterest is an aesthetic network: what aesthetic content are you creating? What are the keywords associated with your images?

The article also gives key tactics for SEO on Pinterest: 

1. Getting people to pin pictures of your products by adding the “Pin It” button to product pages.
2. Seeding your site images to topical influencers where they are likely to get spread through “repinning.”

Here’s the question: Is it valuable for companies to invest resources in Pinterest?

I say yes - I recently purchased an item from an online retailer I was unaware even existed before I followed the pinned image’s link. Also noteworthy, Pinterest now comes up in my casual conversations, referencing a great product I or a friend pinned.

-Kristin