Welcome to the gold rush.
One week ago, my Pinterest account was sitting at around 150 followers. Not too bad, but as with every social media platform, I have ambition. I knew Pinterest had the potential to make content go crazy viral, and I wanted to find a way into the action.
I signed up for Pinterest over a year ago, and pretty much just had an account, but forgot about it. Then I started reading all this hype on Mashable and Fast Company about how Pinterest was going to be the next big platform. So I wanted to up my game before the big brands ‘figured it out,’ the way they have figured out Facebook and Twitter.
Pinterest is the social media wild west. There are no reliable theories about how to do it. It is still a wide open range of possibility and experimental usage. The only thing that has guided me was a commitment to being authentic with how I chose the images I would pin. My Pinterest account has to be a pure reputation of my visual point of view. I will not repin anything that does not inspire me in some way.
Pinterest is not to be used as a platform to SPAM. If you do, as some brands are guilty of doing, you will fail. Your follower count will wither and die.
Aside from my commitment to authenticity, I also committed to a simple schedule. I committed to pinning for 15 minutes every morning when I came into the office. I would browse the internet specifically to find inspiring images to pin. The combination of this authenticity and discipline created a depth of quality and inspired images. I knew that each time I added even a single photo, that one day, when someone discovered it, it could be the one image they had been looking for.
With every single photo carefully considered and hand pinned, I can guarantee there is a quality to go along with the quantity of my boards. There are no throw away images, and the Internet is responding to my care and attention as I am now closing in on 50,000 followers in about one week’s time.
Pinterest is still the wild west. There are a lot of social media cowboys out there looking to get rich quick. But if the results and payoffs are your motivation, you will have clouded judgement when it comes to how you pick your images. If your point of view is not the lens through which you browse for images, viewers will sense the scattered, random nature of your board. If you pin simply to go viral, you are missing the entire point of Pinterest.
Pinterest is curated passion. Passion cannot be faked. It cannot be subjected to focus groups and marketing strategy. Passion comes from individuals with strong points of view. And that passion, is what makes people react like wild fire. That authentic passion is the reason I am the 226th most followed person or brand on Pinterest and rising.
Welcome to the gold rush. See you out on the range.
Follow me on Pinterest by clicking here.
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Apparently I’ve been influential in sharing the NIKE BUILDING TWIST across the internet.
