Very Pinteresting…

Pinterest was publicly launched just over two years ago at the Alt Design Summit right here in downtown SLC. And within those two short years, it’s skyrocketed to become one of the fastest growing social networks around. The real power of Pinterest is that it’s a tool first and a network second. Now you might be thinking, sure it’s a fantastic tool for digital collectors to find, categorize and share the content they love, but how can a social pinboard work for brands?

Everyone’s heard the phrase “Creative is King.” We’re seeing more and more that great brands expect that great creative is a given and in 2012 I suspect that content will actually be the new royalty, especially within social spheres. Thanks to technology like Pinterest and Flipboard, brands need to start thinking like publishers and create quality, original content—images, videos and thoughts—to feed thirsty social sharers.

I love how the Gap, whose branding drama we all watched with bated breath not too long ago, is now taking their fashion photography and consciously making it socially-mobile, well-branded content. Their latest site by AKQA called Styld-by builds Pinterest’s pinmarklet functionality right into each and every piece of content right along with other sharing avenues.

One of our own clients, an energy gel brand we recently developed for a start up called GungHo, is also launching a new promotion leveraging Pinterest. By embedding the pinmarklet directly into their content, they’ll send free samples of their product to anyone who pins their video via the GungHo site. Sure this is an incentive for sharing, but it was also important to GungHo to have funny, relevant content that’s worth sharing in the first place.

We’re currently advising our own clients to begin being way more open about what inspires them. We recommend highlighting what their own employees geek-out about and Pinterest is an excellent way to do just that. With this in mind and since openness is one of our brand pillars, we’re going to put our money where our mouth is and begin highlighting what inspires our team. From design to decor, from fashion to food—we’re going to start repinning our team’s inspiration. So check it out and enjoy at: pinterest.com/struckinc.

The bottom-line is this: the power of Pinterest can allow your business to tap into fresh audiences who crave great content and provide a new window into your company’s culture, people and brand.