Is Pinterest Right for Economic Development?
Metro Denver EDC Pinterest board with regional images
Recently, there’s been a lot of chatter on the web and in the media about Pinterest and the potential it has for marketing.
Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board that allows people to organize and keep track of information they find on the Internet by “pinning” photos that relate to the topic of interest.
The site allows users to find and follow people who have similar tastes and “re-pin” content, making it easy for content to go viral.
The New York Times’ David Pogue has a good article that provides more information on what Pinterest is exactly. For me, I tend to think of it as a virtual place to keep all the articles I find in magazines and newspapers; before I would have ripped out and put the information in a binder, but now I can just add the images to the board. For instance, I have boards on my Pinterest with “Books I Want to Read,” “Places to Travel,” “Digital Marketing,” “Recipes to Try,” and “Ideas for Bathroom Remodel.”
In December, Pinterest registered more than 7 million unique visitors, a 23 percent increase since September; the fastest growth any social media site has experienced.
I realize that the site’s main demographic of 18 to 34 year-old, upper-class women in the heartland of the U.S., doesn’t necessarily fit the demographic of the economic development industry’s key audience of C-level executives.
But before you completely write off Pinterest as an economic development marketing tool, consider the following:
Pinterest is driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined
For the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation (Metro Denver EDC), this statistic was enough to persuade its marketing team to create a Pinterest account last week.
“As we get ready to redevelop our website, we want to make sure we are staying on top of the most prominent—and promising—social media trends,” said Jill Altenhofen, marketing specialist at the Metro Denver EDC. “The back links to our website from Pinterest will help with SEO. In addition when we use this medium, we’re forced to think in more visual terms, which will help our marketing efforts in the long run.”
In addition to Metro Denver EDC, the Winchester Frederick County Economic Development Commission and Seguin Economic Development Corporation have also joined Pinterest.
This emerging medium definitely has great potential for our counterparts in tourism marketing, but I can see some benefit to EDOs that are looking to attract talent or build brand awareness.
I’d love to hear if you’re using it so we can keep an eye out on best practices for economic development marketing.
