This presentation was given to the NWA Chapter of the Public Relations Society of American on April 23, 2012.

1. Pin ups and Public Relations:
Why Pinterest Matters
By Christopher Spencer
Twitter: cspencer75
E-mail: cjspence@uark.edu

2. Justify your existence
Christopher Spencer: Born in El Dorado, lives in Fayetteville
• Web Guy: Hired in October as a web communications specialist at the
University of Arkansas.
• Journalist: Worked for the El Dorado News Times, Arkansas Democrat-
Gazette and The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas
• Publisher: Publisher of Ozarks Unbound (June 2009), The Food File.com
(April 2010) and Ballotbucks.org (April 2010)
• Creative: President of Creative Economy Action Group Inc., a Fayetteville
nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the city’s creative economy.
• WordPress Fanboy: Founder of WordCamp Fayetteville now in it’s third
year in Fayetteville.
• Former SPJ communications director from 2009 - 2011

3. Our Goals Today
• What is Pinterest?
• Who is using Pinterest?
• How could you use Pinterest?

4. What is Pinterest?
“Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard.”

5. But really? What is it?
Our Mission
• Connect everyone in the world through the
'things' they find interesting.

6. But really? What is it?
• “When you open Pinterest, it should feel like
someone has hand-made a book for you,” CEO
and Co-founder Ben Silbermann explains. “Every
item should feel like it’s handpicked for you by a
person you care about.”

7. “The resounding spirit of Pinterest is I love this!, rather than I'll do this! It's
aspirational. It's full of dreams. It's entirely materialistic—the offal of cyber
shopping spree fantasies, too decadent or distant to ever actually possess.”
- Sam Biddle, “Pinterest: The Last Article You’ll Ever Need or Want to Read”

8. Making Dreams with Boards and Pins

9. What’s It For?
A recent Engauge Power Panel study showed that
90% of people said they use Pinterest to get
ideas. Some even said that it makes them “feel
like they can do anything.”
The study also indicated that Pinterest helps people:
• Get inspiration for their careers or hobbies (57%)
• Store images of things they dream of having (53%)
• Keep their thoughts and ideas organized (47%)
• Share their ideas with others (32%)

10. Number 3 with a bullet!
• “Pinterest would not say how many users it has, but
according to comScore, the site had 18.7 million unique
visitors in March, compared with about 418,000 in May.”
– NYT, “NYT marketers find a friend in Pinterest”
Visits:
• 1. Facebook: 7 billion
• 2. Twitter: 182 million Source: The 2012 Digital Marketer:
• 3. Pinterest: 104 million
• 4. LinkedIn: 86 million
Benchmark and Trend Report
• 5. Tagged: 72 million
• 6. Google+: 61 million
• Fastest-growing web service to ever break the
10-million member mark

11. Analysis from Convertro, which tracks the marketing performance for its
clients across various channels, including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest,
found that Pinterest was generating up to four times the revenue per click as
Twitter and 27% more than Facebook.
Facebook currently makes up the vast majority at around 80%, a share that is
projected to erode to 60% as Pinterest assumes 40% of traffic by the end of
quarter two. Based on these projections, Twitter is expected to fade into
insignificance on the social commerce scene.

12. Who is using it?
Source: Engauge

13. Who is using it?
Source: Engauge

14. Curation over Creation
• "From my perspective, Pinterest has gained popularity
because it allows us to do the opposite of what we've been
told to do with social media. Pinterest is less about
engagement with people you know and more about discovery
and idea curation," she said.
• "The pins you see are customized and pushed out based on
self-identified interests...When I'm looking for new trends on
specific topics like fashion or birthday party themes, I now
search Pinterest first -- not Google ."
Karah Street, an account director for Stratacomm
from “The Curation-Over-Creation Trend That Fueled Pinterest's Rapid Growth”

15. Let ‘s Pin Something

16. How are brands using Pinterest?

17. How are brands using Pinterest?

18. How are brands using Pinterest?
• Better Homes and Gardens
• Mashable
• Time Magazine
• Wall Street Journal

20. Keys to using Pinterest Professionally
• Be authentic
• Don’t oversell
• Cite Sources
• Think Visual
• Third-party it up

21. Addendum: WordCamp Fayetteville
July 27 – 29, 2012

22. WordCamp Fayetteville
• The purpose of WordCamp Fayetteville is to
teach people – including small
businesses, nonprofits, educators and
journalists – about the free open source
WordPress software and other Internet-based
innovation.
• Year One = 100 people at the Town Center
• Year Two = 200 people at the Reynolds Center

23. What is WordCamp?
• Friday: WordPress 101 at The Iceberg and a
meet/tweet up afterward.
• Saturday: Full conference at the Reynolds Center.
Four tracks of speakers. Almost 30 sessions.
• Saturday night: After Party at The Iceberg
• Sunday: WordPress Wizards at Belford Group
offices

24. Why WordCamp?
$30 buys everything
T-shirt, conference access, After
Party , WordPress Wizards wp-fu,
Saturday snack and lunch, swag
bag

25. Learn More
This slideshow is available on SlideShare at:
http://www.slideshare.net/cspencer75