Virtual bulletin board Pinterest boasting over 10 million users
The latest social media thrill has many small business owners scratching their heads debating whether it can be a useful sales tool. We want to help you look smart and learn what Pinterest is so you can make an early call on when to invest in this trend.
Pinterest is a social sharing site that allows users to pin photos and videos from any Website onto their virtual ‘bulletin boards’ for followers and others to see. If a viewer is interested, he or she can click the image source link and be taken directly to the original Website.
This new Internet craze, however, will most likely remain just that for the time being ‘ a craze lacking much value to most service-based businesses ‘ at least until something changes. For now, the only industries that might hold some promise for using Pinterest as a marketing tool are interior designers, remodelers and landscape architects.
The key takeaway, however, is that Pinterest growth rates slowed from 85 percent in the period between mid-January and mid-February to 18 percent between mid-February and mid-March, signifying that early growth is beginning to plateau.
Why you should care:
Bottom line: Even if Pinterest manages to top out at 20 million users, as a friendly estimate, it still won’t come close to Facebook’s 155 million current users in the US alone. Those of us living in the tech world often get excited about Internet sensations like Pinterest and their referral traffic, but it is important to not lose sight of the obvious ‘ Facebook and its current user base of 830 million is still the Social Media king in 2012.
That’s not to say that Facebook is the only Social Media tool small businesses should be utilizing. There are an estimated 70 million active Twitter users in the US and YouTube serves up about 4 billion videos on a daily basis. In a world where web marketing is driven by return on investment and total client reach, business owners should look no further than the proven commodities of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, each of which has shown it is here to stay.
We want what’s best for your business:
We often get the early scoop on what’s really happening in the world of social media (lucky you). It’s our goal to make your Web experience as smooth as possible. Call us to hear about ‘we do it for you’ Social Media management and you’ll find out the secret to winning more clients in 2012.
Web Expert of the Month:
This month we celebrate Joshua Connor the recipient of the March Web Expert of the Month Award. Joshua plays a central role in developing high-end Market Hardware Websites and Facebook pages. Joshua also designs our Web Digest each month (except for this one ‘ we didn’t want to spoil the secret about him winning this award). Joshua began working at Market Hardware as a Website Consultant in 2009 and currently holds the position of Senior Developer.
Joshua grew up in Rochester, NY and attended Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Design. He currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and is engaged to be married to his fianc’e Layla in June of this year. Congratulations Joshua!
Web Digest Factoid:
62% of Fortune 500 companies have active Twitter accounts and 58% have active Facebook Pages (Go Gulf web technologies ‘ March 2012).
What is Market Hardware’s Web Digest?
At Market Hardware, our mission is to help you be an educated and successful web marketer. So we created the monthly Web Digest, quick, easy-to-scan news from the world of Internet Marketing.
The Web Digest complements our traditional monthly newsletter and is another example of how we’ve ‘got your back’ when it comes to web marketing.
Cheers to your web success,
Alain Parcan
Market Hardware, LLC
Newsletter Editor
