Pinterest and the Huge Sucking Sound
I’m enjoying Pinterest personally.
And it may, in fact, have some very good potential from a business perspective.
Maybe.
As ever, it kind of depends on the business, and your customers.
As a community or marketers we have moved onto and covered the Pinterest movement with amazing swiftness. Reminds of of the big Quora push of 2010 or how we all moved onto Empire Avenue when everyone woke up and realized Q&A sites had been done before.
I know this is will come off as whiny, and I know I’ll be accused in the comments of only feeding the fire, but it needs to be said.
Can’t we all find something else to talk about? Just for a few days?
You’d think Pinterest had cured cancer, or demilitarized North Korea or eradicated world hunger – at least from the way the digital marketing community is fawning all over them. Enough already.
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About Sean McGinnis
Sean McGinnis has been consulting with professional services firms about digital strategy for over 12 years. A lawyer, Sean brings nearly 20 years of business experience across a variety of roles to every engagement. Sean consults, trains and speaks regularly on topics as diverse as digital marketing, SEO, online business generation, and sales.
@Karen_C_Wilson I love you Karen! Thanks for taking my side and fending off @GiniDietrich. She’s so MEAN to me!
Let’s wait and see how long before it descends into Reddit or 9Gag levels of stupidity. I hope it never does.
@Arthur Piccio
I LOVE PINTEREST!!!!!! But you’re like two months behind. Are people still talking about it?
@ginidietrich PLEASE tell me you’re joking!
All day for the last 3-4 weeks it’s been wall to wall Pinterest posts. Pinterest for business. Pinterest for B2B. Everything you ever wanted to know about Pinterest. Pinterest comes out of the closet and supports gay marriage in California. Jeebus.
http://en.search.wordpress.com/?q=pinterest
Just take a gander over there. Over 51 THOUSAND posts about Pinterest. Please.
As I said in the post, I LOVE Pinterest personally. What I can;t stand is the “media” news cycle. The Pinterest coverage is the digital marketing chattering class version of OJ Simpson.
@seanmcginnis @mikulaja @spofcher @MargieClayman I thought my needling comment was pure genius *coughcough* lmao
I absolutely agree!! The worst part is that marketers try to turn everything into a money-making machine! I started using Pinterest in November and it was quiet, but growing. I learned that many people enjoyed it because it was simple and not being trolled by marketers trying to push and sell products. Yes, it can be used as an e-com site, but I think that would hurt a brand more than help. I think the average person just wants to have fun on a site without having to be bothered with products/services being pushed their way. On the other hand, I never seen a site grow so fast and be blown up across every site the way Pinterest has, quite amazing really!
@CedarBrown Agreed. I have a full on rant post coming on this topis too.
The more I thought about Pinterest, the more I saw the very same thing you highlighted here. Everything we touch gets ruined. 
@Sean McGinnis @CedarBrown But the fact is, these platforms WANT marketers to be there. And I think that if done right, Pinterest can be very different for a business, and particularly a non-profit, than the other platforms. It can be much less spammy
Amen! I love Pinterest as much as the next gal–for personal stuff. Or I did, until every other word I read was “Pinterest” in the marketing context. It’s fine but hardly a fit for every business, or even most businesses, and still has tons of glitches/usability issues. I’ll be glad when the fuss dies down and I can go back to just looking at pictures of cute stuff and not over-analyzing the fun out of it.
@maggielmcg Perhaps we can create a national alert system. Once we’ve backed down off of DefCON2 mode regarding Pinterest, then maybe we can all get back into it and enjoy it.
@seanmcginnis heh heh
@LeslieHatchGail Happy Friday!
@seanmcginnis Hahaha! Keep Pinterest away from me or me away from Pinterest. One or the other.
@seanmcginnis come on sean, come, go visual snacking with me. #pinterest
@cloudspark Oh I LOVE PInterest. It’s the herd mentality of EVERYONE writing about it that I hate.
@seanmcginnis @cloudspark What, haven’t you heard? Pinterest is the new [INSERT CRAZY COMPARISON HERE]
@mikulaja Exactly….
@mikulaja @seanmcginnis only diff here, pinterest is scaling unlike anything we’ve seen in a long time.
@cloudspark @mikulaja @seanmcginnis and will scale right back down again in two months…
@keithprivette @mikulaja @seanmcginnis i’m not so sure, visual snacking is rather compelling.
@keithprivette had someone tell me “i don’t need to buy another women’s magazine ever, it’s on pinterest now”
@seanmcginnis v true. suprised it’s not trending every single hour.
@seanmcginnis Which is why I have NO interest in it, whatsoever. Just like @foursquare: One more excuse not to create/critically think
@seanmcginnis Ha – got it! I have to admit to being a crazy mad pinner. I only use it as a personal one , not work. So it’s just “fun”
@carrieatthill Hi. I’m a single Dad, and I make a living at home taking online surveys. http://t.co/5uyb93Sl
@seanmcginnis I didn’t hear you. Did you say Pinterest??
@PhilGerb LOL! Yes. Pinterest! http://t.co/JAgLA39a
@seanmcginnis love your opinion of it. Wait…shiny…Gotta go!
Great post Sean. I too have been on Pinterest for about six months and I personally loved it. It’s now turned into another social media tool which may have its merits but really hampers my play time. The only good thing to come of this is that the Sh*t People Say videos seem to be on the decline. But I’m guessing that’s another post.
@Sue Reddel Haha! I think I hate memes of all stripes. I also am not in favor of people randomly talking about bacon. Or squirrels.
I need a T-shirt designed that screams “I’m Anti-Meme!”
@Sean McGinnis there goes my post on bacon flavored squirrels at Next. It’s their next theme Hillbilly Snacks.
@Sean McGinnis @Sue Reddel my favorite pinterest pins are bacon-related… does that count? for me, bacon is never random. ubiquity cannot be random.
@BrianCarter @Sue Reddel Aaaaah. Not bacon too! I’m waiting for the governing internet body to begin to fully censor all mentions and images of bacon. Pretty please? Can we just talk to the Chinese and borrow their filter thingy? Kthxbai.
@Sean McGinnis @BrianCarter @Sue Reddel my only comment is this man wearing a bacon tuxedo and moreover his extremely supportive wife. http://media-cdn.pinterest.com/upload/282249101616388805_gCMh5OFw_f.jpg
A-to-the-MEN brother!! Are we so starved for content that the entire blogosphere jumps on every shiny new object? It’s like 4-year-olds playing soccer – the entire team runs wherever the ball is.
@samfiorella Bwahaha! Great analogy Sam. I was looking for a good video of the starlings of Australia that flock and sway – with no discernable leader setting a direction – but the 4 year olds playing soccer is WAY better. What a great image. LOL!
@Sean McGinnis @samfiorella Sean – the starling thing is called a murmeration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srtu21NoshY + my wife, who is pretty switched on, hasn’t heard of Pinterest. we’re in an echochamber
e @markcbarden @samfiorella Awesome!
I have to say I loved Pinterest until everyone jumped on the bandwagon – I think I’ve been using it for well over 6 months and the sudden attention it’s received from Marketers and SEO gurus is driving me nuts … the channel is being abused royally by those aiming to score some SEO juice and extra traffic … before the recent snooze-fest posts about its marketing potential it was calm, sublime, and beautiful – NOW it’s being contaminated with lame stock images and ugly pictures … ok rant over. I feel, as a marketer, the channel will survive, it will go the distance as we are making a huge return to visual – but how I wish people weren’t abusing it ….
@Ameena Falchetto Hahah! There is nothing that can F up a beautiful thing like a bunch of corporate marketing hacks out to score SEO juice. Nothing.
@Ameena Falchetto just wait til some seo genius creates pinterest autoposting software.
@BrianCarter *shudder*
@BrianCarter @Ameena Falchetto Oh. You totally know it’s in the works.
@HellFanning
@johnjannuzzi how are you feeling today?
Love the headline for this post and chuckled while reading this. I got dragged into Pinterest kicking and screaming because who really need another social network? Really. But once there, I discovered I kind of loved it and decided to use it for fun and because it didn’t require a lot of thought. And THEN, dammit all, I started seeing some of the creative uses certain brand managers and non-profits were coming up with and was dragged into considering it as an effective tool for meeting certain objectives with certain audiences. And now, who knows where this will go. Grrr….liked it better when it was just a fun place to play. (Not really, just like grumble)/
@allenmireles Allen, I love it too, but don’t have much time for it. I see your point about something you love personally getting hijacked and turned into a “business: thing.
Believe me, this was far less a commentary on Pinterest specifically, and far more a commentary on the tendencies of the chatter class to flit from one thing to another.
@Sean McGinnis @allenmireles Agreed, Sean. So many platforms, so little time. The Socialati need to something to talk about. For the rest of us working to apply social toward our businesses and clients, it’s about the audience, who comes there and why.
@BobReed @allenmireles Heh. Socialati. Never heard that one before. I like it!
@Sean McGinnis @allenmireles I think I need to look at Livefyre… Digging the plug for participants’ latest posts in their comments. Pretty Swift.
@BobReed @allenmireles That feature is exected by each blog or platform, and you need to enable it from within your personal profile within Livefyre.
@Sean McGinnis @allenmireles Cool! Thanks!
I like Pinterest, but I can’t help but agree with this.
I went from not hearing about it more than once or twice a month to my feed being mottled with it. Crazy!
However.
Pinterest was getting popular BEFORE this – people just weren’t talking about it as much on the channels I’m on. I know my FB friends were very “into” it long before it was all over my Twitter feed, for example. I think it’s like anything else. People are excited about it and they’re talking about it. A lot. It’ll die down, just like everything else does/did. I hope. 
@tab_b I agree.. I’ve been on it for a month or two now and just in the last 2 weeks it’s blown up as people have discovered the business case various uses beyond personal interest. I think it’s a great site with amazing possibilities for some small businesses. I just wish we’d all stop talking about it every 5 minutes. LOL!
Yeah…they’ll come after you.
I look at it this way…with all the hype that comes up time and time and TIME again…about sites that are simple reboots of other sites…I’m glad to see one I finally feel like I can get excited about and that I see actual potential for with some of my clients. It’s also one of the few sites I saw my friends flocking to BEFORE the hype started. When marketers are the only ones buzzing, I can ho-hum it. But when 50% of my Facebook friends have made the leap, I have to take more notice.
@jennifercario That’s a great point. How long before some people start selling “How to maximize Pinterest” webinars and books? Won’t be long now. Might already be happening just out of my ear-shot.
@Sean McGinnis @jennifercario “How to Maximize Pinterest,: Using the hottest new social media site to become a ninja, guru and rockstar all in one” is my book, available on Kindle THIS AFTERNOON. The ROI of the book is 8 to the power of Awesome.
@davevandewalle @jennifercario I want an 8 Minute video on this by tomorrow morning! LMAO!
@seanmcginnis What can I say? Iw ok w/ @Razoo, and most donors like 2/3 or women, so… Got to play. No choice.
@seanmcginnis Thank you for a dose of sanity!
@agossen Hahah. Welcome. Just a bit sick of all the fawning.