Is anyone using Pinterest as a marketing tool?

[Kathy Barr]

Pinterest is showing up as #3 - right after Facebook and Twitter - on the social web landscape.  I've see a couple of well-done marketing sites.  Anything out there for high ed?

[Sarah McMaster]

We've "claimed" our name and secured an account, and posted a couple campus shots. No clear strategy yet, but could be good as a supplement for those who can't visit our campuses in person. Seems good for general branding - not sure yet how best to use it as a more targeted marketing tool.

[Michael Fienen]

I summed up my thoughts on this a while back: http://doteduguru.com/id7854-why-you-should-ignore-pinterest-for-no...

As for your situation, #3 doesn't mean much. In fact, it means almost nothing. Be sure to put that traffic in context. Ask yourself:

1. What percentage of all our traffic is it?
2. What are they looking at when they get here?
3. Are they targets for some kind of conversion opportunity?
4. What is the bounce/return rate for those visitors?

I cannot stress enough that raw numbers/hit counts are completely worthless. It's not about getting the most people, but rather getting the right people, so you need to really look at that traffic segment and figure out if those referrals are actually valuable to you in some way. And part of the answer doesn't necessarily mean you start a Pinterest account, but rather how do you facilitate users on YOUR site that came to you from there.

[Cassie E]

We started using Pinterest a couple of months ago, not with marketing and recruiting as our goals but more so with retention in mind. We simply are trying to engage our audience and provide a source of entertainment for them. We are not pinning/advertising for our college, but for interests that our campus community may have.

http://pinterest.com/goldeneagles/