Pinterest from a beginners point of view.

Spiral is new to Pinterest. I signed us up this week in the hopes of discovering a little more about it and with the hope that it could be useful. Both to our clients and to us here at Spiral.

At first glance it looks like a bit of fun. There are thousands of cool pictures already pinned up there to browse and anything that catches your eye you can repin to your own boards. Any pictures you see on another website you can also grab and pin to your boards with the click of a button (your boards are just the way you organise images by category on your page). It's like having an online scrapbook. The key feature I can see is the ease with which you can pin images from anywhere at anytime. From amazing landscapes to stunning culinary creations, there are great pictures of everything out there.

Spiral's Pinterest page so far. Check it out!

But why should a business have a Pinterest page? Well we originally wanted to be on Pinterest because we are a little bit nuts about the web. We want to try everything that might be useful to us and our customers. However it quickly became apparent to me the constructive ways we could use Pinterest. We could post a portfolio of websites or software that we've created so that others can see what we do. We can post pictures of things that we like so that others can see who we are. We could even post pictures of products that we sell. One of the great features of Pinterest is that the pictures contain a link back to the original source no matter how many times they have been repinned. I can see this being particularly useful for any business with an online store as images pinned to Pinterest will contain a link back to the original product page and (if it's a popular picture) the image could be repinned over and over again around the world.

Is it worth it? From a personal perspective I would say this is a great way to have a look at some of the amazing pictures out there and a great way to create your own online scrapbook. From a business perspective it could be a great way to get some exposure. A great way to display who and what you are on the web, particularly if your products are visually appealing. It doesn't replace other social media options but it does complement them well. Images have been shown to be one of the most evocative and powerful resources in the online world. Maybe now is the time to get a few more pictures out there of who you are and what you do.

Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter to hear more in the future!