Sunday afternoon I was whipping up a batch of the famous Cicero family sausage bread when I called my mom to get some last minute baking advice.
The conversation quickly turned to Pinterest.
My mom was so excited to tell me about how she was in the middle of redecorating her and my dad’s bedroom and she found it all on Pinterest.
Thinking back on my family’s purchasing history, we have used catalogs for other comforters and home items, and boating and fishing gear always came from Cabela’s catalogs, so Pinterest seems pretty natural.
Discovery From Day 1
What was interesting was how she described her process of using the site. She doesn’t follow many boards, and mainly uses her iPhone. When she saw the room design on a friend’s board, she followed it to a blog dedicated to all things turquoise, called aptly enough House of Turquoise. That took her to another site (West Elm) to find the exact duvet cover and another site for the proper paint.
“It took me to Sherwin Williams, where I’ve never gotten paint before.”
Not to say my mom has never visited a blog or ordered online, but the process by which she found all these different pieces online through social media was definitely something different.
Where Is Pinterest Headed?
So will Pinterest take over as the next big wave in social media?
Perhaps.
It’s already well on its way with more than 10 million users, and in January of 2012 reports showed it generated more referral traffic than Google+, Youtube, and LinkedIn combined.
It’s visually appealing and addicting especially with all the cool stuff there is in the world.
For me, to see a piece of tech get introduced to my family and then traced to a purchasing decision is blogworthy, and as a brand, you can’t help but see this example as a shift in behavior that can be a new way to develop relationships with your community.
