Last week, I finally joined the latest of social media's fastest growing platforms - Pinterest. I have been watching it explode with interest, first of all wondering what all the fun is about. Now I know!
So, for those of you that haven't seen it or understand what it is, the description is really simple:
Pinterest is a pinboard-styled social photo (and now video) sharing website. The service allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections.
Now you may think you have heard this all before, and that's what I thought. But putting my recruiting and employer branding hat on, I think it is potentially a brilliant way of engaging both existing and potential employees. Let me show you what it looks like:
If you click the image it will open up the pinboard.
The way it works is easy. You create Pin Boards of your choice, then you 'Pin' images (or videos) onto your board for people to comment on, share, like etc. People can follow specific boards, on the subjects they like,or they can follow the person creating them. I set up the one up above last week, from some cartoons I had previously posted on this blog, and other cartoons I had found online.
Pinterest makes it really easy to add content, either through smart phone apps, internet browser extensions or, of course manually on the Pinterest website.
So why should you consider it?
- People like images. We are all natural voyeurs aren't we? And of course images say a thousand words, don't they? Think branding, think interest, think engagement, think transparency and think creativity.
- Pinterest is driving more traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn to websites. That MAKES it worth exploring doesn't it?
- There are no limitations with this platform - only your imagination. Don't think of it as a direct recruiting tool just yet - although it could be, if you want it to be :)
- It is a brilliant way sharing content as a way of building and nurturing a community, and developing ongoing relationships with potential customers and job seekers.
- You can provoke discussion - yes you can comment on images - as can be seen from the middle image above. Post screenshots, charts, stats etc to generate discussion.
- Like all the other social networks, you can encourage people to share your content and follow your content (notice on the right side of my blog at the top - the Pinterest buttons).
- As the platform develops, Pinterest could well be a useful sourcing tool, finding people with similar likes/interests/skills etc such as creatives, designers etc. And of course the site will have the obligitory keywords all over it for searching, although that is not something I have played with yet!
Like ALL social media platforms and social recruiting, you need to ENSURE YOUR AUDIENCE is there before you start investing loads of time (and money - time is money, right?) into creating all your Pinboards.
Is it going to change social recruiting? >> No
Will it replace Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn etc? >> No
Is it worth exploring as an addition to your social recruiting efforts? >> Absolutely -
Remember, using social media for recruiting (social recruiting) is all about understanding your audience, setting objectives for each platform (to measure effectiveness) and providing and sharing great content, that your audience wants to read, view or watch.
And if you think Pinterest is limited to companies using, think again - it could be great for candidates as well, as this post shows - some 'clever' CV's already posted on Pinterest (OK some are a little mad, but you get the idea!)
As I said earlier in the post - Pinterest has no boundaries - it is just down to YOUR imagination and how you choose to use it :)
If you want to follow my journey on Pinterest then here you go, I have made it easy for you to do so :) 
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