I like to think of myself as an early adopter. I got into the internet game in the very early days. I was on the original team at AltaVista when it was the hottest search engine online in 1997. Those were the heady days of the first internet bubble. Since that time, I’ve seen many new sites come and go. I was an early member of Facebook, I Tweet, I use LinkedIn quite religiously, and the list goes on. But Pinterest… Wow. This site has taken off like wildfire and I know why.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well take one look at Pinterest and you’ll see the power of pictures as a sharing tool. Here’s the concept: Pinterest is a site where you can collect images of things that interest you and share them with your network of friends and connections. You create “boards” by topic and invite the community to look at your boards, comment on them, “re-pin” your images, and share them.
So my boards include “Celebrating Nonprofits,” “Places and Spaces,” “Delicious Food Ideas,” “Infographics- Marketing,” “Books Worth Reading,” and “Burning Man Baby” - I’ll tell you about that one some other time. You can create boards on any topic that you are passionate about.
Why should you care? Well some of the most popular topic categories actually mirror the item categories on BiddingForGood. Fashion, home decor, sports, travel destinations, entertainment, and more. There are already hundreds of images on Pinterest that have been “pinned” from the BiddingForGood site. They've basically been cut and pasted from the BiddingForGood site onto Pinterest. And we're working on a BiddingForGood Pinterest page, which you can follow as well. We’re just getting started so help us fill up our page with your pins.
But now, let's think about this from the point of view of an auction committee that is getting ready to share their auction and get more bids and bidders. Many of you already share items and your auction link on Facebook and Twitter. What you are doing is merchandising the items in your auction, promoting them to the people who may want to bid on them. Now you can “pin” your items on Pinterest. Oh, and did I mention that the site already has 12 million users and the numbers are growing like crazy? It is incredibly addictive and “fun” - two great features of a winning website. So jump in. Try it out.
Want to see what I’m passionate about? Click here and take a look: www.pinterest.com/perryallison
Happy Pinning and Happy Fundraising!