Why do they use Pinterest? If they're like me, these businesses find it a great way to drive web traffic, boost engagement with customers and improve their search results. Here are some favorite business-related pins I've come across. Shockingly, they include no decorating, clothing or craft examples:
- The British Library's using Pinterest to show off its illuminated manuscripts; here's one from the library (and Pinterest board) of King Henry VIII. Pinterest is ideal for sharing book covers, pages and illustrations. The library also celebrates its profession with a Pinterest board of images of libraries in film.
- IBM's sharing its research, as in this board on cognitive computing, describing and linking to new research and novel approaches to solving computing problems.
- The University of Liverpool takes advantage of Pinterest users' fondness for quotes with an inspiration board that includes some quotes presented on a custom template that subtly promotes its online programs. Here's a sample.
- The Chicago History Museum has boards featuring vintage photographs from its collections, with this example posted for Black History month, and the American Museum of Natural History uses one board for the Hayden Letters, an archive of letters from U.S. citizens in 1950, all of whom were hoping to book a trip to the moon or one of the planets.
- Singer Alicia Keys just got onto Pinterest and many of her boards are named after different tracks on her current album. Authors might steal this idea for book chapters...
- You'd think more auto companies would be on Pinterest, with its showroom-like features. (Ford Motor Company, a leader elsewhere in social media, has an account but no boards set up right now.) But Ferrari--eye candy, indeed--is on Pinterest, as in this example from its collectibles board.
- Paul Reed Smith has a guitar showroom on Pinterest, with standard and custom guitar models like this one. I'd love to see their demo videos posted here, too, since Pinterest supports video as well as photo formats.
- Travel destinations are another natural for pinning. Here, the Travelpod blog shows off the interior of Thomas Edison's laboratory, and Hilton shares money shots of its resort properties worldwide. The idea: Get you imagining a trip, and these work.
- The American Physical Therapy Association came up with graphics designed to let pinners make new year's resolutions about exercise and physical health in time for 2013.
- Gorilla Glue gets engagement on this board featuring customers' clever uses for its sticky products and how they've saved the day.
- The American Society of Civil Engineers has among its boards this one on its concrete canoe competition, ideal for the "seeing is believing" aspect Pinterest provides.
And if you're in New York, I'll be speaking to the Science Writers in New York on March 6 about using Pinterest for writers and communicators of science. We'll be looking at uses for journalists, bloggers, job-hunters, science museums, science career promoters, writers promoting books, science outreach organizations, scientific journals and more. The session takes place at the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and is free if you're a member of either ASJA or SWINY. See details and register here.
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