Pin it if you love it

Have you guys heard about Pinterest? What is Pinterest? The name definitely invites some interest. Oh look! It happened again.

At first glance, the home page of Pinterest looks like a tasteful collection of eye-catching images put up by users from all over the world. The images range from a picturesque location to a small piece of equipment, from pets or animals to works of art, from landmark events in history to latest trends in fashion, to name a few. Of course, a lot of these categories often tend to overlap one another, making it a more memorable experience.

Pinterest is a pin board style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme based collections such as events, interests, hobbies and more. Users have the option of browsing other pin boards for inspiration,’re-pin’ images to their own collections and/or ‘like’ photos. Pinterest’s mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the things they find interesting”. Obviously, once it gets put up, it’s not interesting anymore, its ‘Pinteresting’ now!

Founded by Ben Silbermann, the site is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and inventors. It draws our attention for the following reasons:

- It is one the fastest growing social services in the world.

- It drives more traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn, combined!

- It is extremely viral. Over 80% of pins are re-pins. This means your content goes on autopilot.

- You do not need to repost your articles over and over like on some social sites because your pins can be posted and re-shared over and over.

- It is driving more traffic back to websites than Twitter.

Here’s an info graphic, which will do the rest of the detailing. After all, the site is about images, and writing more about it will spoil the fun, honestly.

Credits: wikipedia.org, mashable.com, socialmediahelp4u.com

Its all about the Fans, now.

The recent headlines on a Sports news website –

“Kaka becomes first athlete to pass 10m fans on Twitter”

“The IOC’s ‘Olympic Athletes Hub’ – good idea or social media fail?”

“FIFA launches YouTube Channel”

“Arsenal advises young players on use of social media”

“Liverpool first Premier League club on Pinterest”

“Social Media & Sport – the importance of interacting with, not just talking at fans”

All this points to one, and only one thing: Social Media is big, and it cannot be ignored.

The fact is, social media does not require a big budget and you don’t need millions of fans to see a positive return from your social media efforts. If you could put a few more people in the stands at your games or sell more merchandise at your team store without it costing you anything, wouldn’t that be worth your time?

Every team has fans. Some are more loyal and engaging than others, but every team has a fan base that wants to see your program succeed. What social media does is give you the tools to engage with your fan base and turn them into advocates that will help you achieve your goals. The only thing you have to do is provide value. And, yes, value can be defined in a number of ways. It doesn’t mean you have to give away something that costs a lot of money. Value can simply be providing your fan base with something that they normally wouldn’t experience such as access to behind the scenes action, exclusive offers on tickets and merchandise and creative online contests that encourage participation.

Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms are having a tremendous impact on the sports world for fans, players, teams and sponsors alike.

Here’s an infographic to better depict the picture (too much reading gets boring, we know).