Using Pinterest for Advertising and Branding

Every user of Pinterest is actively creating their online identity as they pin images that reflect their interests and attitudes. "Information about who the users...are emerges" through their posts and actions. The images pinned create a narrative that "reveal[s] a great deal about their creators and their experience" (Keegan, 166). For individual users, the site can function as a personal web page where they can "aim to answer the question, 'who am I?'" or "who do I want to be?" (Chandler & Roberts-Young qtd. in Stern, 219). As Chandler & Roberts-Young say when referring to personal home pages, "the process of...construction can be viewed as a creative and gradual process, much like the process of identity formation itself" (qtd. in Stern, 220).

Because pins can create or share an identity of their pinner, companies, personalities, or bloggers can also use the site to publicize and indirectly sell their image. Like other types of microblogging, Pinterest can be used as a tool to promote new products or collections but it can also be used to publicize events and share designer's inspirations. DeVoe suggests that users attempting to advertise create posts during events, "providing on-the-scene coverage for friends and followers unable to attend" (214). Photos of events can be seen frequently on Pinterest, whether they are personal events like weddings or birthday parties posted to provide inspiration for other users or larger events like conventions or festivals.

"Consumers tend to attribute corporations' marketing strategies to extrinsic motives of profit exploitation" (Lee, 60), but sites like Pinterest serve to hide this because they are based in collaboration, so even though companies have profiles, they usually post images from others as well as images of their own products, "appropriat[ing] cultural artifacts...that signify with what and whom they align themselves"(Stern, 222).

Companies' employees, if they are creative and passionate about their jobs, can also be good for marketing in a social media environment like this. Seeing employees talking about their experience and interacting with others outside the company on a site like this "can afford an immense openness, making the company attractive to outsiders (prospective consumers as well as employees)" (Kurda, 38). Additionally, as "products are increasingly sold on the basis of non-material values...the experiences and narratives with which they are associated" (Thorlacius, 74), Pinterest becomes a better marketing strategy because it involves constant recontextualization. An image of one product can be placed in an unlimited number of contexts or narratives, allowing more types of consumers to visualize it becoming a part of their life.

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