Editors

Put a pin on it

EditorsFeb 02, 2012

Put a pin on it

I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz lately about Pinterest, starting at the recent JA New York Show when an industry colleague, and budding jewelry designer, was showing off her boards in the press room. The topic of Pinterest arose...

I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz lately about Pinterest, starting at the recent JA New York Show when an industry colleague, and budding jewelry designer, was showing off her boards in the press room.

The topic of Pinterest arose again yesterday when I was interviewing Dan Gordon, of Samuel Gordon Jewelers in Oklahoma City, for a separate story.

For those of you don’t know Dan, he is one of the most forward-thinking jewelers in the industry when it comes to the use of technology and social media. The way he has used social media to broaden his reach has been the topic of countless articles, both in this publication and elsewhere. If there is something new that’s going to be relevant coming up in the social media space, Dan knows about it.

After speaking with Dan, I decided to try out Pinterest myself, to see what all the buzz was about regarding this new photo sharing site.


Pinterest, to me at least, is akin to an electronic, 2012 version of the cork bulletin board I had in my room when I was a teenager. I would cut out quotes, beauty tips, pictures of my celebrity crushes, etc. out of magazines such as YM and Sassy and pin them to the board.

The same concept applies in the case of Pinterest, but instead of being visible only to the handful of friends who entered my teenager lair of solitude, millions of people online can see it.

On Pinterest, you can search by keyword -- say, jewelry or rings -- and see the items other users have pinned because they want to do make, see, do or buy them. You can then re-pin them to your own boards. And, just like Twitter, you can “follow” your friends, customers or simply people whom you think post interesting content.

Pinterest also lets you pin things from outside websites, such as this beautiful, custom star ruby ring or these turquoise and brown diamond earrings I pinned from Greenwich Jewelers here in New York to my “Jewelry I like” board. While I simply cut and pasted the direct links into Pinterest, there is a little piece of code retailers can use to install a “Pin it” button on their website, allowing browsers to denote a piece of jewelry as a favorite that then gets shared on Pinterest.

This past holiday season, Gordon said he held

a Pinterest-themed contest, offering a $500 gift certificate to one randomly selected person who pinned at least one item from SamuelGordons.com to their Pinterest page. The more items you pinned, the more times you were entered to win.

Gordon said website traffic spiked as a result of the contest.

“It’s a huge discovery tool and it becomes addictive,” he said. “From a marketing standpoint it has a potential of being a huge traffic generator.”
Michelle Graffis the editor-in-chief at National Jeweler, directing the publication’s coverage both online and in print.

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