Pinterest turns three this month, and oh baby, has it come a long way from its humble beginnings as just a virtual pinboard!
Some fast facts:
- An increased number of men use the site – 32% men to 68% women as opposed to 92% women initially.
- More traffic than LinkedIn and Google+ combined per month.
- Free to use (and no longer invite-only!)
By now you know the basics of how to pin pictures and create your boards, but in the past couple of years the site’s capabilities – and your options – have expanded, including a newly-revealed platform for businesses. Here’s how you can use the site’s new functionalities to effectively attract talent.
Pinterest Analytics
With the rolling out of web analytics for businesses this week, you’ll now be able to monitor visits and user engagement. We know the basic user breakdown of Pinterest – the average number of male and female users, the average age and so on – but with the newly-released analytics feature, you’ll get a sense of who is engaging with your board. You can use analytics to see how many users are clicking on your board, which content is receiving the most clicks and who is repinning your content. You can fine tune your pinning activity once you hone in on which area is receiving the most focus. This feature makes Pinterest an excellent site for recruiters as they can see which posts are most viewed and there is no doubt that we will see more recruiters on Pinterest in the close future.
Multimedia Functionality
Users have been able to pin YouTube videos since August of 2011, and Vimeo integration was introduced the following year. Posting video is a great way to interact with jobseekers, especially if the position or company is within the multimedia industries. Because Pinterest doesn’t offer an opportunity to directly connect with other users, multimedia is the best way to interact directly with people visiting your board. In addition to pinning content to fill a specific position or promote career opportunities, you may consider promoting your company culture/awareness in the public eye. If the company has a stellar sustainability policy or diversity initiative, why not make it shine using video? It shouldn’t be very difficult for a standard recruitment company to record a video, using just existing staff, or if you didn’t fancy that perhaps an actor, and pin it.
Unlike LinkedIn, which offers a standardized presentation of a candidate’s work experience, Pinterest draws a more creative crowd. With sites like CeeVee and Jobspice brightening up resumes, an increasing number of candidates are opting for inforgraphic and visually enticing CVs. And where better to showcase them than on a picture-sharing site? And with the rise of multimedia on Pinterest, stumbling across a video resume or two isn’t unlikely, either.
Jobseekers started using video clips to market themselves years ago with the birth of Youtube and now it’s time for recruiters to use this great tool to attract the most talented staff.
Sheer Reach
The site has evolved from being a place to share the latest recipes or newest fashions into the third most popular social network – and the fastest growing. comScore reported 11.7 million unique U.S. visitors in January 2012. By February 2013, it had 48.7 million. Amongst this vast user base are ample job candidates accessible to recruiters who know how to look – and who to look for. But take advantage of the fact that Pinterest still is a community in which users like to post pretty pictures of recipes, or travel, DIY projects, hair styles and whatever else is hot right now. When in Rome! Pinning things like stylish work outfits or offices in exotic locations will speak to a broad audience. Link the pin to your board, and you’ve inadvertently snagged a passive candidate browsing fashion posts. The removal of the invite-only feature has opened up the scope of who’s using Pinterest, as has the ease of creating an account. Users can sign on straight with a Facebook or Twitter account, which allows them to share their favourite content (read: yours) with an even wider base of users.
It’s all on our hands as to how best to use Pinterest. We can’t really ignore this very powerful social giant of the web. The opportunity to reach thousands of people in a short space of time is excellent and the best bit is: it’s completely free to use Pinterest. Go create your business account if you haven’t done it yet!
Author: Huseyin Durak is the founder of Learnist.org. He has worked as a Recruitment Consultant for recruitment agencies and online job sites now his online organisation (Learnist.org) is serving around 250,000 job seekers a month.
