Pinerly?Anyone heard of it?
I mentioned it on my a posting a few weeks back. It has been hit with mixed results. Personally, I love it. It tells me not to waste much time with pin boards such as Pinspire, Pinterest and perhaps even my own personal favourite, "Rebel Mouse".
Pinterest hit massive increase in people using it right up to about January of this year and then all of a sudden numbers suddenly nose-dived. People began seeing use of pinterest as a massive time-consuming activity that allowed a person to over endulge in the visual things that they would never be able to buy. It is beautiful - gorgeous in fact but my interest was solely from a business point of view. Personally, despite some wonderful photography on the site, would rather spend my evenings or days with the kiddies.
For those of you who don't know what pinterest is - you can see below on the older post - basically it is a social pin board for your pictures. My interest is that we can attach our domain name to it and hopefully people will click on the photo, go to the site and buy our soap.
So... Introducing Pinerly. www.pinerly.com
This little site gives people the statistics behind each and every photo you to pinterest through the pinerly site. Their blog is full of information about how to make the best eye-catching photos relevant to a pinterest community. I mentioned before - remove prices, add three word to the photo and post at certain times.
The info was good but finding out how to use it was a daunting task. First of all you have to register. By doing so you get a code. You then must use the code to tell others about pinerly and when you have gained a number of followers then you are granted access. Once access is given you drag a little tool to your toolbar similar to that of Pinterest. It states "pinerly it".Edit you photos, customise them to poitrait rather than landscape, add the relevant text and photo shop to your hearts content. Add a link for where you want people who click on the photo to be taken to and you are done.
Click pinerly it and you will be transferred to pinterest. Pinning on pinterest is easy - its all done for you. You just click "pin". Having done so you can then sit back and look at what kind of reach your pin has had. How many re-pins, likes and numbers of people who saw it. A little like google analytics for pictures.
Here's the thing though. Despite the hours (and I do mean hours) to find out how to use it, edit photos, pin photos etc. I really can't say that it has been worth it. I get an average reach of 50-180 veiwers to each picture. None that I am aware of has ever produced a sale and that includes the high amount of promotion that went on over the CraftFEST period.
When you then add the time spent to pin to Wanelo (where I seem to do better right now) Pinspire and Rebelmouse - then you can be talking about a massive amount of time without making any money. Throw Facebook, Twitter, Whosin, and some other thing I was shown the other night and you are literally talking a full time job promoting with no evidence at the minute of any return.So - proceed with caution. I loved Pinerly - if even it was only to give a reality check. One thing I can't stand is time-wasting. Social media is fantastic for business (apparently) - but there is a limit to this on-line community and what it can do to provide a turnaround.
Will I stop using them - no, but nor will I be overly concerned that I need to fill boards, and complete tasks to ensure all our products are up to be found. I think I can quite happily sit back and edit the odd photo every now and again to pin when it suits.
