Pinterest for A/E/C & Construction

So the past few months, I’ve seen my wife spends hours & hours on Pinterest looking for everything from interesting recipes, creative ways to do her hair for a wedding she stood in, to crafts and even a rain gutter garden which we recently completed. I’ve been curious to how businesses could use Pinterest and if it could actually help with online lead generation.

Let me take a step back in case you don’t know what I’m even talking about. Pinterest is a new social media website that launched in January of this year where users “pin” or attach images they like to their profile much like posting a flyer on a virtual bulletin board. Users can have different boards to separate different topics.  Imagine Google’s image search with the ability to save images you like to a central location.

After doing some research (playing on my wife’s Pinterest account), discussing it in the weekly #AECSM tweetchat, and then I read a great article by SMPS Wisconsin on Pinterest, I saw this as a great opportunity for any business that can differentiate by design, creativity, and innovation. Artists & crafters on Etsy.com are loving Pinterest as should architects, designers, and builders because it can easily bring visitors to your work and then to your website to purchase your work. For B-to-B companies like in the A/E/C (Architect/Engineering/Construction) industry, Pinterest is an online scrapbook or portfolio of your greatest work.

Don’t think you’re buyers are on Pinterest? They might not be yet–Pinterest is still in its infancy. Metrics and ROI case studies are not there, but some early statistics show the average visit to Pinterest is over 1 hour and 17 minutes compared to 17 minutes on LinkedIn. The new website had over 10 million users in its first 2 months – that’s faster than Facebook & Twitter.

I think Pinterest is ideal for custom home builders because many women (including my wife) are planning their dream house on the site and a local builder with some creative solutions & unique work will easily stand out. If you’re an architect, imagine a hospital administrator searching for ideas to present to the board to help promote a new hospital and that administrator finds your healthcare portfolio on your Pinterest page through Google images.

Don’t believe that can happen? Would you like to wait to see if your competitor believes me? I didn’t think so.