Pinterest and Politics

I hear all the kids these days use Pinterest.  I’m not entirely sure what that is, but I guess it has to do with using images to represent events, things you like or want, happenings in your life or even just cute stuff, like puppies.  I’m on it (I think), but just can’t integrate it in to my life yet.

That said, I may need to learn how to do so soon as, according to a USA Today article, the political world is starting to pick-up on this tool.  Both the presidential campaigns have accounts designed to capture the attention of subgroups of voters.  President Obama, for example, has a “pet lovers for Obama” board.  I’m a little obsessed with it.

Until now I’ve thought of Pinterest as just another social media site to try to keep up with (is there such a thing as “social media stress?”)  But as Alan Rosenblatt from the Center for American Progress Action Fund (and a friend) points out in the USA Today article "[Pinterest’s] core is not political . . . its audience is a group of people who need to be reached with this message because they’re not being reached otherwise.”  Reaching new audiences… Hmmm… That sounds good.  Pictures of cute puppies and to-die-for shoes, here I come.