Want to party with Pinterest? That’s a privilege you’ll have to earn.
Pinterest is throwing an official summer party this August, and it wants members of the community to attend. Since it isn’t feasible to invite all of the platform’s millions of users, it’s holding a contest to determine which lucky pinners will be invited to attend the Bay Area celebration.
In an announcement posted on the support forums and the Facebook page, a Pinterest employee named Kim encourages applicants to submit a 60-second YouTube video about “how Pinterest has inspired you.”
“Whether you discovered you’re a dab hand at gardening, unleashed a hidden talent for making mochi, or planned a trip to Seville, we want to hear it!”
The contest was announced yesterday, and pinners have until July 30 at 12 PM PT to enter. So far, a YouTube search for “Pinterest Contest Entry” and similar queries yields no related results.
Pinterest’s explosive growth means it has to set a barrier to entry before interacting with the community. When the network opened up its Support page in March, it was immediately flooded with thousands of requests per day. When it held a t-shirt giveaway in May, 20,000 people entered before Pinterest was forced to close it.
Like May’s t-shirt giveaway, the video contest is a surefire way for the social network to garner exclusively positive user feedback. By hand picking the winners, Pinterest is not only resolving the overcrowding issue, but ensuring that no troublemakers crash its good time.