Temple student making her mark as a Pinterest marketer

Brittany Cozzens grew tired of the Pinterest e-mails notifying her of new followers, about 10 a day, so she turned them off.

A year later, a marketing company let her know: she had more than three million followers, putting her among the most followed people on the site.

"I was like, 'That's not right.' Then I went to look and was like, 'Oh . . ..' "

Cozzens' self-described "procrastination" on the popular photo-organizing website landed the rising Temple University sophomore a paying job as one of more than 250 influencers for Pinterest marketing company HelloSociety.

She's paid to expose the company's clients to her followers. HelloSociety matches Cozzens to clients by style, and she pins photos of the clients' products. However, Cozzens does not pin what she does not like, and HelloSociety does not ask her to.

Cozzens' Pinterest has 27 boards - pinned photos organized by topic, resembling a virtual corkboard - that range from "Wedding Ideas" to her most popular board, "Tattoos and Trends."

Recently, she pinned photos of a chignon bun hairstyle tutorial, mood-reading earrings, and a tattoo of a purple chrysanthemum on someone's forearm that looks like it was done with oil paint.

"She's really good for fashion brands," Grace Kim, HelloSociety's manager of influencer relations, said. "She has a little bit of an edge to her but she can also pin some really nice feminine things."

Cozzens' style epitomizes her mix. Sitting on the couch in her York, Pa., home, she wore deep-pink lipstick reminiscient of the 1950s and a modern, turquoise-and-black patterned tank top. It's an individualized look that works for her.

Cozzens began using Pinterest in her junior year at York Suburban High School to escape being like everyone else. She pinned photos of tattoos for art class because she "wasn't going to [draw] the typical still life."

Now, the 19-year-old is majoring in advertising at Temple and wants to be an art director at an ad agency. When she's not pinning for several hours a day, she designs for Temple's student-run ad agency.

In the fall, she plans to be a resident adviser while taking seven classes.

Despite her life's current pace, Cozzens doesn't drink coffee and doesn't want to work at a New York City ad agency.

"I'm a country person at heart," she said. "I want to know the people I work with, who their kids are." She prefers one project at a time.

Or, as her best friend, Allison Macolino, put it, she's a perfectionist.

Kelly Paraskevakos - her former high school English teacher and babysitting client - said Cozzens was always more mature than her peers. Nevertheless, Macolino said, she had never seen her friend happier than when they took a trip to the Philadelphia Zoo.

"She's just fun," Macolino said.

Though Cozzens often laughs while she talks, her designs can veer toward serious themes. The trademark arrows, which she includes in what she designs for herself, speak to her life philosophy as a non-denominational Christian.

She also has a Pinterest board, "For the love of arrows!" devoted to collecting arrow paraphernalia.

"An arrow has to be pulled back in order to be shot forward," Cozzens said. "Even if you have ups and downs, if you have a big down, there'll be something exponentially great for you at some point."

Cozzens is admittedly mindful of her followers, especially with her new job. Though she never pins something she dislikes, she's sure to pin what her followers enjoy. Still, Cozzens has no interest in the "client-side" of advertising in the long-term.

"It's, network, network, network, all the time," she said. "You need to talk to people, they need to talk back to you." Cozzens would rather be left to design.

Her main pet peeve, though, is when people don't take her work seriously because it's "just social media."

"It's branding yourself," Cozzens said. "You can describe who you are in words . . . and if you go on my Pinterest, that's what you're actually going to find. It's who you are."

To see Cozzens' Pinterest, go to http://pinterest.com/bcozzens/