This was a text message I received from a coworker a few days ago. Seeing it typed out, it didn't immediately resonate what he was referring to, I even quickly googled it before realizing he meant PINTEREST!! Now to be fair, he is not the target demographic for Pinterest, but I had to chuckle when I realized what he meant. Who hasn't heard of Pinterest? Apparently some people (men??) haven't yet....but they will now!
I've been a member of Pinterest since 2010 and I'm thrilled at its huge surge in growth - it's deserved. It's become a go-to place for inspiration....quotes, home decor, fashion, I'm covered. Pinning is something I do as I'm out and about on the web with the handy "pin it" toolbar button. It's easy to collect inspiration on my virtual board as I encounter it. Isn't that the point? It's easy and the benefits for the user are apparent. Inspiration neatly organized - check. Connecting with others with similar interests - check. Being a "cool kid" (not me, these people) with tons of repins and followers - check.
Let's walk through an example of a recent Pinterest board I created and my explanation for why marketers should pay attention....
I recently celebrated a birthday - yay getting older!! My mom asks what I want for my birthday. Instead of just telling her what I want, why don't I SHOW her what I want? Then instead of spending money on something I may or may not like, she can pick from a host of things I ACTUALLY WANT that are linked to where to buy them ONLINE, and she still has the ultimate decision about which gift to purchase. Pretty great, huh? Something about sliced bread comes to mind.
Building a board 101:
It starts with a little web surfing:
Building a board 101:
It starts with a little web surfing:
"Pin it" on my toolbar
Grabs images on the page
My board, "Bday gift ideas"
It's an abbreviated world, I just live here.
Simple, right? There's a reason this is taking off.
Pinterest Stats:
"Pinterest and the Social Networking & Forums category both receive their highest share of visits from California and Texas. However, the Social Networking category as a whole over-indexes on share of visits from Northeastern states while Pinterest over-indexes on visits from the states in the Northwest and Southeast. This data indicates that Pinterest visitors have a different profile versus their counterparts visiting other social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube." (Source: Experian) (Image: Source)
Over-indexed states for Pinterest visit share:
According to comScore, "Those who visited spent nearly 100 minutes on the site in January, compared with 19 minutes on professional social-networking site LinkedIn. Roughly 68% of Pinterest's users are women and many are in the Midwest." (Image: Source)
Why should we care?
West Elm illustration:
In researching for this article, I came across this illustration, which highlighted West Elm's Pinterest presence. (Which shouldn't come as a surprise, seeing as they are already engaging in the social space with a blog, twitter account and facebook page ). I immediately want to follow their boards (consumer hat) and see how they leverage this space (marketer hat).
West Elm illustration:
In researching for this article, I came across this illustration, which highlighted West Elm's Pinterest presence. (Which shouldn't come as a surprise, seeing as they are already engaging in the social space with a blog, twitter account and facebook page ). I immediately want to follow their boards (consumer hat) and see how they leverage this space (marketer hat).
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| (Source) |
I begin following all of West Elm's boards:
14,064 followers as of 2/26/12....didn't the picture above say 6,414 as of 1/19/12?
Doubled their followers in about a month...nice.
(Note: This is the number of people who are following ALL of West Elms boards)
A deeper dive, "Aquamarine" board":
This particular West Elm board has 23,913 followers.
When West Elm adds another picture to this board, it will show up in its followers' "newsfeed". In other words, when I login to Pinterest, it defaults to showing me the recent pins by pinners I follow.
The board is full of inspirational aquamarine images (imagine that). In addition, a few West Elm items are also in the board (imagine that)...see the pillow circled above? Yep, you can buy that on WestElm.com
I look forward to monitoring how this space evolves, in its quest to share ideas and inspiration.
In the meantime, Pin on.
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