The ever popular Pinterest is on the rise, not only in the USA but it is now becoming more prevalent in other countries too. It currently "drives more web traffic to other sites than Google+ , LinkedIn, and YouTube combined” (Goodson, S, “The Rise and Rise of Pinterest and Our Love of Digital Curation”, 2012), to the site and it has “12 million + unique monthly visits” (Oakcreektail.com, “The New Pinomenon: The Rise of Pinterest” 2012).  In the UK I think we are only just scratching the surface with it and we will start to use it more as Pinterest continues to grow.

If you don’t know what Pinterest is - they describe themselves as the following:

“Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes” (Pinterest.com, 2012)

For those of us who once would have kept a scrap book of all our favourite cuttings from magazines and other findings, Pinterest is the online version. Unsurprisingly, after reading the description, its main users are women. “68% of Pinterest users are women according to Internet tracking firm ComScore” (Ortuaty, Barbara, “Pinterest Use Is On The Rise: Here’s everything you need to know about the internets new darling”, 2012) Men now have their own version of Pinterest called manteresting, which you can find at http://manteresting.com/ . Manteresting allows men to use a ‘nail it’ tool to ‘nail’ items to their boards instead of pinning.

 Pinterest and eCommerce?

Pinterest has now launched ‘Pinterest for Business’, which suggests it is going the same route as Facebook with ads and tools. In the future there could be more paid tools like we see on Facebook, which would increase brand awareness further. It will be interesting to see how Pinterest for business grows and develops. Will they learn anything from the Facebook business route?

Pinterests visual aesthetics quickly engages the user with your brand, by creating a pin board for your business, displaying a selection of your products and ‘re-pinning’ other relevant products that promote your brand personality, what you stand for and what you are about.

The graph above from “Pinterest Dominating Social Media in eCommerce” by Ryan Neil, shows that 43% of Pinterest users use it to associate with retails or brands with which they identify with, whilst 67% of users like to use it to keep up with the latest trends. It is clear from the chart how these differ with Facebook and how users look to Pinterest to engage with brands. (Neal, R. “Pinterest Dominating Social Media in eCommerce” 2012)

By following the Pinterest etiquette of re-pinning, building themes and categories of relevant products, allows the Pinterest community to increase whilst creating a huge potential for cross-marketing. There are several steps that can be taken to cross-market your business online with Pinterest such as:

• Adding the Pinterest social networking icon to your product detail pages can heighten awareness of your products and your brand online
• Increase in traffic - as users share on Pinterest others will view the product information, which can increase traffic to your website
• Think about adding Pinterest to your social media strategy – tell users on other social networks about your presence on Pinterest
• Engage with others on Pinterest by creating or partaking in discussions
• Email campaigns – highlight your Pinterest presence on your email campaigns

What makes Pinterest so popular to both individuals and businesses is partly down to how we like to collect and view beautiful things. By pinning our favourite picture or products to our pin boards we are telling the world a bit about ourselves. Pinterest appeals not only because of the visual impact the site has, but because it fits in with our busy modern lifestyles where we can quickly glance at something we like visually and tell our friends about the things we like.

Paul Sheehy from Folk Digital gave an interesting presentation at Magento Live UK 2012 on the power of storytelling through digital. Your customers, followers and friends are much more interested in your story, which is what gives you and your brand a face and personality, making it easier to associate and connect. The guys from Folk are using social media, and Pinterest in particular, for their clients’ campaigns and digital strategies. Paul explains how to best utilise all the different platforms available to merchants and users alike in the recorded edition of his presentation which will be available online soon.

Sources

1. Goodson, Scott, 15/2/2012. The Rise and Rise of Pinterest and our love of digital curation http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/02/15/the-rise-and-rise-of-Pinterest-and-our-love-of-digital-curation/.
2. Neal, Ryan, 22/10/2012. http://www.gurubloggers.com/Pinterest-dominating-social-media-in-ecommerce/
3. Oakcreektrail.com - The Rise of Pinterest http://oakcreektrail.com/news/Pinterest-tips-market-business/
4. Ortuaty, Barbara, 3/12/12. Pinterest Use Is On The Rise: Here’s everything you need to know about the internets new darling http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/Pinterest-use_n_1339687.html