A blogger and writer, Allison Dean jumped at the chance to bring us a guest post about the importance of Pinterest to the world.  Though an avid follower of the SEO world, she spends much of her professional life writing about medical malpractice attorneys after realizing that laypersons needed an educational resource they could depend on when they had legal problems.

Pinterest is what everyone in the marketing world is talking about.  The recommendation engine/social media platform hybrid attracts users with time and money to spare, and who want to share their findings with their friends and the world; Pinterest is a resource users want to use, and it’s a marketer’s goldmine.  Here is why Pinterest is necessary to all of those in the online e-commerce world.



Who Is Using Pinterest?

According to a TechCrunch’s Pinterest Infographic (based off of ComScore data) and Modea’s Very Pinteresting Inforgraphic, the average Pinterest user:

• Makes between $25,000-$74,999 annually (69%).
• Is a woman (80%).
• Is between the ages of 25 and 34 (30%).
• Spends 15.8 minutes per day on Pinterest, compared to:

 -Facebook’s 12.1 minute per day user average; and
 -Twitter’s 3.3 minute per day user average.

• Spends more time repining (more than 80%) than “Pinmarklet” or engaging in other Pinterest activities.

-What this means is that Pinterest users spend the majority of their time sharing what they find on Pinterest as opposed to actually adding content to Pinterest by “Pinmarkleting,” i.e. using the “pin it” button to pin pages/images they find while surfing the internet.

• Is either a Facebook user, Twitter user, or both.
• May or may not have a child (it’s a 50/50 split).

Some background on this demographic is needed to fully understand the consumer/marketing value of Pinterest.  Those between the ages of 25 and 34 are more likely to be unmarried than married (U.S. Census figures).  Although single men tend to spend more than single women overall, single women outspend men in the following areas:  Personal care; Pets; and Clothing, Shoes, & Other wear.

















What’s On Pinterest?

Pinterest is home to a variety of categories.  However, the most popular categories found on Pinterest, according to RJ Metrics, are:

• Home (17.2%);
• Arts and Crafts (12.4%); 
• Style/Fashion (11.7%);
• Food (10.5%); and
• Inspiration/Education (9.0%). 

Despite Home being the most popular category, Food is the fastest growing and most repined category on Pinterest; meanwhile, Style & Fashion is the second most repined category.

What Makes People Want to Use Pinterest?

Three things make people want to use Pinterest:  1) It’s easy to use; 2) It’s useful and creative; and 3) It’s simple to use.

Easy.

It’s not that a high IQ is required to use Facebook and Twitter, but Pinterest is just so darn easy compared to the other two social media giants.  Facebook and Twitter require thought; users are effectively sharing their personal views, ideas, and thoughts with the world.  Pinterest, on the other hand, is relatively undemanding.  Users see what they like and they share it.  And that’s Pinterest.

Creative & Useful.

Pinterest is home to what people are looking for: creative and useful ideas that they wouldn’t have thought of themselves.  We long for things that will make our everyday lives easier, and more entertaining and beautiful.  Pinterest offers users all of this.  From creative recipes to decorating ideas to simple fixes for everyday annoyances; Pinterest has it.

Simple.

Pinterest isn’t just about finding things people want and need; it’s about sharing those findings with friends and the world, and Pinterest has made that process simple.  Like that easy buffalo chicken potato skins recipe that you know your friends would love; all you have to do is click repin, choose the category it fits in, and your find will be posted to followers Pinterest homepage.  Or you can share it directly with specific followers; similar to Facebook, you can simply share by typing “@name of the person you want to share with” in the description of your pins and repins.

Pinterest Growth

Pinterest’s growth rate has been compared to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  As can be seen below, Pinterest’s growth surpassed Twitter and Facebook’s growth in similar time frames of development.  Worth noting is that the table chart below makes it seem as if Facebook had 6 million users in 1 year; however, it collected that following between its launch in February of 2004 and December of 2005 (nearly 2 years).


















With that, Pinterest observes about 1.36 million visitors each day and has collected over 11.7 million users as of March 18th, according to Appdata.com.  Between May of 2011 and February of 2012, the number of unique visitors to Pinterest jumped 2,702.2%.


What Pinterest Users Mean to Marketing and E-commerce

What all of this means to marketers and e-commerce businesses is the following:

Pinterest’s Demographics = $$$

First, the average Pinterest user is a single woman, with few financial responsibilities (i.e. children, husband, etc.), and presumably has an expendable income.   Expendable income means this demographic is more likely to actually spend money on the services and products found on Pinterest; those willing to spend money on the services and products found on Pinterest are likely to follow and be followed by others of the same demographic.  And perhaps it’s no coincidence that the categories in which women outspend men (i.e. personal care, pets, and clothing, shoes, & other wear) also happen to encompass popular categories on Pinterest; e.g. Fitness, Food & Drink, Fitness, Pets, and Women’s Apparel.

Pinterest Uses Facebook to Its Advantage

This header almost seems to undermine just how much Pinterest uses Facebook to its advantage.  There are only two ways for users to sign up for a Pinterest account: using Twitter or Facebook.  Given that Facebook has 175 million active U.S. users while Twitter boasts only 107 million accounts (how many are active is unknown), it seems logical to assume that the majority of Pinterest users choose their Facebook accounts to sign up.  And when Facebook users set up Pinterest, they are automatically opted into finding Pinterest friends via their Facebook friend list and sharing their Pinterest activities via their Facebook Timeline.  What this means is that Pinterest has the opportunity to reach beyond its 11.7 million users to Facebook’s 175 million active U.S. users.

Additionally, Pinterest has been integrated into Facebook.  Lowe’s has been used as an example of how such integration can translate to Pinterest success, according to one case study.  The home improvement retailer added a Pinterest tab to their Facebook page that provides users with full Pinterest functionality without ever leaving Facebook; this experiment rendered a 32% increase in Lowe’s Pinterest following.

Search Engine Optimization

And of course, one can’t consider social media without considering SEO; and Pinterest is on that train.  These are just a few of the ways Pinterest affects SEO:

• Follow links

Like other social media giants have in the past, Pinterest currently allows follow links; meaning your links get crawled.

• #HashTagOptimization

Pinterest offers hashtags so that e-commerce companies and marketers can reach an audience beyond their followers.

• Repin & follow buttons

Like Facebook’s “Like” button, Twitter’s “Tweet” button, and Google+’s “+1” button, e-commerce businesses may place “Pin It” and “Follow” buttons on their websites.

• Referral traffic

In addition to beating Youtube, Google+, and LinkedIn in terms of referral traffic, Pinterest was also found to refer more traffic than Twitter in February.

• Tracking Pinterest progress

Pinterest allows businesses to monitor which of their website’s pages have been shared and repined.

Necessary in a Nutshell

In a nutshell, Pinterest is:

• Comprised of consumers with the desire and means to buy and share the services and products on Pinterest.
• Growing astronomically by the day; and its growth rate has even surpassed Facebook’s growth at the same stage in development.
• Is every marketer’s and e-commerce business’ dream in terms of promotion and SEO.

Or as Maxymiser’s Pinterest Deconstructed Infographic put it, all Pinterest users “are acting as members of an online word-of-mouth marketing team that’s directing buyers, doers and seekers to your online and mobile properties.”