Pinterest Proficiency and What It Means for Today’s Entrepreneurs
Any marketer, advertiser, or anyone who has ever watched Mad Men, knows the key to selling well comes not from pushing products; it’s from building an infrastructure of inspiration and aspiration. A good campaign creates a problem, to which its solution is the product, or it creates an aspirational lifestyle which is enhanced by the addition of the product.
It sets a tasteful and rustic dinner table and the key centerpiece is the product. In this regard, it’s no surprise that Pinterest has been rising to the top of online marketing platforms, attracting retail companies, bloggers, independent crafters, chefs, fashion designers, makeup artists, and any kind of hobbyist and influencer.
This simple photo-sharing community, where people can find new recipes, clip wardrobe wish lists, trade crafting tips, and more, has proven that inspiration is truly contagious. For a marketer, Pinterest can be a gold mine of potential customers.
The Numbers Support It
According to a report by Shareaholic, as of April 2014, Pinterest drove 7.10 percent of web traffic that sites receive (second to Facebook, but well ahead of Twitter, Reddit, and other social sites). And this percentage is growing: in the first quarter of 2014, the company drove 48.36 percent more traffic than it did at the end of 2013.
Data from comScore, showed that by April 2015, Pinterest had 72.8 million users, accounting for 30 percent of all social media users in the U.S. and 40 percent internationally (this is a 135 percent increase in users outside the U.S. in the last year alone). Users spend 14.2 minutes on average for each session on Pinterest. These numbers create highly-valued potential for business--not only are millions of people searching for products, solutions, and inspiration in their daily lives, but they’re spending a dedicated amount of time doing so.
Pinterest Is Making Buying Items Much, Much Easier
While users have always been able to make purchases on items they find on Pinterest, the site has launched a “Buy” button that will make it easier for users to buy their pinned items without even leaving the platform.
Before, if a Pinterest user found something they liked, they would be sent off the site to complete the transaction directly through the seller. Now, all customers need to do is click the Buy button, and streamline the process of buying several items at once, effectively turning this community inspiration board into an online marketplace--but with much more diversity than any other preexisting shopping platform.
Women Be Shoppin’
Pinterest is in the unique and extremely beneficial position of being one of the largest international shopping platforms, and one that is overwhelmingly dominated (as in, 85 percent of their users) by women across all age demographics--but more concentrated among 20 to 30-somethings.
As this demographic typically does more of the shopping, on a consistent basis--women are the decision-makers in most household spending decisions--they typically pin items or images in an aspirational/motivational way, including creating wishlists. Importantly, BusinessInsider reports that the site is also most popular among the wealthiest customers. As a result, Pinterest generates four times more revenue per click than Twitter, 27 percent more than Facebook.
Pinterest Is Mobile Friendly.
A report on mobile platforms from Adobe Marketing Cloud Solutions revealed that Pinterest is the most mobile social network, with 64 percent of its referred traffic coming from mobile browsers. Content sharing for Pinterest is up by 131 percent in the last year, while Facebook’s sharing was down by 42 percent. As the digital world shifts gradually to mobile, Pinterest has already shown the effects of its head start.
Should Your Company Be on Pinterest?
Some businesses are better suited to Pinterest than others. At its core, it is a photo-sharing platform, and companies with more visual content do the best. In this way, retail, fashion, food, and travel do much better than, for example, IT solutions. However, by introducing more visual campaigns and finding niche pinners (for example, communities that pin photos of organized work spaces, motivational slogans for fitness buffs or entrepreneurs, pictures of beautiful libraries, etc.), you can net access to people who are looking for what you’re selling.
All companies need to see what works for them. Pinterest offers a constant stream of visual content and a way to share content that is more than the services or products that it offers. And who knows? Maybe your website's content is already on Pinterest--in which case, this may be a signal for you to get pinning.
