Friday, February 24, 2012

Introduction to Pinterest


What’s the interest in Pinterest?

We’ve all heard of the likes of Facebook and Twitter, but there’s a new young upstart making waves in the Social Media world. But what exactly IS Pinterest?

Based on the premise of a virtual pinboard, Pinterest allows users to build their own image boards, adding in all kinds of media from images to videos, or discussions, and comment on both theirs and other users’ pinboards. Registration is by either invitation from an existing user, or applying for an invite through the website.


It may sound like a bit of a fad, but there’s some impressive statistics to back it up.

Pinterest has actually been around for almost 2 years, but most of that’s been spent in an invitation only beta state. It wasn’t until December 2011 that the site catapulted itself into the top 10 social networks (according to Hitwise) and the tail end of 2011 also led to TechCrunch naming Pinterest the best new start up of 2011.
January 2012 has seen that success continue, and it’s now reported that Pinterest drives more referral traffic to sites then LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ combined! Last month comScore reported the site had 11.7 million unique visitors, making it the fastest site in history to break the 10 million unique visitor mark. Not only does it boast some impressive numbers, but Pinterest has become a top traffic driver for Retailers.

Not only is it high in the visit numbers, but there are now over 10.4 million registered users. Furthermore, a surprisingly high percentage of them are women. AppData and Facebook’s advertising tools show that just shy of 98% of Pinterests Facebook fans are female. Women between the ages of 25 and 44 make up 59% of Pinterest users. Its a great way to share and build a community of enthusiasts. The pinboards and pinner profiles are found easily and high in the search results.

Pinterest doesn’t shy away from its appeal to women either, on the Pinterest About Us page they describe their pinboards as a method to plan weddings, decorate homes and organise their favourite recipes. Of course, there are a fair few blokes as well, Fiona, here at Rocktime, has an exclusively male following of 'pinners' (each with their own beautiful looking pinboards!) for her own Music pinboard.

Naturally, Pinterest has it's own YouTube Channel, full of useful How To tips and a Twitter feed.
The biggest brand on Pinterest is 'Perfect Palette', with 244,163 Followers, 113 Boards and 6,925 Pins. The success is due to this wedding blog helping visitors to explore and choose the colour theme for an upcoming wedding.


Popular content on Pinterest covers a whole range of areas, from cooking to crafts and skincare to pets. So far it seems to have great appeal through its simple interface and ease of use. These attributes make it a great method of sharing content, your Pinterest content not only shows up on your pinboard, but can integrate straight through to your Facebook feed too; Facebook-connected Pinterest.

When reviewing web analytics, it is likely brands will start to notice new trends in keywords, traffic sources, what is driving traffic and where content is getting shared the most. So, it is well worth factoring Pinterest into an Integrated Digital Strategy.

If you’re interested in finding out how to get your foot in the door and how Social Media can further your business online, why not drop a line to our sales team here at Rocktime.


Author: Alice Cheetham

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