Unless you’ve been on Mars, or perhaps a Moon colony, you’ve probably heard about Pinterest and how it’s the fastest growing social net out there.
According to comScore, Pinterest now has more than 11 million active users, making it the fastest independent site to hit 10 million monthly unique. The average Pinterest user spends 98 minutes per month on the site, trailing only Facebook and Tumblr in social media time spent.
Even more interesting, TechCrunch has reported that as many as 97% of Pinterest users are female. That number seems a bit suspect – it’s actually based upon Facebook advertising stats and is the percentage of people who have “Liked” Pinterest on Facebook. There could be a gender bias among those who click “like”, but with over a million Likes, it’s a pretty meaningful statistic, even if slightly inflated.
The impact of Pinterest goes beyond its usage to how it's driving huge amounts of referral traffic. Pinterest has grown from 2.5% of referral traffic in December to 3.6% in January, according to Shareaholic. That puts them in a virtual tie with both Twitter and Google, trailing Facebook and StumbleUpon.
Depending upon whose definitions you like, Pinterest is sort of a visual listmaking/sharing tool or a Delicious meets Tumblr bookmarking tool. Basically, when you see an image of something you want to bookmark, you click on a button to “pin it” to your Pinterest wall.
Since it was the hot new thing, I registered for the early beta of Pinterest, then set up three pinboards – one of books I’ve recently read or are on my to-read list; a second of guitar gear I own or is on my wish list; and a third – leveraging the hottest current internet meme of #Linsanity with a pinboard called Linterest.
The first thing I noticed when using Pinterest is how easy and natural it is to share information. It’s very similar to Delicious in that if you want to share something, you click the toolbar button, pick the image you want to share, then add a brief comment. It’s much easier than posting to Tumblr, for example.
The second thing that I noticed is that I’m really just not a list maker. I created these three lists, but doubt that I would pin things on a regular basis. Ironically, I’ve been a big Delicious user over the years – but I’ve always used it more as a bookmarking service – helping me find things later, regardless of device, rather than as a social sharing service. But list making? It's not for me.
Which brings me back to the gender gap. I’m no sociologist, but of what I’ve read, it seems that women are more likely to be list-makers than men. That’s not an absolute, of course, but my anecdotal experience suggests it to be the case. In addition, some of the applications that Pinterest seems perfect for tend to have wider appeal to women than men. Pinterest seems perfect for sharing fashion ideas, interior design, crafts and other visually compelling items. Pinterest is already the top-referring social site to both MyRecipes and Cooking Light, surpassing Facebook. According to Time Warner’s Tina Imm, “The majority of our traffic [from Pinterest] is coming when people check the recipes on our site and 'Pin' it. Ultimately, when you pin those recipes onto your own boards on Pinterest, that is where the viral activity happens.”
So, what does this mean for publishers and ecommerce sites? The most obvious impact is that it reinforces the trend towards more visual content. While images and video were considered nice to have just a few years ago, they’ve become more critical in the tablet environment and with sites like Pinterest, images are no longer optional.
For some sites, Pinterest is an obvious fit. In addition to the fashion, design and recipe sites mentioned above, travel sites, restaurant and hotel sites, realtors, sports teams and entertainment sites should rush to add “Pin It” buttons. Any product-related site should embrace Pinterest. It’s perfect for car shopping, for example, and for any ecommerce site - Etsy was an early adopter.
But there’s no reason to limit Pinterest to these markets. Publishers tend to be very cautious in adding social features to their sites – yet there’s really no downside to adding a social sharing button. A Pin It button alongside your Twitter and Facebook sharing buttons (you have added those already, haven’t you?) provides just one more way to drive traffic. In time, your users will figure out the best ways to share your information – so just give them the tools to make it easy.
I'm also interested in seeing how Pinboard gets applied to mobile. While I'm not a list-maker, I frequently use the camera on my iPhone as a reminder. If I see an item that I might like to buy at a later time, I'll take a quick picture of it. I'd love to see Instagram add Pinterest integration, so I could keep a running wish list of items I might want - using photos taken through Instagram.
