LEARNING OUTCOMES
Describe the primary use of Pinterest
Pinterest is an excellent platform for viewing and disseminating content organized visually by theme. Users can search for things like “social media in marketing” or “fun things to do in Salt Lake City,” and then “pin” things to their own boards. Users can create their own boards, which are essentially folders of content. These boards can either be marked as private or public.
For example, a user planning a surprise birthday party might mark the board as private so her friend (whom she may be connected with on Pinterest) can’t see her planning.
LEARN MORE
Check out this article on the basics of using Pinterest, which is arguably one of the simpler and easy to learn platforms.
As of early 2018, Omnicore found the following statistics on Pinterest’s user base[1]:
- 81% of users are female
- 87% of users have purchased a product seen on a pin
- 93% of users use Pinterest to plan a purchase
Using Pinterest
While businesses are more likely to place ads on Pinterest than to create Pinterest accounts for themselves, there is an interesting strategy some businesses use.
The following video (below) from 2015 details how Pinterest is useful for referral traffic; this is traffic that would start with or on Pinterest, then lead to going to a second website for service, products or more information. In the video, the author talks about how Pinterest is useful as a “digital catalog,” where people can save things they see on the web, either because they’ve “become inspired by” these things or otherwise find them interesting.
When assessing the usefulness of Pinterest, you should keep the pros and cons listed in Table 1 in mind:
| Table 1. Pros and Cons of Pinterest as a Social Media Platform | |
|---|---|
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy and simple to use | Limited, gendered audience; super-majority are women |
| Referral generation | Perceived usage is based around ideas or DIY projects instead of products |
| Can view content without commenting or forwarding | The interface is comparatively confusing and difficult to navigate |
PRACTICE QUESTION
- Aslam, Salman. "Pinterest by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts." Omnicore. 1 Jan 2018. Web. 10 July 2018. ↵