THE SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION 525Pinterest is a content curation platform which allows users to organise and share interesting content that they find
on the Web, that they upload themselves or that they see with other users. It is a pinboard-style/bookmarking site,
a social network, a gift finder and a platform for collaboration all in one. Pinterest was founded in March 2010 and
by the end of May 2012 it had become the third most visited social network in the USA after Facebook and Twitter.
In January 2012 an average Pinterest user spent 89 minutes on the site.^182
The content (such as links, images, videos) is organised on different ‘Boards’, created and named by the user him-
or herself. Popular categories are travel, cars, film, humour, home design, sports, fashion and art. Users can browse other
pinboards for inspiration, they can ‘re-pin’ (over 80% of the pins are ‘re-pins’ of other users) images to their own collec-
tions and they can ‘like’ photos and comment on them. Other users or a selection of other users’ boards can be followed.
You and your friends can even start up a collaborative board where all the invitees can pin/re-pin interesting stuff.
Pinterest allows its users to share ‘pins’ on both Twitter and Facebook. This integration allows users to share and
interact with a broad community. More than 20% of Facebook users are using Pinterest on a daily basis. Apps for
the iPhone (March 2011) and iPad (May 2012) brought in a greater than expected number of downloads. Pinterest
Mobile (for non-iPhone users) was launched in September 2011. In August 2011, Time magazine listed Pinterest in
its article on ‘ The 50 Best Websites of 2011’.
According to Hitwise data, the site became one of the top 10 largest social network services in December 2011
with 11 million total visits per week. In January 2012, the company was named the ‘Best new startup of 2011’ by
TechCrunch. ComScore reported the site had 11.7 million unique users in January 2012, making it the fastest site in
history to break through the 10 million unique visitor mark, even with an invite-only policy.^183
For a retailer Pinterest is interesting as a showcase for its products (and prices). A user can even browse for gifts
by clicking on the homepage on ‘gifts’ and filtering a price range. Pinterest is establishing itself as a huge traffic
driver for online retail. Also, online publishers are receiving a lot of traffic generated via Pinterest, even more than
Twitter did in February 2012. Content from magazine websites and blogs that focus on home décor, arts and crafts,
style and food are among the most frequently ‘pinned’ subjects on Pinterest. It is no surprise that those sites are
reporting significant traffic growth from Pinterest.^184Pinterest in Europe
In January 2012, the most important European market for Pinterest was the UK with 245 000 unique visitors,
followed by Germany with 67 000 unique visitors and Spain with 62 000 unique visitors. In the USA 83% of its
users are female, whereas the opposite is true for the UK, where 56% of users are male. In the USA the largest
group (28%) is aged 35–44 years; 42% of users in the UK are aged between 25 and 34. In the USA most of the
pins are design-related. In the UK the site is more business-related.^185Brands using Pinterest
As Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing social sites of the moment with a large user base, the site is becoming
more and more interesting for brands. It should not take too long before brands start integrating Pinterest in their
social media approach.
Kotex claims to be the very first, although Peugeot did organise a Pinterest Puzzle previously. The ‘Womens
Inspiration Day by Kotex’ is a sort of influencer campaign. By analysing individual pins, Kotex identified 50 influential
women in Israel. Based on their individual interests, Kotex made up a box full of individual gifts. To receive their gift
box, all they needed to do was to ‘re-pin’ the Kotex gift. The women received their gifts and posted comments about
them on their social pages, blogs and of course their Pinterest page. The campaign resulted in 2284 interactions
and almost 695 000 impressions: 186, 187BUSINESS INSIGHT
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