The Emergence of Pinterest: Why So Important?

Pinterest is a focal point because of its uniqueness and versatility but why is it so important? With the evolution into visual social media, Pinterest is a pioneer for this trend. This article will discuss many aspects of Pinterest, including how media outlets are utilizing it, the marketing interest (or disinterest), and the growth of the site. As in many other social media websites, users use Pinterest for a variety of reasons. This article will explore some those uses.

Many media outlets have found Pinterest and have created ways to utilize the technology for their benefit. Journalists and news organizations are finding a role for Pinterest and using the site for hard news and features. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both have successful Pinterest pages that correspond so stories they’ve done including popular Pinterest board topics, fashion and weddings (Tenore). There are lots of fun events that new organizations cover that could be converted into a Pinterest board to keep the information top of mind to the consumer and to make the information more accessible and available to the user to be saved for a later time.

News organizations can also extend the shelf life of articles and features by resurfacing old content (like holiday recipes, and events like the Olympics) on their Pinterest pages (Tenore). Picture story boards can be created linking back to the old information, as far as an archive goes: organizations could use Pinterest to keep the information relevant. Pinterest is also a good organizational tool news organizations can use to respond to an event. The Dallas Morning News created a board to post all of the pictures viewers were sending in after a hail storm in their area. They needed a way to show the importance of the event and they did this by pinning all of the photos to be viewed at once (Tenore). All of these uses of Pinterest keeps the news organizations’ stories top of mind to viewers and keeps them in the presence of the viewers. The Today Show as well as the Weather Channel both find Pinterest to be a tool that fit naturally into their lifestyle type of content, fitting in with what they did already but giving them a new avenue to share the information with the followers (Rubino, 14). If viewers have the ability to pin that information to their own boards it becomes something that they want to keep and save for later, not just another passing news story.

Even though the platform is working for some news organizations, not all of them are excited to have another social medium to have access to, while others want to see the copywriting issues settled, some say it is too female audience skewed, while others don’t believe it is a good fit for hard news (Malone, 15). These are all valid concerns that happen with many social media platforms.

Because of the curating nature of Pinterest, marketers are finding this medium an interesting one for branding and promotion. Marketers are also using Pinterest as a tool to boost their website traffic and Pinterest is fast becoming an important part of referral traffic (Schlereth). Pinterest can also give marketers insights into the interests and inspirations of their audiences and not just insights into what users are up to, that other social media websites are useful for (Schlereth). This information can be an invaluable tool to advertisers and their media plans. Marketers do need to utilize this medium correctly, not just for promotions; the site should be organized around “passion points” that personify brands and evoke emotions. (Schlereth). Users like to be able to follow the content they crave and having too many promotional pins may lead the pinner to un-follow the brand or company. It is always important to make sure, for marketers, that their content doesn’t clutter their followers’ with junk.

Pinterest is a fast growing social media website with more than a 4000 percent growth between May 2011 and February 2012 with users spending an average of 64.4 minutes on the site (Schlereth). With the huge amount of success Pinterest has found, other websites are out their copying the format.

The Pinterest community is a majority of females leaving an open market for male audiences. With sites skewed more toward men, like dartitup.com, gentlemint.com, and manteresting.com, the virtual pin-board style of curating information does not appear to be going anywhere. There are also websites like Pinterest that cater to specific categories; trippy.com is devoted to travel, learnist.com is devoted to education and dropula.com is devoted to graphic arts, etc. Although Pinterest has sections for this type of content, other sites have created a space devoted to specific topics allowing users to focus their time on certain posts. These sites, however, don’t share the huge following that Pinterest does.

It will be exciting to see new ways Pinterest can be utilized and to see where Pinterest takes the brand. They are creating new features for the site as needed and seem to be dedicated to creating a satisfying user experience. As social media and as Pinterest evolve the importance of the media will evolve with it. Where do we go from here?

Sources

• Malone, Michael. “Stations Show Some Interest in Pinterest”. “Broadcasting & Cable, 12 Mar. 2012, 15. Web. 30 Oct. 2012.
• Rubino, Lindsay. “New Organizations Pin Hopes on Social Media”. Broadcasting & Cable, 12 Mar. 2012, 14-15. Web. 30 Oct. 2012.
• Schlereth, Laura. “Marketers’ Interest in Pinterest; The Buzz-worthy Virtual Scrapbook is Helping Brands Large and Small Project Their Personalities in the Social Sphere.” Marketing News 46.5 (2012): 8. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.
• Tenore, Mallary Jean. “5 Ways Journalists are Using Pinterest”. The Poynter Institute, 2012. 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 Dec 2012.