Something of ‘Pinterest’
The latest ‘wannabee’ big player in the social media world, nibbling at the virtual toes of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ is ‘Pinterest’.
Pinterest (a combination of the words ‘pin’ and ‘interest’) is, at its most simplest a virtual pinboard, on which users can post and share things of interest that they find on the web. Popular categories might be food, design inspiration, wedding inspiration or home décor, but essentially you can create any pinboards you like. These ‘pins’ can then be shared amongst your Pinterest community, ‘re-Pinned’, which is a bit like re-tweeting on Twitter or explored by other Pinterest users.
The following is a description by Pinterest of their mission for the social media site:
“Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people. With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests.”
This all sounds very homely, a bit of fun, something to share amongst friends. However, the interesting thing (or should that be ‘Pinteresting’?) is that the website encourages people to always credit the original source of their ‘pin’, even encouraging people to openly leave comments on any source-less ‘pins’. This has led to Pinterest quickly becoming a quirky but high traffic driver for retailers. Once a Pinterest account is created, people can drive traffic back to specific product pages on a website (crediting the original source) and share those pins on other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Pinterest’s traffic increased more than fourfold between September 2011 and December 2011, bringing in 7.51 million unique visitors in December alone (data from Complete.com). At the end of November last year Pinterest was driving more traffic than Google+ (Experian Hitwise).
Whilst Pinterest is certainly a social media force to keep an eye on, search engines still currently remain the biggest driver of referral traffic. However, when Twitter first spread its feathered wings in July 2006, little did people imagine the impact it would have on our world today. Twitter’s recent introduction of enhanced profile pages for business being yet another step towards driving traffic to retail and corporate pages.
Watch this space with Pinterest – or maybe share your own pinboard. Just not too much info on your secret Airfix model hobby eh (or is that just me?!).
Christian
