Pinterest's Impact on Users and on Your Brand

Pinterest's Impact on Users and on Your Brand from MarketingProfs
Published on September 10, 2012    

We've mentioned Pinterest numerous times—enough to show we're Pin-crazy.

But we're not the only ones!

To back us up on our Pin interest, Compete has published charts about Pinterest's growth and its impact on marketers.

Some quick stats:

• Pinterest has grown from 700,000 to 20,000,000 unique users in the past year; that's already almost half the number of Twitter's users.
• It is cannibalizing other social media: Compete attributed a 3% decline in Facebook activity in June to users' preferences for Pinning.
• 1 in 4 users spend less time on other social media in Pinterest's favor, with 15% of Pinterest users saying they don't use any other social sites.
• That number's even higher, 23%, among those with an income of less than $30,000.

The food industry is a big Pin winner: 57% of users interact with food-related content on the site, which benefits other sites.Traffic from Pinterest to Allrecipes.com, for instance, was up 16% when Compete took a look. And Kraft captured an additional 4% share of Pinterest traffic in May.

But it isn't just foodies building Boards: 25% of customers purchased a product or service after discovering it on Pinterest—with that figure rising to 37% among males!

Compete's suggestions for marketers seeking to Pin down a profit:

• Measure the difference in user engagement and purchasing behavior before and after exposure to specific categories, brands, or products on Pinterest.
• Isolate differences in purchase and engagement behavior across given demographics, including age, income, and gender.
• Compare how the engagement/purchasing behavior of users on Pinterest compares with Facebook.
• Quantify the impact that exposure to Pinterest has on brand or product loyalty.

To start, we recommend checking out our tips for masterful Pinmanship, and three useful measurements for tracking Pinterest traffic.

The Po!nt: Knowledge is power. Using Pinterest lets you leverage user behavior in nuanced and positive ways. So determine who loves your Pins, and what Pins work best, to improve your long-term strategy.