Skip links

Understanding Social Media: Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the newcomers to the social media landscape and the most unique quality about it is the sheer volume of time users spend on it.  Despite having a smaller body of users from which to draw, the average time spent on site is more than 13.5 minutes per day.  Anyone who talks to you about Pinterest who has used it will usually describe the platform in one word: “addictive.”

It is also one of the few platforms that is overwhelmingly female.  If you work in a visual industry – event or wedding planning, retail, gym/fitness/health, beauty, or restaurants – you need to consider a presence on Pinterest.  It allows you to pin images onto boards organized thematically and share them with other Pinterest users and followers.

More than 85% of pins come from directly within Pinterest, so if you have really visually arresting content, it is a great place to drive traffic and build authority from an image standpoint.  But, if you aren’t in a particularly visual field Pinterest is probably not for you.

Note: This blog was written in 2012 and was current at the time of its writing. Many things have changed since then and will continue to change, so be aware there have been some updates since this was written.