Why is Pinterest the next big thing

Posted on June 5th, 2012. Written by Andrei.

Some time ago, I was writing my first article about Pinterest. Time passed and I’ve drawn some conclusions. Almost everyone is using Facebook now, the presence of companies in this environment is more than necessary. But today, when I’m writing this article, I realized that history has recently started to be written in another place: on Pinterest.

Facebook might be cool, but Pinterest is hot. Pinterest is the next big thing in social media. Briefly, it’s a platform which sends to companies’ sites more traffic than Google, YouTube and LinkedIn togheter. It is also the site with the biggest growth ever recorded in history, from 7,5 million unique visitors in December 2011, to 11,7 million visitors in January 2012 (according to some reports of Shareholic and TechCrunch). And since users (68,2% of them women) spend on average 15,8 minutes on this site daily, compared to 12,1 minutes on Facebook, no one can deny that Pinterest is a real phenomenon nowadays.

The simplicity of this new and colorful virtual playground, where everyone ‘pins’ pictures of things they enjoy, proved to be the key to success. Here, life doesn’t show its hideous parts and everyone lives in a continuous beauty. Once the images pinned on Pinterest, they spread like gossip (it’s a site with many women after all), the funniest, beautiful and unusual photo receiving obviously most of the attention.

On this new platform, small retailers have the advantage of being discovered by buyers, which is more difficult on a simple search on Google. In addition, users dedicate entire boards to their favorite brands, helping to increase their awareness. It’s clear why Pinterest is increasingly used by companies, which popularize their products or services and succeed to increase their sales.

Of course, even here some rules of good behavior are required. For example, posts shouldn’t be made in any way, every image requiring a brief explanation, designed to attract consumers and lead them to the respective company’s website. Then, like everywhere,  the ones who wish to have success on Pinterest need to take some time to build relationships with those who they follow. You should be thankful for reposting images or to comment on other photos. The more interactivity, the lasting the relationship will be and the products will be received better. It is also indicated that the ‘Pin it’ button should be included on websites or blogs of companies, and the pins to be share on Facebook and Twitter, to attract even more visitors.

At this point, however, Pinterest is just a ‘kid’, even though it grew very much in a short period. Nobody can say if it will have a long life or not, or if it will change the idea of e-commerce. But as Zuckerberg made an account here, well…that’s a tip.

Andrei