Pinterest, is there value from a South African perspective?

What Pinterest actually is:
Pinterest is a new visual media outlet. Users are able to upload pictures and photos, as well as “pin” other people’s pictures and photos to their own pin board. The basic idea of Pinterest is to create a virtual bulletin board. For example, if you were to bring out a line of hand bags, shoes, cell phone covers or any product with aesthetic importance you can create a board to show case them.

The rise of Pinterest:
Pinterest was launched in 2010 and has grown at an incredible rate and it’s driving more traffic to company owned websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and Linkedin all put together.

Why a business should consider using Pinterest:
To understand why a business should show an interest in Pinterest, you have to understand how the customers use the website. Users can organize images of what ever interests them, maybe wine, cars, recipes or beautiful photography into boards for specific categories. When they “pin” something new, their followers will see it and perhaps they will “repin” it on to their board if they like it enough. This process may happen over and over and spread like wild fire until the picture has gone viral.

How Businesses are currently using Pinterest:
The most commonly used business application that companies are using is to simply showcase their products by posting pictures of them on their boards and linking them back to the companies website. One could think of it as a virtual catalogue. However, businesses need to remember that Pinterest is primarily a social media and that people will not be interested in products alone, companies still need to contribute other pictures and content if they want to be noticed.

There are many advantages and opportunities to be gained from using Pinterest. For many companies it proven to be a powerful marketing tool. Here are some of the reasons why businesses are using Pinterest to market their products:

• Businesses are able to showcase their products using imagery and graphic examples.
• The brand image can be expressed using pictures and photos of beautiful things
• Staff can use Pinterest as a mood board, which is a collage of pictures that can help them to gain a “feel” for the product and to inspire them.
• It is used for presence, to communicate the brand and to project the vision and mission of the business to the consumer and to staff.
• When pictures of the businesses product or pictures that are associated with the business spread it will create awareness of the business, which can intern drive sales.
• Pinterest can lead potential customers to a direct purchasing facility on a companies website (if they have one).
• Pinterest helps to direct traffic to your door or website.
• Many companies (such as AMC theatres) have used Pinterest to host competitions. Consumers will be asked to “pin” a relevant picture of the product and will be rewarded with a small discount for their efforts.
• Entering into a new market is very difficult. Pinterest can help small businesses to get their brand discovered.
• It can be used as an affective market research tool. Due to the fact that it allows people to give feedback and comment on the pictures that are posted, businesses can gain feedback from potential customers and understand what they like and what they don’t.
• Businesses can cover their assets by posting their ideas and products on Pinterest. By doing this they are proving that the idea is theirs.
• Lastly, Pinterest allows businesses to engage with their users. Pinterest is a social network, building a relationship with other users and creating a community around your company’s brand is very important. Users that are interested in your company can spread the word by “repining” your pictures.

The NOFOLLOW tag:
Each pinned item, in turn, will provide a back link to the webpage on which it was discovered. To make this even more advantageous for businesses, the back links do not include the “NOFOLLOW” attribute that is so dreaded by e-marketers. This means that search engines will take them into consideration when determining the value of the destination page. Businesses websites can gain many SEO benefits and traffic gains for their website due to this. As Pinterest users, companies can pin photos and videos to their desired products to their board, their website gets free marketing to a highly targeted market and a free, followed back link to boost their companies websites SEO and web credibility.

Pinterest to Facebook:
Pinterest allows users to show Facebook activity so when you browse or do any activity on Pinterest, it will be show on your news feed as well as your Facebook ticker. This means that any subscribers to your Facebook page will be notified of your companies’ activities on Pinterest.

Enhancing your key word strategy:
Google is now indexing personal Pinterest profiles and not only that, they are also indexing Pinterest private boards. This means that if you have your boards labeled with certain key words, you are able to target your own domain.

The questions now are “Will Pinterest be a viable marketing medium in a country such as South Africa?” and “Are there enough South Africans to invest time and money into using Pinterest?”

To answer these questions one needs to look at some statistics:
In November 2011 Pinterest had 4855000 views per week, in December 2011 this jumped up by 55% to 7516000 views per week and then it jumped up by just over 55% in January 2012 to 11716000 views per week. This fact makes it the fastest stand-alone website in history to reach the ten million mark. According to www.alexa.com/siteinfo/pinterest.com# 0.7% of Pinterests traffic is by South African users. Spain and France are sitting at 1.5% and Australia is at 1.6%. 80% of Pinterests users are female. www.alexa.com also shows that the majority of users are from ages 25-34. 0.7% of their traffic may seem insignificant, however, it is not. In January 2012 there were approximately 328000 South African visits to the website. The majority of these visits are from middle to upper class women.

From these statistics it is clear that if your product is marketable to middle to upper class women between the ages of 25 and 34, odds are it is worth your time and effort. If your product or brand is not marketable to these women then Pinterest is still worth looking into as a marketing medium in South Africa as it is growing at an exceptional rate and it is staring to gear itself towards the interests of men as well as women.

As stated earlier, Pinterest is pushing out more traffic then Youtube, Google+ and Linkedin. On top of this already impressive feat it is beating out Facebook referrals. Perhaps one of the best reasons for using Pinterest in your marketing plans is that is it outperforming Facebook. The general manager of digital for the print magazine Real Life said “Pinterest was a huge source of traffic in October 2011, more than Facebook. Time to re-tool our marketing strategies, don’t you think?”

In most cases traffic from Facebook comes entirely from a businesses own page on Facebook and is then directed to the businesses actual webpage. YouTube directs traffic from a businesses channel which, like a Facebook page, must actually be searched for or sought out by the customer. Pinterest has traffic going to businesses websites from two sources; Other users repins and the actual businesses pins and profile. There is a higher chance that customers will stumble upon products they are interested in by sheer chance when they use Pinterest.

About Michael Prince

A Bcomm graduate of the University of South Africa with a specialisation in marketing management. His background includes interning at an IT firm as a marketing assistant and working as a promotional worker while he completed his degree. Prior to his tertiary education he spent a great amount of time following the happening in the world of marketing, with a particular focus on e-marketing.