Why Pinning is all the craze: Understanding Pinterest

By Helen Kruger (@Lanikruger)

There is little doubt that Pinterest http://pinterest.com/ is THE social media network of 2012. Suddenly it’s in every social media blog, is creeping into Facebook feeds and has been touted as the new social media addiction – all while brands are still trying to work out what it means for them.

Launched in March 2010 Pinterest is now the 3^rd most popular U.S. social networking site after Facebook and Twitter¹. It’s rise has been meteoric: 866% growth in unique visitors in the 6 months to Feb 2012, 50% growth in traffic from Jan to Feb 2012 and an average of 1.36 million users daily^2,3. And with a company goal to “…connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting…” it seems they intend to keep growing.

Unlike most start-ups Pinterest’s growth hasn’t come from a young male geek following; instead, its strength is in women. 68.2% of users are female, 50% have kids and 50% are aged between 25 and 44 years³. A staggering 97% of Pinterest’s Facebook fans are female³.

So what actually happens on there? The site is built on the belief that “…a favorite book, toy or recipe can reveal a common link between two people…” Acting as a virtual pin board it allows users to ‘pin’ and share images from the web they find useful, inspiring or interesting. And it is addictive! Browsing through other users’ ‘boards’ leads into a labyrinth of images, photos, ideas, recipes and products you can’t do without.

Reflecting its origins as a crafting and fashion site Pinterest’s top three categories are Home, Arts & Crafts and Style & Fashion. However it is the fourth category, Food & Drink, which is the one to watch. By far the most shared category it generates 50% more ‘repins’ than anything elseand is rated their main area of interest on the siteby 70% of users ^4,5,6.

Pinterest is seen as a source of inspiration and discovery, which means it delivers a very high conversion rate. It generates more referral traffic than LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube combined and almost a quarter of users have purchased something they have seen on someone else’s board^3,6.

But while there are exciting opportunities for brands that can align with users’ interests, Pinterest should be approached with moderation.

Some guidelines:

• Don’t treat your account like a sales catalogue. Set up boards on interests relating to your product but pin images of your products sparingly and, instead, add value with related topics. For example a winery may pin images of recipes to go with their Shiraz, or images of tourist attractions near their cellar door.
• When you do pin your products make sure you add a price banner. This is done by including a $ or £ followed by the number amount in the description.
• Make it look appealing! Pinterest is visual medium so if your boards and pins don’t look beautiful no one will look twice.
• Use the Pinterest Goodies on your website. The Follow Button invites people to follow your Pinterest account and the Pin-it Button invites people to pin images from your site. Codes for both can be found at http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/
• If you want to check whether people have pinned something from your website, or any other site, go to http://pinterest.com/source/yoursitename.com

Used innovatively Pinterest offers brands a uniquely powerful platform to engage customers. To show you just how powerful, we will leave you with the Kotex campaign – an impressive example of personalized marketing.

The Tools

How to Set-Up a Business Account⁷

In the social media space it is worth registering your brand name and claiming the real estate, even if you don’t intend to use it yet.

1. Pinterest is still invite-only so you need to either be invited by an existing user (the fastest way) or request an invite on the login page http://pinterest.com/. Let us know if you need an invitation so you can start pinning
2. Sign up is via Facebook or Twitter but as Pinterest won’t accept a Facebook page the only option for businesses is through their Twitter account.
3. In Settings enter an email/password login so future logins don’t have to be through the Twitter account.

Glossary of Pinterest Terms

• Pin: An image added to Pinterest. It can come from a website or an upload of your own images.
• RePin: Adding an image that is already on Pinterest onto your own board. The original pinner is credited as the source of the link and credit is retained no matter how often it is repinned.
• Board: A collection of Pins. Boards can be created for any topic and there is no limit to the number of pins they contain.
• Bookmarklet: Install the “Pin It” button on your bookmarks bar so you can pin directly from the web without going through Pinterest. http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/

A note on copyright: This aspect of Pinterest is still contentious. There are questions around whether a brand could fall foul of copyright law by pinning images that they do not own or reference properly. If you have any concerns it is best to seek legal advice before proceeding and where possible reference where you get your photos from if they are not your own.

If you love food and wine – join in the fun and follow Trish’s Food and Wine Boards - http://pinterest.com/trishbarry

References

1. The 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, Experian Marketing Services

2. http://mashable.com/2012/03/20/why-is-pinterest-so-addictive/

3. http://www.modea.com/blog/pinterest-infographic

4. http://go-digital.net/blog/2012/02/top-most-shared-category-on-pinterest-is-food-and-drink/

5. http://info.rjmetrics.com/blog/bid/53831/New-Pinterest-Data-What-s-Everyone-Pinning-About

6. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/03/28/survey-21-of-users-on-pinterest-have-purchased-an-item-that-they-found-on-the-site/

7. http://www.pinterestinsider.com/2012/02/how-to-set-up-business-page-on.html

Further Reading

http://pinterest.com/about/

http://mashable.com/2012/03/12/pinterest-food-marketing/ 8 Best Practices for Food Brands on Pinterest

Making the most of the Rose Revolution in bars, restaurants and retail

GET ON BOARD THE ROSE REVOLUTION – CELEBRATING DRY, PURPOSE MADE ROSE WINES

There’s a real movement happening to educate consumers about dry, purpose made Rose: The Rose Revolution! A great wine style, appropriate all year round but for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s a particularly exciting wine as we come into Summer.

There’s been lots of information circulated about how producers can come on board, but probably even more opportunities for bars, retailers and restaurants to come on board and grow your rose sales at a high margin.

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED

There’s a range of activities planned to help spread the word about dry rose over the next few months. Kick off is 10 November with a global tweet up promoting dry, textural Rose wines. This is not just a one day event though, the momentum will continue until the end of April 2012 with a range of fun events being planned.

Some ideas on how you can make the most of the Rose Revolution in your venue:

• Organise a tasting or rose dinner on 10 Novemberto taste and tweet – join in all the fun and pour some great rose whilst watching the tweets with #roserev. A great way to get people along to your venue, put up a big screen, encourage people to come dressed in pink and get involved in the fun.
  • There will be free tastings held from 5-7pm at many venues and then Rose Soiree Parties and an Australia wide tweet up from 7.30pm AEST. If you’re holding a tasting and want to accept samples, let me know and i’ll add you to the list of addresses
  • Promote dry Rose by the Glass– talk to consumers about this style of wine – put on some by the glass specials.
  • Use geo-location programs like Four Square to set up a four square check in special for your venue using a glass of dry rose as an incentive
  • Host a Rose dinner or function – the versatility of dry rose lends itself to tapas plates, paella,  charcuterie plates, seafood – almost anything matches well with rose, particularly Spanish and Mediterranean styled foods.
  • List your event up on Meet up so we can drive consumers along to participate http://www.meetup.com/Rose-Wine-Revolution/events/32266682/
  • Serve flights of rose wine – rather than a standard glass, why not think about offering tasting selections of different dry roses to help consumers explore this style.
  • Take some photos and get social. The Rose Revolution facebook page has over 1200 fans and we’d encourage you to post your photos up on the page, or tweet about what you’re hosting using #roserv.

There’s a range of purpose made point of sale designed to help draw attention to the campaign in your venue – post cards, decals, banners, posters.  Have a look at some of the examples here. Our core supporters have all this information for you to use.

If you’re really serious about joining the Rose Revolution, you can also get your logo up on the Rose Revolution website as a core supporter for a nominal cost. Details here

If you’re holding a rose event or special, email Rose_revolution@debortoliwines.com.au and we’ll get the information posted up on the facebook page and website.

REVOLUTIONARY WINERIES

Have a look at who the core supporters are, talk to your wine reps about any special offers they might have and other ways to get involved.

Vive la Rose Revolution!

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