Pinterest – a Brief Roundup of Platform Demographics and Statistics

2012 was the year that Pinterest.com became a big player on the social media scene, and the growth looks set to continue in 2013. The platforms visual nature makes it an ideal shop window as great images sell your great sexy looking products (in certain categories – good luck selling nuts and bolts there).

As a creative person I love & hate Pinterest at the same time. I love it because of the wealth of great images and video, and I hate it for the same reason… every time I visit I seem to lose all sense of time – jumping from board to board sucking up all those lovely photos. Whereas my Twitter activity tends to be in-and-quickly-out (a few minutes usually), every visit to Pinterest lasts at least 15 minutes, and sometimes hours.

If you are not yet engaged with Pinterest then here are some stats that may get you pinning.

In the UK Pinterest saw a 786% increase in traffic in 2012 !
Pinterest is now the 3rd most popular social media platform in the USA with more than 23m unique visitors and 1.7bn page views in July alone.
Pinterest user base is largely made up of women, making up between 70 and 80% of users, though in the UK the balance is more like 55% women and 45% men.
Nearly 20% of women using the internet are now on Pinterest (5% of men!)
The most popular categories are ‘Food and Drink’, ‘DIY/Craft’ , ‘Art’ and ‘Design’ – all fields where great images sell product.
Over 55% of major retailers now have a Pinterest presence
A recent case study (Boticca – Jewellery, Bags, Accessories) found that Pinterest drove (or assisted in) 10% of sales, with Facebook at 7%. They also found that Pinterest users spend more than twice that of Facebook users [demographically there are many more professionals on Pinterest with increased spending power compared to the Facebook average)
Pinterest users have more of a tendancy to be in shopping mode – looking for inspiration about what to buy, whereas people use Facebook more as a social platform. This means that Pinterest is an amazing shop window for your products.
70% of Pinterst users state that they visit to “get inspiration on what to buy” (Facebook: 17%)
73% of users “find it an entertaining way to pass the time” (window shopping?)
67% of users visit Pinterest to “keep up with latest trends on things I like”
Pinterest users tend to be creators – adding content, whereas Facebook users are more likely to be participators who interact with promotional activities initiated by brands
Despite huge growth in users, Pinterest still trails Facebook by a factor of 4-1 (approx 63% of internet users have Facebook account, with Pinterest at 15%