Case Study – Pinterest

Who else is addicted to Pinterest? This online pin board can be used to plan a wedding, redesign your house, craft or cook nearly anything and so much more. Launched in March of 2010, this community has grown by insane proportions, yet does not feature advertising on their page. How is this possible you might ask? Let me divulge deeper into the world of pinning.

As their mission states, Pinterest works to link people all around the world to a common thread, whether that be a book, a recipe, a wedding bouquet or anything else. In the marketing world, this can be called word of mouth. By pinning something, you are able to share that item with your followers (who can be found via Facebook, Twitter, email and more). Below you can see an example of my boards.

Within these boards contains your “pins,” the images of things that you find interesting. (Get it? pINTEREST?) As you can see below, it shows who I repinned it from (via Anilu Magloire), as well as the original website the image was found on (in this case, esty.com).

Here is where the WOM begins – clicking on that top right link (etsy.com) will take you to the page in which you can buy this product. In the case of a recipe or craft, it will take you to the page where you can find the how-to. There are times when it takes you to a “useless” link, i.e. a flickr image or “uploaded by user” type thing, however, this sneaky link sharing brings in viewers (and revenue) to the blogs, web pages and stores that the item was originally “pinned” from. (You can drag a “Pin It” link to your bookmark tab so that you can “pin” anything you find online, outside of Facebook). Those with blogs are able to download a “find me on pinterest” badge for their website.

Advertising has not hit Pinterest just yet due to successful funding and investors, however, their guerrilla marketing has brought them into the social sphere. They have been recognized by Time, Mashable, The Wall Street Journal, and bloggers throughout the online community (learn more about why you should joinfrom Lisa Derus). Don’t believe it’s power? My friend Chelsea Williams posted this craft on her blog, and in turn had 177 new, unique viewers to her page. Accept it or not – Pinterest is here to stay. Use it to your advantage while you can – after all, who doesn’t love to gawk at cute puppies, gorgeous wedding dresses and delicious food?