An online scrapbook is how social media platform Pinterest is often described and it is quite an apt description. It is a ?virtual pinboard? website where users can organise and share visuals of various interesting things on their respective boards and follow other people?s boards too. In some ways, it is like a visual version of Twitter.
Internationally, various brands are tapping into the benefits that Pinterest provides such as referral traffics to their e-commerce sites and to understand the demographics of a particular target audience. However, in India, this social media platform is still in infancy. According to sources, currently, the India Pinterest base is about 8.3% of the global user base (10 million global users) and is mainly driven by female users.
However, there are clearly some unique advantages that the medium offers which Indian brands can tap into. Most e-commerce sites (a business which is growing at a phenomenal pace in India right now) can utilise Pinterest as a product catalog.
According to Vishal Sampat, founder and CEO, Convonix Systems, an internet marketing firm, while Facebook dominates socially-driven shopping (conversions via social traffic), a recent study shows that Pinterest is driving the highest average spend per online shopping session. ?While shoppers who come to retail sites from Facebook and Twitter purchase more often, Pinterest users spend dramatically more than either ($168.83 average order value vs. $94.70 for Facebook and $70.84 for Twitter),? he says. And the fact that Pinterest can be easily be linked to a Facebook account, works to its advantage.
Sampat also feels that Pinterest can be used to convey company culture by posting pictures of the office, the mascot, people?s cubicles and office events. Fans are interested in these details, and this imagery helps to humanise the brand.
Says Sudhir Nair, senior vice president and head, Grey Digital, ?The advantage begins right from the way the platform operates. Pinterest allows users to show what they probably want to be, make interests based connections with very interesting usage of images. It reinforces the fact that people tend to relate to images much more; be it pinning of images about the subject they are interested in or even infographics which makes hard-core statistics look appealing. Brands have a chance to showcase their products in very unassuming way.?
Saugata Bagchi, VP, Tribal DDB India talks about another interesting point. An accurate estimate of a brand?s social media strategy can be made through accurate tracking of referrals to its POS (point of sale). ?Though not overtly social, Pinterest has exhibited heavy traffic generation capabilities particularly to online stores in the beauty and fashion categories,? he says.
However, despite the advantages listed above, Pinterest is not a suitable medium for brands trying to achieve incremental reach. Bagchi says that data shows that Pinterest traffic is more transient and users are less likely to linger on a product. ?On the other hand, Facebook deals with a much more channelised user base, which interacts with the brand in a more controlled setting, exploring multi-layered marketing collaterals. Couple this information with the 56 million user base of Facebook in India, spending an average of 15 hours per month on the site, then it suffices to say, that for a brand which requires incremental reach, Facebook should be the advertising carrier of choice. For specialised categories as mentioned above, Pinterest can also be considered.?
As the user base is still quite low in India currently, Indian brands do not recognise Pinterest as a part of their social media strategy. However, some of the Indian brands which have been on the platform include Lavasa, Vivanta by Taj, Pepe Jeans, Club Mahindra and Vero Moda India. Pepe Jeans had a contest on Pinterest where it had created a ?Pin it to win it? board on their profile having pins consisting of Pepe apparel. Participants were invited to follow and re-pin what they liked. Club Mahindra has also conducted two contests on Pinterest ? ?Photo Upload? contest and ?Pin A Trail? contest. It also has a board for its blog ? ?Clay – The Traveler?s Blog?. Vero Moda India did a ?Are You Printerested?? campaign where female users were asked to upload a photo of themselves dressed in any printed apparel on a custom Facebook app. These entries were then uploaded on Pinterest.
As with all social media, the number of users on Pinterest are expected to go up. Especially in India, social media is expected to grow faster with the penetration of smartphones.
Says Sampat, ?The user base in India should go up thanks to cheaper smartphones and cheaper data connections coming in besides the increase in PC and computer penetration.? Other factors on which its growth would depend is how Indian women adopt the social media boom, since Pinterest is popular among females and also on how brands leverage Pinterest effectively and promote it across other social platforms, he adds.