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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Pinterest sees value in web analytics



For the past few weeks, I have been using Pinterest to help me plan special events with friends and family. First, a friend of mine was relocating to Georgia and another friend and I were having lunch with her to bid her farewell.  We wanted to make this lunch special. Of course, we could have given her a Target gift card to help her buy things to spruce up her new place or buy her a picture frame with a photo of the three of us in it. But we wanted to be unconventional, creative. So the two of us took to Pinterest and pretty much used it the way we would use Google – we typed in “going away gift ideas” and lots of results popped up.

Our friend ended up getting two things from me thanks to Pinterest: a cup filled with Starbursts at the bottom and Blow Pops at the top and a straw bearing a sign that said “You Suck” in large letters and “for leaving us” in small letters and a seven-day pill box filled with M&Ms, Skittles, Starbursts and small pieces of folded paper with a memory the three of us shared written on it for each day. My friend got her several gifts, all either wrapped up or enclosed in an envelope, with a label on them saying, “Open when you’re…” The blank was filled with different occasions, such as bored, tired, need a snack, etc. It was truly the gift that kept on giving.

I also have been using Pinterest to come up with different ideas for my gender reveal dinner that took place in October and my baby shower that will take place in January.  So many great ideas were inspired by Pinterest, truly making each event unique and unconventional.  In some instances, I even visited the site that the photo came from to see if I could get further inspiration or detailed instructions on how to make the idea work.

But little did I know that doing so was being recorded as part of Pinterest’s new set of analytics that shed light on how images shared on the site resonate with users.  Earlier this year, Pinterest began allowing accounts track how many people have pinned content from their website, how many people have visited their sites from Pinterest and how many Pinterest impressions their content has generated. It will also show a selection of the most recent pins captured from their site and the content that’s been re-pinned and clicked on the most within Pinterest.

These analytics are especially important to marketers because they give them a window into consumers’ preferences. For example, a particular retailer may benefit from knowing that blue is the most popular color of a style of shirt, or that red is the most popular color of a style of shoe. Contests and promotions can also be executed on Pinterest to increase the number of shares certain products receive. In my situation, bloggers could benefit from knowing which DIY projects and crafts resonate most with people. 

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