Product/Service Information

Pinterest is a social media website that allows you pin things from around the web and on others people boards to your own tailor made board.

It can be things from food, recipes’, wedding pictures, places you want to travel, cars, animals and many more. Basically if you find something on

the web that calls to you can pin it yourself or find one that was already pinned. It allows you to create a space that is all about you.

Content can also be found outside of Pinterest and similarly uploaded to a board via the "Pin It" button, which can be downloaded to the

bookmark bar on a web browser,[5] or be implemented by a webmaster directly on the website. They also have the option of sending a pin to

other Pinterest users and/or email accounts through the "Send" button.

On the main Pinterest page, a "pin feed" appears, displaying the chronological activity from the Pinterest boards that a user follows.[7] When

browsing for new boards and relevant pins, users can visit a "Tastemakers" page that recommend pinboards with content similar to previous pins

saved by a user.[4] For both guests and Pinterest users, there are currently four main sections to browse: everything, videos, popular, and gifts.

Quick links to Pinterest include the "pin it" button that can be added to the bookmark bar of a web browser, "Follow me" and "Pin it" buttons

added to personal website or blog page,[5] and the Pinterest iPhone application available through the App Store.[8]

Users should be aware of certain terms and functions when using Pinterest. A "board" is where

Initially, there were several ways to register a new Pinterest account. Potential users could either receive an invitation from an already registered

friend, or they could request an invitation directly from the Pinterest website that could take some time to receive. An account can also be

created and accessed by linking Pinterest to a Facebook or Twitter profile. When a user re-posts or re-pins an image to their own board, they

have the option of notifying their Facebook and Twitter followers; this feature can be managed on the settings page

If you are a business you can have a verified page like on Twitter.

They make it easier to pin things from around the web taking it a step further than just uploading your own photos. They have apps for the

apple store and android, widgets, a button you can pin to your web browser.

Pinterest announced in 2014 that it would start showing advertisements on its service in the form of “Promoted Pins,” which would be paid

placements from select retailers and businesses that would appear within Pinterest’s search results and category feeds. Today, the company says

it’s beginning to roll out the initial tests with these new pins. The pins will appear on both the website and within Pinterest’s mobile applications.

This approach is slightly different than Pinterest's initial Promoted Pins rollout, one targeted towards bigger businesses, or "premium CPM

advertisers." Last month, the company tested its program on bigger name companies like ABC Family, Expedia and Gap. But instead of offering a

cost-per-click strategy, the businesses were paying based on impressions. It’s been reported that Pinterest wants to charge between $30 to $40

per 1,000 views. This is good news for businesses. Pinterest shoppers generally spend more per checkout, averaging between $140 and $180 per

order compared to $80 for Facebook and $60 for Twitter.

Background

Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra founded the site in March 2010. They are located in San Francisco California with over 300

employees. The platforms that they cater too are the web, android, and iOS.

Ben Silberman- Ben grew up in Iowa, where he spent a lot of time collecting bugs. Today, he helps millions of people collect things they love as

co-founder and CEO of Pinterest. Before Pinterest, Ben worked at Google on AdSense and studied at Yale. He lives in Palo Alto with his wife and

son

Evan Sharp- Evan used to be an architect. Then, he designed Pinterest! Today he leads Pinterest's creative team. Before Pinterest, he was a

product designer at Facebook, and studied history at the University of Chicago and architecture at Columbia. He lives in San Francisco.

Development of Pinterest began in December 2009, and the site launched as a closed beta in March 2010. The site proceeded to operate in

invitation-only open beta.

Silbermann said he personally wrote to the site's first 5,000 users offering his personal phone number and even meeting with some of its users.

Nine months after the launch the website had 10,000 users.

The first prototype was launched in March 2010 and made available to a small group of colleagues and family members. Since its inception, it

has developed into a well-funded site financially supported by a group of successful entrepreneurs and investors including FirstMark Capital, Jack

Abraham (Milo), Michael Birch (Bebo), Scott Belsky (Behance), Shana Fisher (Highline Venture Partners), Ron Conway (SV Angel), Kevin Hartz

(EventBrite), Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp), Hank Vigil, Fritz Lanman, and Brian S. Cohen.

Retail companies use Pinterest for advertising and style trending. Pinterest intends the web design to support "style conscious retailers," where

customers can visualize products within a consumer context. Companies like The Gap, Chobani, Nordstrom, and West Elm use Pinterest to gather

online referrals that link users with similar interests to a company. The Gap has arguably taken the biggest initiative in their use of Pinterest,

employing their own themed pinboards such as "Denim Icons" and "Everybody in Gap."

Baynote founder Scott Brave sees Pinterest as an ideal environment to collect affinity data; a resource that holds the potential for substantial

demand and income. This data "reveals valuable relationships between consumer behaviors, products and content," where it can be collected

and sold as marketing analysis.

Although the founders of Pinterest have not cited any specific influences, a number of companies preceded Pinterest in the development of

visual bookmarking, including Yelp co-founder David Galbraith's invention of Wists in 2005, and later sites such as ThisNext and Stylehive.

Competitors

Tumblr

More of blog type platform. You can post pictures, videos, text and more. Communicate by asking questions on another’s blog or sending a private message. They have an archive month to month of what has been uploaded/reblogged on their blog. Difficult to search unless you know specific url user name.

Strengths: blog style social network, totally customizable sites, you can choose your own url.

Opportunities: the ability to search for specific things through tags, has the chance to make itself unique because they are not well known.

Weakness: not well known, mostly domestic, ways to make money.

Threats: not well known, other type of blog style social networks.

WeheartIt

very similar to pinterest, pin pictures, recipes’, ect. It could be categorized as Pinterest's most obvious direct competitor. WeHeartIt does not appear to have gone after any particular niche or subcategory of Pinterest's purview.

Wanelo

have objects you can like and shows you where you can buy them.

Strengths: Unique from pinterest by allowing users to follow a designers business, get suggestions that are similar to those you like, allows you to directly buy it right there

Opportunities: allows you to buy without searching, room for growth.

Weakness: not well known, could use more diversity.

Threats: pinterest, amazon, and other sites.

Twitter

- An online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read short 140-character text messages, called "tweets"

Threats: More social networks are coming out with the same concepts, becoming less unique, less people signing up, ad block software threatening their main revenue stream.

Facebook

- Ranks as the most popular social network, used by 71% of respondents, proves particularly appealing to women (76%), 18-29-year-olds (84%), and those with household income of less than $50,000 per year (76%). Penetration rates appear to be slightly below-average among those with a college degree (68%), while adoption among the 65+ crowd has grown by 10% points in about a year’s time to reach 45%.After registering to use the site, users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, exchange messages, post status updates and photos, and receive notifications when others update their profiles.

Strengths: Opportunity to customize page, household name, almost a billion users, going global, free to use.

Opportunities: Allows you to connect with friends across the globe, you can advertise your business, mobile apps.

Weakness: privacy settings not secure, low security features, easy to hack.

Instagram-

Instagram use is also most popular among 18-29-year-olds (37%), and is right around average among 30-49-year-olds (18%). As with Twitter, Instagram proves particularly appealing to non-Hispanic blacks (34%). Unlike Twitter’s user base, though, Instagram penetration is much greater among Hispanics (23%) than whites (12%). Instagram also tends to appeal more to urban (22%) and suburban (18%) than rural (6%) respondents.

Male Site Competitors

Manterest- Manterest is a website just like Pinterest but with a manly spin. They focus on categories that interest the male demographic and things that would interest male users. Manterest’s slogan is “Interesting Man Things”. Offers a very similar interface as Pinterest except you “bump” what you like and you “nail” what you post.

Gentlemint- Gentlemint is a website a lot like Manterest. It focuses on the interest of the male user. Gentlemint has many categories such as; do-it-yourself, sexy girls, food, art, movies, and cars. Gentlemint’s main logo is a face with a mustache to give off that manly vibe.

Finances

Pinterest, a site for sharing and discovering images, has sold $200 million in stock to new and current investors for less than 10 percent of the

company, valuing it at $2.5 billion. Pinterest has raised a total of $339.5 million to date. Its last round came in May, when investors put $100

million into the company at a $1.5 billion valuation.

Studies have shown that Pinterest now commands upwards of 41 percent of e-commerce traffic from social networking sites, and the average

Pinterest user has a household income of more than $100,000 per annum leaving behind other channels and becoming the most profitable

website for social media marketing when it comes to ROI.

How lucrative have those visual pinboards been? Well, the average e-commerce order placed by a Pinterest user is $179. Compare that to $80

for Facebook and $69 for Twitter, and you can easily notice that there’s money to be made.

Strategies

Pinterest is using the latest round of funding to fuel international growth. Earlier this month, it launched a new French site. Before launching the

French language site, users had the option of translating the original Pinterest site into several languages, including Spanish, Dutch, and

Portuguese. But with the new site, users in France will now be able to see more localized content as Pinterest will push localized site links. The

site was launched simultaneously on the web, iOS, and Android. Last month, Pinterest expanded internationally with a UK-focused site as well.

Demographics/Users

Pinterest hit 13 million users in just 10 short months, making it one of the fastest growing websites in history. And it’s already being used by

more than 100 brands. In the U.S., users are overwhelmingly female (a fact that’s earned the site a bit of mocking), but in the U.K., they’re male.

Women are 4 times more likely than men to use Pinterest (33% vs. 8%). There appears to be little variation by race and ethnicity, with big gains

in the past year among blacks (20%) and Hispanics (18%) putting them just below the 21% average. Interestingly, 18-29-year-olds (27%) have

moved ahead of 30-49-year-olds (24%) in adoption, despite other research showing the site to attract an older audience. There is also a clear

trend of rising adoption alongside education attainment and household income. Interestingly, suburban respondents are more likely than urban

respondents to use Pinterest (23% vs. 19%).

According to Quantcast, Pinterest is well within the top 20 websites for having the most visitors worldwide. Monthly United States visitor traffic

is estimated at around 55 million. Because of Pinterest's overwhelming success, competitors utilizing the same concept are now showing up in

droves.

Sources:

Product:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/09/pinterests-promoted-pins-are-now-in-the-wild-heres-how-they-look/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234570

Background:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinterest

Goals:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-08/pinterests-ben-silbermann-on-male-users-making-money-and-getting-off-line

Financials:

http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-200-million-valiant-partners-2013-2

http://www.business2community.com/infographics/30-reasons-market-business-pinterest-2014-infographic-0763727#!bfJ5AR

Strategies:

http://www.sramanamitra.com/2013/06/20/pinterest-will-need-a-5-billion-plus-acquisition/

Demographics:

http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/online/user-demographic-highlights-from-5-major-and-growing-social-networks-38939/

http://paradigmsearch.hubpages.com/hub/pinterest-competitors

Competitors:

http://paradigmsearch.hubpages.com/hub/pinterest-competitors

http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/online/user-demographic-highlights-from-5-major-and-growing-social-networks-38939/