Motivations behind Pinterest activities: Study

Washington: Gender plays significant roles among Pinterest users, a recent study has revealed.

Eric Gilbert at Georgia Tech`s School of Interactive Computing and Professor Loren Terveen at the University of Minnesota have reported their findings based on a statistical analysis of motivations behind Pinterest activities and the factors distinguishing Pinterest from other social networking sites. The study has shown that female users have more re-pins, irrespective of their geographical location and male users have more followers than females on Pinterest. The social networking site is different from Twitter because of four verbs: use, look, want and need. Gilbert believes that these verbs make Pinterest more interesting as words encapsulate people`s intentions and reveals what motivates them. Gilbert illustrated that many press releases have mentioned Pinterest`s commercial potential and the verbs truly depict that consumption lies at the heart of the website. With a reach of over 10 million users, much more than any other networking site, Pinterest revolves around `pinning` photos that the users find on the web and organizing them into topical collections. The users can easily follow each other on the site and re-pin, like as well as comment on other pins. Pinterest is different from other sites, said Gilbert, as it focuses on pictures and products as well as its huge numbers of female users. Gilbert has compiled a statistical overview of the site to understand people`s online activity better by analyzing over 2,00,000 pins. The site can be utilized for marketing needs if the motivations behind people`s activity is analyzed and understood carefully. A recent survey has also shown the great proportions of people signing up for e-commerce sites through the networking site. The study also showed how people getting redirected to e-commerce sites through Pinterest spend more money than Facebook or Twitter users. Gilbert also expressed his personal interest in the site by saying that he would want to choose Pinterest for his marketing needs as compared to any other social networking site. ANI