Pinterest: How It’s Driving Referral Traffic For Brands

Since the launch of Pinterest in early 2010, it has become a major player in total referral traffic, topping Google Plus, Youtube, and LinkedIn. By acting as a virtual pinboard, and attracting millions of users through existing social networks, the new social network uses virality in the form of images to showcase products, clothing, photos, brands, and articles.

A pin on one pinboard on Pinterest can be re-pinned hundreds of times over by multiple users, spreading the original pinned image/article throughout the community. Through repeated exposure in the form of repins, brand affinity is created, and people click on the image to be referred to the original website where the image was taken from. The user browses the website to look at other product images to “pin back” onto their virtual pinboards on Pinterest, and the process is repeated again every time a new image is re-pinned.

As this Shareaholic study shows, Pinterest is becoming one of the leading contenders in referral traffic, coming in at 3.6% of total referral traffic in January 2012, beating Youtube, Reddit, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Myspace. The referral traffic growth for Pinterest is amazing, given that in the previous month of December, the network accounted for just 2.5% of total referral traffic.

How can brands take advantage of Pinterest? They can do so by creating an account on Pinterest, setting up several pinboards by categorical interests. If a business such as a t-shirt company is looking to broaden their exposure on Pinterest, they can set up an account to upload their product photos, and embed the “Pin It” button next to their products in the online catalogs. From on there, the sky’s the limit on Pinterest.

You can also to see my pins.