On March 13, 2013, Pinterest launched a new analytics tool
for its business users. For those unfamiliar with the site, Pinterest is a
virtual pinboard that allows its users to “pin” links to things they are
interested in onto their “boards”. Pinterest was the fastest growing social
media outlet of 2012. Pinterest allows users to interact with each other by
following/having followers, much like Twitter.
So now that you know a little bit about the structure of
Pinterest, you may be wondering, “Why should I care?” or “Why should businesses
care?” First I’ll address why you, as a student in a big data/analytics class
should care. Pinterest collects huge amounts of data on its users and because
there is limited privacy on the site since no personal information is
disclosed, it could become a source of data mining, much like Twitter. By being
able to analyze the activity on Pinterest, you could provide valuable insights
to the company you were working for. Businesses should care about their
company’s perception and visibility on Pinterest because Pinterest “[retains]
and [engages] users as much as two to three times as efficiently as Twitter was
at a similar time in history” (PR Daily). By targeting customers through
Pinterest, companies can more effectively direct their marketing campaigns on
social media outlets.
So now that you know why Pinterest is important to
companies, you may wonder “Well how is all of the data being used today?” With
this new tool, Pinterest has given more power to its business users by allowing
them to track several key metrics as to how users are interacting with their
website. To become a business user, you must have a verified website linked to
your Pinterest account. The analytics tool now tracks pins, repins,
impressions, and clicks associated with your site. Within each site metrics
page, you are able to see which items have been pinned most recently, repined
most often, and clicked most often. In
the overview graphs, you are able to see number of actions/pins as well as
number of users/pinners engaging with your products.
Another cool feature that the Pinterest Analytics tool
offers is that you are able to export all data to a CSV file, where it might be
possible to perform more data analysis. I’m not quite sure what data you get
when you choose to export it, as there is not much information on this new
tool.
It will be interesting to watch this new tool be developed
and enhanced in the coming weeks! Stay tuned for updates!
References:
business.pinterest.com/analytics
No comments:
Post a Comment