New Study On Mobile & Social Media Asks ‘How Does Pinterest Fit In’?

Pinterest has been tearing up the social media talk of late. BIGinsight recently released a new survey of users that can be of particular interest to retailers and manufacturers.

While male mobile users enjoy sharing photos and stories on Pinterest, female mobile users are more likely to truly be “pinned” to the site. Women were also more likely than men to agree that Pinterest is addicting, great for organizing, and certainly not a waste of time.

Women also place Pinterest among their top social media sites visited on their smartphones and tablets. While Facebook is the clear favorite, the relatively new pin board site falls among social media “veterans” Twitter and LinkedIn in popularity for female mobile users and surpasses Foursquare and MySpace usage.

One Pinterest user admits that time slips away from her when she’s on the site. Although addicting and useful, especially for women utilizing the site, at first glance, Pinterest does not appear to be a helpful shopping tool…yet.

Mobile users disagree that Pinterest influences their purchase decisions. While 84.8% of mobile users say they look up product information on their smartphones and tablets, social media is not the first place to look. 43.7% say they conduct a general Internet search on their mobile devices—only 4.7% say they visit a social media site first. But when they do use social media to aid in the shopping process, 25.5% say they use Facebook while 9% use Twitter to find deals and coupon codes.

“Although social shopping is not yet prominent, mobile shopping is,” said Pam Goodfellow, Consumer Insights Director at BIGinsight™. “General Internet searches, visiting retailer websites, and using apps to compare prices on the fly are the new norm for mobile-savvy shoppers.” The means and motivation to utilize mobile while shopping varies by retailer.

Another finding in the survey is that the most popular mobile activities are checking mail (89.1%), sharing photos (69.2%) and playing games (63.6%).

Women are more likely than men to play games and share photos while men are more likely to view/edit documents and watch full TV episodes and movies on a mobile device. 

What does all this mean? Social media is an access tool to find out information prior to a purchase. While Facebook and Twitter appear to be ‘discount coupon’ sites, Pinterest is a ‘style guide’. Mobile is how they are increasingly buying their products and/or services.

Think MOBILEFirst.