Is Pinterest the Female Version of Facebook?

You must have often heard your wife or partner cribbing about how un-organized your room is or how you forget to wash your old clothes. You must have even cursed her for cribbing so much. Well its time you introduce her to the site that has everything organized and owes its growth to the female species! The popularity of Pinterest has exploded in the recent months and as of today it has got more traffic than Twitter, Google+ and Youtube combined! And the majority of its users are women!

Simple to use, clean and best of all, organized! Pinterest is being hailed as the next big social media platform after Facebook. The major difference being it is the fairer sex that is driving the numbers up instead of the nerdy geeks. Let us do some number crunching now. Pinterest got its first ten million active monthly users in half the time as compared to Facebook and 73% of them were women, aged between 16-45; living in South & Central United States (source ComScore). The site is being used for a host of different reasons such as getting fashion ideas, sharing recipes and cooking tips, and even for getting ideas for jewelry designing!

When talking about India, the first five brands to incorporate Pinterest in their Social Media Strategy were from the Fashion Industry. The industry is migrating slowly from Picassa and other image based platforms to Pinterest. So much so, that when you search for the keywords, “Pinterest India” the first two links on Google will lead you to the boards of 2 contemporary Indian fashion brands.

Many Indian women too prefer socialising on Pinterest rather than twitter or even Facebook for that matter. Says Rachana Shah, a fashion designer for kid’s clothing, “I love using Pinterest for sharing my designs with friends, family members and relatives as it is much more organized. Unlike Facebook, where my images will soon become another item in the ever-increasing newsfeed, Pinterest allows me to exhibit my work for a longer time and also gives it a prominent position.”

The reasons as to why women and women’s brands are driving the traffic on Pinterest are many;

a. The portal is much more organized and user friendly as compared to Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media Platforms. It allows the female population to neatly display all their plans, aspirations, dreams as also their ambitions.

b. The creative use of images on the site makes it a better platform for women who live saying things with pictures rather than just words.

Says Jayshree Mulhekar, a professional copywriter, “It reminds me of the girlfriends I had in high school, who would cut out articles and pictures from magazines and pin them up on the display boards of their rooms. I would say Pinterest is the internet based equivalent of the same.”

Today, even housewives have started using Pinterest as a platform to share recipes, likes and dislikes. Neeta Shah, a 30 year old homemaker from Mumbai, who was shown Pinterest by her 12 year old daughter, is addicted to talking about and sharing different delicacies that she makes at home, “I love sharing the recipes of the dishes I learnt from my mom and mother-in-law over the years. With the way I see kids addicted to the social bug, the only way to get them interested about cooking is through platforms like these where their peers too are a part of the discussion”

All in all, compared to Facebook, Pinterest surely has more followers amongst the fairer sex. However, it still has a long way to go before it actually becomes a serious competitor for Zuckerberg’s dream project. There are a lot more features and aspects that need to be worked out.

Featured Image courtesy Horia Varlan