Does Pinterest Only Interest Women?

This article is contributed by Joel Smith.

Launched in March 2010, Pinterest has now grown to become one of the most popular social bookmark-sharing websites. Currently with an Alexa rank of 42, Pinterest has seen the community grow in leaps and bounds. The site that celebrated reaching 1.6 million members in September of 2011 grew sensationally to 11.5 million in only February. Interestingly enough, 82% of these users are women. But is Pinterest only targeted at women or does it offer features of interest to men as well?

How is Pinterest different from other Social Websites?

Using Pinterest is pretty different as compared to other social networks. Site visits show that the average time a user spends on Pinterest is almost equal to the combined time spent on Facebook and Google. Also, Pinterest basically drives referral traffic to other websites. That means, the content you ‘pin’ on Pinterest is actually going to your feeds on other websites. Once again, Pinterest does very well and analytical tools position this website higher than Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined when it comes to the volume of referral traffic. Then again, features like ‘re-pin’ (which we better know as ‘Re-Tweeting’ on ‘Twitter’ or Sharing on Facebook) have contributed to this great number.

Why Do Women Prefer Pinterest?

There is a general trend whereby women are the first to try out any new social network. Men tend to be later arrivals. This has been happening since the days of Twitter and Tumblr. Women are more active on these new websites and more prone to exploration. In addition, there are theories that Pinterest’s layout, the color combinations used and the whole layout enabling you to share interests are generally features that jibe with the female psyche, but not as much with the male psyche. While women actually believe in social media as a place to meet up, most men regard them just as tools, a means to an end.

What Can Men do on Pinterest?

The primary thing that people do on most other social networks is just lurk and be spectators. Men find this easy to do. Secondly, with Pinterest finally being seen as a very usable marketing tool, a lot of companies have set up pages here, just like on Facebook and Twitter to reach out to this growing Pinterest community. This is one reason why recently Pinterest has seen a surge in the number of male users. The community that once had nearly 92% women users has now seen this ratio slowly drop down to 82%. In some countries, for example the UK, the number of male users has now surpassed the female users.

Looking at it from a very rational point of view, men can do everything that women can do on Pinterest. While sharing interests, pictures and hobbies may not be the favorite male pastime, they are certainly being done by them on all other social media. In reality, men are just slower adopters. While Pinterest does seem a little women-oriented, men will eventually get there and share all that they can. It is only a matter of time.

Author Bio: Joel Smith is the author of this post. He has been using various social media platforms and likes writing about it. His SERP Snatcher service is a 5 phased link building technique which consists of effective internet marketing techniques for every site, new or old.

Related articles

• Pinterest opens its site to all
• Men Are from Reddit, Women Are from Pinterest
• 9 Pinterest Board Ideas for Content Marketers