With 11 million unique users logging on each month to pin photos to virtual pinboards, Pinterest has broken through as one of the ten most popular social networking sites on the Internet. The site’s rapid rise to popularity has opened up a new front in the online political battle.
The key with any digital platform is to know what content works and what doesn’t. We’ve all seen Tweets and Facebook posts and thought to ourselves, “you’re doing it wrong,” and the same goes for Pinterest.
Here’s a look at how campaigns and other political organizations can use Pinterest effectively.
Share Opposition Research
When it comes to campaigning, there’s nothing more fun than attacking your opponent. With Pinterest, political organizations are able to offer a more tangible, visual element to their attacks.
The liberal blog, Think Progress, for example, has pinboards dedicated to the “Luxury Hotels of the Romney Campaign” and the “Private Jets of the Romney Campaign.” Using Pinterest has enabled Think Progress to turn an otherwise very dry campaign finance report into an effective attack against Mitt Romney.
On the Right, the Heritage Foundation catalogues President Obama’s scandals and vacations on its “On the Taxpayer’s Dime” and “Obama’s Favorite Vacations” pinboards.
Share Infographics
With Americans’ ever-shrinking attention spans, infographics are quickly becoming an essential medium with which to share complex data.
The visual essence of Pinterest lends itself to sharing all sorts of data. Facebook’s Katie Harbath, for example, has a pinboard of infographics with a focus on the interaction of politics and the Internet. Alex Lundry, a Republican data visualization expert, has a pinboard entitled “Chart Wars” named after his presentation of the same name.
Because Pinterest creates thumbnails of each pin while maintaining the proportionality of the image, data visualizations and infographics are transformed into clear snapshots.
Reach women voters
The rapid rise of Pinterest, unlike many of the trendiest apps on the web, was fueled not by early adopters in tech hotbeds like New York and San Francisco, but rather by young women in the Midwest.
The Pinterest audience is decidedly female – 90% of users, in fact, with wedding details, hair styles, recipes and home decor making up a vast majority of the content pinned on the site.
Campaigns are turning to Pinterest to reach women voters on familiar ground. Ann Romney, for example, is on Pinterest where she’s pinning family photos, her favorite recipes, “Books Worth Reading,” and photos from the campaign trail.
Sell campaign merchandise
Pinterest is a potentially lucrative new channel for retailers, with recent data revealing that the site drives more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn combined. As a result brands ranging from Whole Foods to the Home Depot are moving in to target the growing audience.
The site’s price tag functionality makes it easy to let users know if an item is for sale. The question – Who will be the first campaign to sell merchandise on Pinterest? – has been answered just this week. It’s Obama’s reelection campaign, whose pinboard offers users a new way to stock up on “Obama for America” merch.
