On Tuesday, President Obama joined Pinterest, and became one of the first politicians to join the fast growing social networking site.
Fo non-Pinterst users, Pinterest revolves around “pin boards,” where users “pin” pictures (with captions and links) and categorize them by popular topics. Pinterest has recently gained momentum among the general population, but causes have had a difficult time figuring out how to effectively politicize the site.
Why did Obama choose to join Pinterest now? From a marketing and campaign standpoint, the answer is simple.
First, more than 90% of Pinterest users are women. While the strength of this majority is less than it was a few months ago, Pinterest is sill dominated by the fairer sex.
This is a very important demographic to President Obama’s re-election campaign. He desperately needs to win female voters this November, so he is using Pinterest to help him gain the edge.
Secondly, note the general categories of content on Pinterest. The most popular topics are arts and crafts, style and fashion, home and food. Accordingly, Obama’s pin boards are as follows:
– “Obama Inspired Recipes”
– “ObamArt”
– “Obama 2012 Store”
– “The First Family”
– “Pet Lovers for Obama”
– “Just the Facts”
– “Obama2012 in Action”
– “Faces of Change”
The fastest growing segment of Pinterest is the food category. That’s right, shockingly enough the “Obama cupcakes” aren’t just a coincidence.
Moreover, according to RJMetrics, more than 80% of all pins on Pinterest are re-pins. Re-pinning is similar to sharing a post on Facebook, or retweeting on Twitter. You re-share content on your page that was originally posted by somebody else.
In a marketing and campaign sense, this means if Obama has the influence to draw followers to his account (which he does), his content will be spread throughout Pinterest very quickly.
Obama’s content on Pinterest has nothing to do with policy, stances or his record in office. (Surprising, right?)
Instead, it has only to do with his name recognition, and the hope that Pinterest users will say, come election time, “Oh hey, Obama makes cupcakes with his face on them! What a great reason to vote for him!”
Depending on one’s opinion, this is either brilliant marketing or a bait and switch that ties his name and image to a product that has nothing to do with what he actually stands for.
Either way, it’s clear Obama wants people to vote for him based on his image. His Pinterest account demonstrates that very plainly.
Scrape away the icing, however, and voters are left with the same question as before: Will voters choose to reelect the President based on rhetoric, image and pandering? Or will they take the time to review the stances, actions and record that have truly defined Obama’s presidency?
