It's undeniable, Pinterest is the new stud of social media. Women especially are addicted to it like a grizzly to a picnic basket. It was inevitable I'd eventually cover this craze simply because I can't escape it. TV's talking about it, blogs are blogging about it, and my Facebook and Twitter feeds are packed with chatter about it.

While the Pinterest owners are drooling in ecstacy over their conquest of America's women, I couldn't help but wonder where are the business brands, and from a man's standpopint, where are the guys. Why aren't men on Pinterest? I visited the site to see what the hoopla was all about and was left with a single expression of Duh... what the hell...I don't really get it. Not to say I didn't understand how to navigate and use the site, but rather I don't see anything that interest me here. It was definitely not the average male user's arena, but chock full of visual goodies to keep average women distracted for hours. Don't become a serial brand pusher here though, you'll get the stink face stare of death very quick. In fact, Pinterest tell you to drop your brand pumping at the door or forget joining their party. In time I'm sure a good amount of users will warm up to brands but many users won't friend brands on social networks.

However being the serial marketer I am, I had to browse the site deeper to break it down from a marketer's standpoint. Here's what I found.

 
Women trust blogs and Pinterest more than Facebook and Twitter

 The BlogHer’s yearly survey on women and social media, showed surprising numbers of female trust in big social media.

• 81% of  U.S. women said they trusted blogs and Pinterest.
• 73% percent said they trusted Twitter.
• 67% said they trusted Facebook.

. I guess that's good for Erookie, we're a social blog with a prominent mom in business author and founder.

Who uses Pinterest?

 We know the answer already. 90 percent of registered and active Pinterest users are women at the time this article was written. The male percentage is slowly growing as more organizations and brands sign up. Most big startup websites normally have male users under 35, but comScore the web tracker shows 90 percent of Pinterest users are women who drive 85 percent of the traffic on the site. They far outpace men in site usage and over half of them are 35 or older.


So there's very few men on there, and that may or may not change. But that might be good for the Pinterest interest. If you're not selling to women then you're crazy. Walk into any mall and what do you see? Over half of the stores are geared towards women. It's a fact, women shop and spend more often than men. If your business sell products and services that appeal to women, Pinterest is a good social hub to connect and engage with them, NOT DIRECTLY SELL to them.

 What Pinterest Offer

 Besides a crazy addiction, it has the ability to pin and share photos you find visually appealing. In this case the majority of things being shared across Pinterest are photos of crafts, fashion, food, cosmetics, and health and beauty aids. These aren't things that generally appeal to the average male user.  I'm sure Pinterest will add more for guys if they sign up in significant numbers, but that might not be it's objective, we'll wait and see.


So Pinterest is not just one huge electronic cork board, it's a lot more right now  for women. This new addiction does nothing for me as an average male user, however as a business owner and internet marketer I'm watching it closely to see how it evolves.

Update 3/21/2012: Seems like Pinterest is facing growing pains and many copyright infringement issues. This post details lawyer/photographer Kirsten Kowalski's decision to delete her entire account after discovering the huge potential legal problems she could face from pinning copyrighted photos on Pinterest.

Update 3/22/2012: If you do want to use the service for marketing purposes, this Pinterest post over at SEOMOZ gives one of the first great walk throughs of how to use instructographics to send Pinterest referral trafic to your site granted it relative to the interest of the users and sticks to the Pinterest etiquette guidelines. they've got a lot to sort out on the new social network.

Update 3/24/2012: Pinterest just updated their terms of service and privacy policy which should make their stance clear about who owns content on the site and what's acceptable use of that content. They also address the copyright issue but said their updated terms is still a work in progress. hey here's to trying on behalf of users, right?