Social4 Ways to Use Pinterest for Market Research

4 Ways to Use Pinterest for Market Research

What’s top of mind with your customers today? Whether you’re looking to expand into a new market or gain insights about your customers, learn how Pinterest can help you discover a variety of opportunities and even help improve website usability.

How well do you know your customers? Exercises in market research and social listening are ways to get to know your customers and stay on top of how their interests change over time. This key data can come in handy when putting together marketing strategies or developing new products.

Pinterest can be used to monitor and listen to what’s top of mind with your customers today. In fact, Pinterest can be used to help with product research, inspiration for content and even help improve website usability.

Four areas on Pinterest stand out as the best places to start your market research with Pinterest: Categories, Gifts, Descriptions, and Boards.

Categories

pinterest-categories

Pinterest organizes pins into categories ranging from architecture to weddings. The categories themselves lend to social listening, in that they are a quick and easy way to see what content is popular in a given niche. Additionally, the general Popular category is available for users to see the most popular of all pins on Pinterest.

A graphic designer could monitor popular ideas for print or posters by examining the content in that category. Are there fonts and copy that seem to be more popular? Looking at the comments on some of the pins might give further ideas on how the public relates to the item, and also how to improve the print or poster.

Categories can also help with market research. If you’re looking to expand into a new market, try using Pinterest to search for content related to that new industry. The Popular section on Pinterest features pins that may help you identify a type of product or item to feature on your site.

diy-framed-mirror

Here’s a great example, why not take this idea and sell the DIY instructions on how to create a framed mirror for $30 or less, prepackaged with the materials. Certainly something any home improvement store could do to sell some extra crown molding they might have lying around. There are thousands of these types of pins on Pinterest for inspiration to expand your product offerings and sell more products.

Gifts

The gifts section on Pinterest is like a storefront open to the entire world. Do your research and see if competitors are starting to use it to sell products. Even smaller mom and pop type shops can show you a thing or two about running your business. Do some competitive research by using the gifts section on Pinterest.

Product research can also be done by examining the products in this area. Are there products that seem to get more repins and likes than others? This very well could be a product your site should carry.

gift-category-on-pinterest

Descriptions

If you haven’t done so already, look up the pins users are pinning from your site by going to: pinterest.com/source/insertyourdomain.com. The descriptions that users submit for your images and products can provide great insight.

In the description you can easily see how they describe your products and images to their friends. Try using this information in future marketing campaigns as inspiration and to connect with customers more effectively by speaking to them in their own terms.

Examining descriptions can also work to help improve your products. Users who pin your images might describe a product and say, “wish it had this” or “would love to see this paired with something else”. You can use this information to improve products or create pairings of products for improved usability on your site.

Boards

I love looking at the names of Pinterest user’s boards and how creative users can get with their organization. Use the way your customers organize their boards and industry related topics to help you with your own site navigation and improve website usability.

Do the above exercise, looking up the pins of images on your domain, and see what boards users place your images on. See a pattern? Glean ideas from the naming conventions of Pinterest boards. It may inspire keyword research to develop new content pieces or even inspire changes to your site navigation to group more content together.

Pinterest can be used to discover a variety of market research opportunities as you can see. Have you used Pinterest for market research? Tell us in the comments below and share your experience.

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