Having launched just two years ago in March 2010, Pinterest has skyrocketed in popularity, obtaining the #38 spot on Time’s “50 Best Websites of 2011” list in August 2011.

It’s popularity has continued to grow, which is evident by the “Pin It” buttons that have been popping up on websites such as on Etsy.com.

What Is It?

Ecommerce Infographics

Pinterest allows its users to share items they find on the Internet.  When browsing a website the user can use the “Pin It” feature of Pinterest to pin an image from a website and have it appear on their list of pinned items (called a “Board”) on Pinterest.  The pinned image then links back to the website where it was found.  For example, here’s a board of we created showing ecommerce infographics.

Should I Use It?

This will depend on your product line and who your primary customers are.  Categories such as Home, Arts & Crafts, and Fashion make up over 40% of the “Pins” on Pinterest – so these are the most popular types of products people are sharing.

68% of Pinterest users are Women, 50% of them have children, and 49% of them are within the ages of 24-44.How do your products and customers relate to those stats?  If you are selling industrial supplies of interest to men your products may not see much activity by Pinterest users, but if you’re selling something for the home or children, especially if it’s hand-made or creative, it may be just what Pinterest users are looking to share.

The Pin It Button

Pinterest provides a code generator for their Pin It button which can be used to manually create code to place on a page – but the code is static so you would need to manually change it for each page you want to place the Pin It button on.

Pin it Button

To make implementing the button easier with ShopSite, here is ShopSite template code which can be used in a product template.  This will automatically use the product name, the More Info page URL, and the More Info product image to create the Pin.

<a name="thread_439813"></a><script language="javascript">
 var prodname = escape("[-- PRODUCT.Name --]");
 var produrl = escape("[-- PRODUCT.MoreInfoURL --]");
 var prodimage = escape("[-- OUTPUT_DIRECTORY_URL --]/media/[-- IMAGE Product.MoreInformationGraphic --]");
 document.write('<a  href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=' + produrl +  '&media=' + prodimage + '&description=' + prodname + '"  class="pin-it-button" count-layout="horizontal">Pin It</a>');
 </script>
 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js"></script>

Place that template code in your product template, in either the “[– DEFINE PRODUCT –]” or “[– DEFINE MORE_INFO_PAGE –]” section where you want the Pin It button to appear.

TIP:  Not using More Info pages?  Then change this line in the code above:
var produrl = escape(“[– PRODUCT.MoreInfoURL –]”);
to be this instead:
var produrl = escape(window.location.href);
and the URL of the current page where the button is appearing will be used for the link.

…

That’s all there is to it –  Just a few lines of template code and your visitors can start pinning your product photos all over Pinterest and driving more traffic to your site.    The referrals Pinterest sends to online store continues to climb  (more than Youtube, Google+, and Linked In combined![3]), so start adding the Pin It button to your pages so your site can gain visitors too!

Sources:
[1] – rjmetrics.com: http://info.rjmetrics.com/blog/bid/53831/New-Pinterest-Data-What-s-Everyone-Pinning-About
[2] – mashable.com: http://mashable.com/2012/02/25/pinterest-user-demographics/
[3] – shareaholic.com: http://blog.shareaholic.com/2012/01/pinterest-referral-traffic/