Gender differences on Pinterest
One of the anomalies of this research was the finding that men had more followers on average than women. It's strange given the conventional assumptions that the study substantiated:
- On average, women get more re-pins than men
- People with more followers get more re-pins
- Posts with more comments and likes get more re-pins
- Higher frequency of posts correlated with lower number of re-pins
The researchers also wrote that their random sampling showed that women continue to make up a "supermajority" of Pinterest users: 80% of all pins in the study were by women.
They also found that American and British users were more likely to get Re-pins than other nationalities.
Pinterest versus Twitter
In one of the more interesting parts of the study, the researchers took a representative language sample from Twitter and Pinterest. Comparing the two samples, what they found was that Twitter was oftentime time-based: "today," "tomorrow," "tonight," et cetera. By contrast, the language on Pinterest is consumption-based: "use," "look," "want," and "need." The authors discuss this as a big advantage of Pinterest as a marketing medium: consumption may be the DNA of Pinterest.
So, what does this tell us about Pinterest? Probably not a lot that we didn't understand already. Irrespective of gender, it seems that participation is the key to engaging and growing on the network. And the insight about language seems to substantiate the potential that many people believe Pinterest to have.
What do you think? Do these conclusions surprise you? Any hypothesis about why men get more followers on Pinterest than women?