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lordessa · 5 years

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Digital Discourse Analysis Essay

Sarah Rogers

In a world dominated by images, our social media has become less of a text based platform, but a society of visuals. Pinterest is the most dominate image-only social media website that specifically creates a board of ideas that inspire people to create and achieve. Pinterest demographics are interesting as they are diverse, mostly women users, between the ages of 18-49, Pinterest is able to cater to many age types due to its easy availability and plethora of categories to cater to any type of interest. The animal community across all social media platforms is huge, especially on Pinterest, but there are few actual Pinterest accounts solely dedicated to animals alone. Because of this, I decided to create a Pinterest account of my dog, a cavapoo spaniel, and see what the outcome would be, and the kind of audience I attract.

It is common to see on Instagram and Twitter dog accounts with millions of followers, but since Pinterest has few original content users, I wanted to create something uncommon and see where it took me with the communities response. I found that original content creators must produce extremely edited, visually appealing, unique images in order to be seen, and that Pinterest, even with its laid-back features, requires original content posters to compete heavily within an app that has millions of appealing images. The more edited my posts became, the more unique I made my captions, the more followers and attention my page received.

Pinterest is a community that values visuals, new trends, and anything that inspires the user to go out and obtain whatever they are seeing, whether it be a hiking destination, an article of clothing, or, like my account tried to accomplish, the perfect dog. There is a huge expectation for Pinterest that I never realized as a user before. The images are so fluent and forever coming, your feed is constantly being refreshed with visuals, and unlike instagram and twitter, the captions are not visible until investing into clicking onto an image if you really like it that much to see it up close. The value Pinterest holds is high quality, aesthetically pleasing or hyper-visuals that elicit an emotional response of therefore need or desire. I found that I needed to make my images highly edited and “trendy” in order to appeal to users and get a following.

A very fluent fact about Pinterest is that it draws in a lot of income for a small scale, simple social media platform. Pinterest has a value of $5 billion, and the average user, according to the Sprout Social article “15 Pinterest Statistics Every Marketer Must Know in 2018”, has a household income of $100,000. Thus, Pinterest has a huge ability to draw in money for its users, a lot of images when clicked on will redirect you to the website in which it is sold at. With more spending power from its users, Pinterest is able to help brands get recognized, and make a huge amount in income. If you find a cute top, the perfect decor item for your house, or even a car that interests you, there is a link to the website that is selling that item. In my case, I found that many of the animal pictures found on Pinterest will either direct you to the official instagram account of that animal, it’s business website to be used in forms of media (movies, commercials, photoshoots), and most interestingly, breeding websites that sell the animal. For owners that are looking to sell their animal in some way, Pinterest is an ideal social media marketing tool. For instance, I found my dog breeder on Pinterest, as I was looking up pictures of Cavapoos. The group of Pinterest functions more as a mass visual marketing tool more than it may appear. When closely examining my life, I have bought many of my clothes, homewear, and other items after seeing them first on Pinterest.

Pinterest has a heavy mode of persuasion. With its carefully edited pictures usually pinned at the very top of your page, your standards while using the app are incredibly high. Their pictures create an emotional response of want and desire, just like instagram, we are seeing images of perfect lives and sparkly objects, just this time, it's more focused on the product rather than the people. The article, “Why Pinterest makes no money but is now worth 3.8 billion”, makes the point, “Pinterest is perfectly positioned for high value, targeted online and mobile advertising. After all, it's a site where people go to pin pictures of what they want to buy, wear, decorate, visit, eat. That can be served up on a platter to advertisers -- they can market straight to the consumers they know want them. Furthermore, they'll be doing the marketing while the consumers are imagining life with similar products.” The ecommerce aspect of Pinterest is what attracts these big brands to produce and therefore take over with miteciosuly edited pictures of items that everyone will want. In the animal world, its deception of being a harmless pleasure of looking at cute cats and dogs works perfectly. Interest inspired me to get my dog and if I were not to have been scrolling through pictures of highly edited cavapoos last year, I wouldnt have a pet. Pinterest is a purchasing planning app in every single way, all of my Pinterest saves are of items, getaway’s, and even food I wish to obtain at some point in my life.

There is no way to really interact on Pinterest, so some users feel as if it solely for marketing, and that they are breaking the bank while using it. There is no direct messaging, however there is commenting featured, it's hard to see and only available when you solely want to see the comments, is such a process that the whole entire app is simply used mainly to see and repin. Pinterest is very much so a personal social media, it is not interactive like other platforms are based largely on, therefore that can cause good and bad responses. A lot of users feel almost bored scrolling endlessly through a feed of products/ things to buy, it's like an extensive online shopping experience, which can become draining. The reason that Pinterest remains so small and a “background” app, is because of its solitary confinement, its non interactive approach. Humans crave affection and interaction with other humans, seeing what your friends are up to on instagram or reading what your family members have to say about the world on Facebook is much more appealing to social media members, thus Pinterest remains an app that struggles with growth, with 250 million active members, compared to twitters 320 million, instagrams 1 billion, and facebook’s 1.7 billion user leading record.

The goals of Pinterest remain fair and realistic, CEO Ben Silbermann does not charge brands to market their goods on Pinterest, but they do for promoted pins. Promoted Pins will be featured on feeds that are frequently interested in whatever specific brand that might be, it will be featured on their feed even if they don't follow the brand. Pinterest has therefore created revenue mainly from brands that use the app as a marketing tool, thus Pinterest will grow into basically a huge online shopping platform, with more interactions for buying and selling than ever before. Most recently, Pinterest has launched a “shop the look” tool that enables users to see different versions of the item they want to buy, from different sellers, “A Pinterest user can tap a blue circle on an element within a Shop the Look pin to pull up recommendations for similar items she can buy from a brand. For instance, if a pin features a model wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, she can click on the jeans or the T-shirt.” states Digital Commerce 360 article, “Pinterest Dives Deeper into E commerce”. Pinterests goal for expansion incorporates all elements of modern online shopping. Customers do not want to go on a particular website and try to navigate through what they want, in this consumer America, with short attention spans and large spending habits, many do not know what they want to shop for, they just know they want to shop. Pinterest allows users to feel as if they NEED something they didn't know they needed all along, with its feeds that consist of different items, styles, and vibes. The overall goal of Pinterest is to become the most sought after app for brands to sell their products, thus making revenue by charging for featured pins that are spotlighted on every feed across its user base.

I found that my comments on my posts were very buyer-based. With comments such as “where can I buy this dog?” or “what breed is this dog? I have to have it!”, if I were actually using my page to promote my cavapoo in some way, whether it be stardom for movie appearances, sponsorship for pet gear/ clothing, or breeding, I would be drawing in revenue. I had the opportunity to generate an income through simply posting pictures of my dog, which automatically turned him into a product. My pet became a point of interest, he became something sellable. This theme of consumerism within social media reveals a lot about our society and its values. No matter how wholesome we make our accounts, no matter our intent, we will be marketed to or have the opportunity to market. Social media is the future of marketing, it is what will be the main source of sales for companies. Originally, social media was created to connect with friends and family, now, we see adds everytime we scroll through our feeds. Pinterest capitalized on that theme of social media, and made a business from it. Pinterest is just one giant platform of ads, and it is interesting to see how much time, money, and thought we contribute to it. I evaluated my time on Pinterest through the settings app on my iphone, and I found that I spend roughly an hour and thirty everyday scrolling through Pinterest.

It is uncanny how our society is so drawn to marketing and easily influenced by things, the trends in our time are constant, fast paced, and ever changing. Pinterest is so attractive and still standing because it underlyingly mimics societies values. I found through doing research for this paper that everything that I did on Pinterest was to inspire other people to have what I have (my cavapoo). I was unknowingly selling my dog, inspiring people to become pet owners, much like what happened in my case.

After learning about Pinterest's goals, everything made sense, the comments, the followings from dog clothing companies, and the following from other pet pages. Pinterest is a brand based social media, and its values heavily highlight what our society values, too. I felt as if I had to appeal more to my followers with every post, I started caring about they way I edited and talked in my captions. I unknowingly turned my account into a more marketable page for my dog, without even realizing that Pinterest is essentially used for marketing. This explains a lot on how we use any other form of social media, are you posting for yourself, or to get recognition from others for some sort of gain?

Bibliography:

Chen, Jenn. “15 Pinterest Statistics Every Marketer Should Know in 2018.” Sprout Social, Sprout Social, 29 Aug. 2018, sproutsocial.com/insights/pinterest-statistics/.

Stambor, Zak, and Stephanie Crets. “Pinterest Dives Deeper into Ecommerce.” Digital Commerce 360, Digital Commerce 360 | Internet Retailer, 8 Feb. 2019, www.digitalcommerce360.com/2019/02/08/pinterest-dives-deeper-into-ecommerce/.

DeAmicis, Carmel. “Why Pinterest Makes No Money but Is Now Worth $3.8 Billion.” Pando, Pando Media, 23 Oct. 2013, pando.com/2013/10/23/why-pinterest-makes-no-money-but-its-now-worth-3-8-billion/.

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