UPDATED 15:10 EDT / JUNE 28 2012

Pinterest Surpasses Tumblr, Google+ in Sharing: AddThis Fills the Gaps

AddThis, the online content sharing platform provider, has extended toolset to include Pinterest, arguably the hottest social sharing network on the market.

The company introduces a new, easier way to share Pinterest content via their toolbar plug-in for a more seamless provision of social referral traffic to Pinterest, as well as to publisher’s own sites.

The AddThis platform contains additional user options and support for publishers, which can increase Pinterest social sharing capabilities with the use AddThis’ existing sharing and engagement plugins.  It’s a boost for brands and avid Pinterest users, as AddThis notes an additional 20 percent growth with the introduction of Pinterest button.

Like all AddThis tools, the new Pinterest button is often easier to install than the network’s own sharing button, requiring only one simple code snippet and publishers can select the right image and pull in associated content requiring no additional configuration.

“The AddThis platform saw the rise of Pinterest early, but many sites could not add the Pin It button because of the additional coding required,” says McGrory, AddThis CEO. “Now, any site can get a Pinterest button with a simple code snippet and track the shares alongside the rest of their services on AddThis analytics.”

New insights on sharing to Pinterest

The inclusion of Pinterest to AddThis’ platform can increase social sharing capabilities with the use of leading mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, as well as Android devices. AddThis generated new insights into the users’ behavior on Pinterest, contributing to the growth of that site.

According to the figures, half of the mobile sharing on Pinterest comes from the iPad (55 percent), 17 percent from iPhone and 28 percent from Android devices where Pinterest doesn’t even have an app.  One gap AddThis fills for Pinterest is mobile browser support–if a site includes the AddThis button on their page, it will automatically work on mobile browsers as well.

Brand engagement has increased 26 percent in the last month, exceeding Twitter’s referral traffic by 30 percent.

Moreover, this month alone Pinterest suppressed Tumblr and Google +1 in terms of sharing content.  The pinboard-style social, photo sharing website registered six percent higher sharing than Tumblr and 7 percent higher than Google +1, which is a trend that’s been confirmed by another rising star in social brand awareness, Fab.com.

But one thing all of these rivaling social networks are competing for is brand engagement, driven by user activity.  AddThis is the agnostic glue that bridges the gap between social outlets and beyond, capturing a surprising amount of user data that can be more valuable to brands than what a single network can provide.  Extending this platform approach to Pinterest fills more than just the mobile gap, especially as Pinterest has yet to roll out a defined business model or offer specific APIs or tools that specifically aid brand engagement.  Allison Tepley of AddThis shares a few more ways in which her platform connects brands and users to Pinterest:

  • First, Pinterest by itself is only one type of sharing (1:Everyone as opposed to 1:Friends, 1:Few, or 1:1 sharing which is most sharing). AddThis brings all types of sharing together so that site owners can both manage and analyze all types of sharing through our analytics platform.  That way sites can see the impact of Pinterest shares, as they compare to other types of sharing, can optimize both for just Pinterest and for all sharing together.
  • Second, Pinterest has historically required additional configuration and now only requires one snippet of code, using AddThis.
  • Third, Pinterest buttons previously did not allow publishers to promote a particular image but also give users to choose the best image for them.  The new AddThis functionality does that.

Pinterest rises to 3rd place behind Facebook, Twitter

According to a recent report by US marketing services company Experian, 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, Pinterest is now the third most popular social network on the web, behind Facebook and Twitter.

The report says Pinterest enjoyed a 50 percent increase in traffic from January to February 2012, accumulating nearly 21.5 million total visits from July of last year to January this year, which was 30 times more compared to the six-months prior.

“The popularity of Pinterest is a result of the next phase of the behavior we have seen online over the last few years. Users are increasingly more comfortable with recommendations from friends or other users when they come through social personalization,” the Experian report stated.

Pinterest for Android

Pinterest is expected to make its debut at this week’s Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, though nothing’s emerged from the event yet.

Ausdroid reported that the social corkboard may be hitting the Google Play store soon.

“We’re working on a dedicated Android app. We know lots of folks are eager to see one, so when we feel we’re in the final stages of its development, we’ll be sure to share more information,” Pinterest shared this information on their blog post.



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