Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the US, behind Facebook and Twitter, according to a new report by Experian Hitwise.
Web traffic to Pinterest traffic surged 50% from January to February of 2012, enabling the invitation-only site to overtake LinkedIn, Tagged, and Google+ in total monthly visits, Experian reports.
Moreover, visits to Pinterest reached nearly 21.5 million during the week ended January 28, 2012, almost 30 times the number of total visits recorded six months earlier (week ended July 30, 2011).
Pinterest continued to outpace its closest competitor LinkedIn by a healthy margin in March 2012.
Below, the top 10 social sites in Experian Hitwise's Social Networking & Forums category, ranked by total visits* in March:
- Facebook: 7.0 billion
- Twitter: 182.2 million
- Pinterest: 104.4 million
- LinkedIn: 85.7 million
- Tagged: 72.5 million
- Google+: 61.0 million
- MySpace: 43.3 million
- MyYearbook: 38.1 million
- MyLife: 29.7 million
- Tumblr: 29.6 million
Below, other selected findings from Experian's 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report.
Pinterest Site Demographics
Visitors to the site in the 12 rolling weeks ended January 28 skewed female (60%) and between the age of 25 and 44 (55%).
However, Pinterest visitors have a different geographic profile compared with visitors of other social sites such as Facebook and YouTube.
Pinterest and the Social Networking & Forums category both attract the greatest share of their visits from California and Texas. However, the Social Networking category as a whole over-indexes on share of visits from Northeastern states, whereas Pinterest over-indexes on visits from the states in the Midwest, Northwest, and Southeast.
Hobbies and Crafts
Pinterest tend to attracts people interested in home crafts and hobbies: 19 of the US states where Pinterest visitors over-index against the online population also over-index for the Hobbies and Crafts category.
Boomers and young adults (Boomerangs) were the groups most likely to visit Pinterest and sites in the Hobbies and Crafts category during the 12 weeks ended January 28. Such visitors (heavy Web users who spend time on house and garden, sports and fitness, and family-oriented websites) accounted for more than 7% of visits to Pinterest and 3% to the Hobbies and Crafts category during the period.
*March 2012 traffic data were provided to MarketingProfs by Experian Hitwise for this article. Figures exclude mobile traffic.
About the data: Findings are from The 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, by Experian Hitwise, issued in April 2012.
