Pinterest PersuasionLauren Akers

Interesting Facts

Pinterest is virtually tied with Twitter at 3.6% for the amount of referred social traffic it sends to websites

US online advertising spending is expected to grow 23.3% to $39.5 billion this year, pushing it ahead of print

Pinterest is ranked 3rd most visited social networking site in US

January 2010 Pinterest surpassed 10 million visitors April 2010 nearly doubled

Now 31 million worldwide unique visitors per month

What is Pinterest?

“When you open up Pinterest you should feel like you’ve walked into a building full of stuff that only you are interested in. Everything should feel handpicked for you.”

It is a store in which every single product has been tailored to your needs, ambitions, and desires.

Social Bookmarking site Pinterest users use this site equally as

much as Facebook and Tumblr Virtual Pin board that help organize your

ideas that you love Majority of people using Pinterest

Women in US make up 82% Men- in UK make up 57%,in Japan 79% , in

France 74

Research

Visual Persuasion Visuals have played an important part in

many forms of communication; Interpersonal (non verbal cues) Small group (PowerPoint presentations) Mass Media ( print and TV) Internet (web designs, emoticons)

Research has been done to look at if Social Media is an effective persuasive tool for promoting a product

found images in advertising can have a positive or negative impact on children’s self perception

looked into the effect of using illustration in product direction, the effect print ads had on people’s attentions, and looked into the role visuals played on political advertising in Hungary.

3 ways visuals help; attention getting, priming-recall, and information processing.

Research Question

How could Pinterest be an effective persuasive tool for influencing popular interest through social media?

Why is social media a goof fit for persuading the targeted audience down the peripheral route?

Elaboration Likelihood Model Petty and Cacioppo

“ELM views persuasion primarily as a cognitive event, meaning that targets of persuasive message use mental process of motivation and reasoning (or lack thereof) to accept or reject persuasive messages”- Danton & Zelley

It is broken down into two ways a person is persuaded.

First route is centrally routed message and the second is peripherally routed message.

ELM emphasizes the importance of understanding audience members before creating persuasive meaning

Slow and Steady

Central Route is more complex The advertiser has to elaborate and

exaggerate to draw attention while the potential buyer has to swift through lots of information to find useful information

CR messages have a wealth of information, rational arguments, and evidence to support a conclusion

CR messages are also a long term belief

Quick, Fast, and Always Taking Shortcuts “Peripheral route relies on reciever’s

emotional involvement and persuade through more superficial means”

“ The ELM predicts that when the audience is unmotivated or unable to process an elborated message, persuaders should focus on quick and easy ways to produce change”

– Danton & Zelley

Peripheral

7 common cues that signal the use of peripheral message; Authority- Because I said so Commitment- dedication to product Contrast- This is really important to me Liking-Celebrity endorsing Reciprocation- receive not one but two Scarcity- Panic only certain number left Social proof- everyone is doing it

Recap on ELM

Central is the Tortoise. Slow, steady, and finds all the information to base their own opinion about that topic. The individual must be motivated and able to comprehend the message.

Peripherial is the Hare. Quick,fast and trying to find shortcuts. Remember that the persuadeers are using and focusing on the 7 cues to deal with emotions.

The peripheral route has a minimal effect whereas the central route has long term effect on persuading individuals.

Tying it all together

Central route is not being used in social media because in today’s society people have greater demands on their time, lazy about how they receive information and can be easily distracted.

Instead of finding the answers for themselves by taking the central route, they base their answer on many types of small random information that may or may not be valid.

The reason why print is slowly dying as a media source is because people want instant, concise information instead of a delayed more thorough article on the topic of information

What Route did the general population take? With the increase in computers in the US

population “rose from 42.1 percent in December 1998 to 51 percent in August of this year—a total of 53.7 million households” (Crutsinger, abcnews.go.com).

The rate of decline in print circulation at the nation’s newspapers has accelerated since last fall, as industry figures released October 2012 show a more than 7 percent drop compared with the previous year.”(Arango, newyorktimes.com)

With the rise in computer purchasing and decline in buying newspapers, one can assume that society is now trying to find ways to short cut instead of taking the time to read an article.

Shortcuts to everything, apps that bring you straight to the homepage of that site, smartphones that look up information for you just by commanding it to do so and social media sites such as Pinterest.

Pinterest is the user’s own domain. Users may search, repin to post the pictures to their own boards, like or comment on whatever they choose. They are motivated in what they are searching for but most of the time the user is planning on using pins to learn from.

Peripheral route is the quick and easy shortcut that can be taken

Everyone working to find shortcuts may use this route because they are super busy and are not able to read into details.

To answer the research question about how Pinterest can be an effective tool in social media, Pinterest is a social bookmarking that capitalizes on the use of visuals.

Why a site with just pictures?

A new rise to social media not only can the viewer pick and choose what they would like to see but they can also find out more on what other followers find is useful and popular.

“Where do users find these images? Occasionally from their own photos, but more often they found things on another website or "re-pin" images other users have pinned to their own boards.

This means “some early-adopter retailers, from Michael’s Stores to Nordstrom, are reporting more traffic to their websites from Pinterest than any other referral source.” (e.Baskin, Pinterest a powerful tool)

Popular Pinterest

popular is because it is so effective! free to join as long as you receive an invite. It

is also free to pin and promote your business or blog. Also the more the picture gets re-pinned, the more popular the item becomes.

Learning about the different types of cues that peripheral routes uses can be persuaded by all the different types while on Pinterest.

a picture is posted that is derived from a website then it is linked to a category. The user can search and follow friends that are also on Pinterest and see what they pin.

7 common cues tied in

Authority can happen on Pinterest if 1) the user was convinced to accept on using pinterest 2) that user feels like every time that authority figure pins something the user better react by commenting, liking, or agreeing with them by repining it.

Commitment can be shown through Pinterest when 1) someone may have a board all about political beliefs 2) joining a sorority or 3) spreading the company info. These pins would probably float around in the “following” tab then the user decides if they are true friends with that follower and will trust them in educating and making the decision for the user.

Contrast and Pinterest go hand and hand. This may happen if 1) one of your followers says THIS IS THE BEST SHOP EVER!! In the comment section of a pin. Or 2) compares the item it to a designer name brand.

Liking can be used 1) having a celebrity endorser selling/wearing the product in a pin 2) having a follower like everything you pin can lead you in persuading to look at their stuff and/or 3) a company stating if you share this pin on other social media sites you will be entered into a drawing.

Social Proof is the last one that cue that can be applied to Pinterest 1) Everyone is making this new craft and repining it 2 ) just making a Pinterest account because everyone else may be doing it 3) re-pinning popular pins just because you have seen it run through the feed a lot.

Reciprocation and scarcity cues are the ones that have not been on Pinterest yet because the main point of Pinterest is that is a social book mark that saves all the things you love to go back to. The companies do not stress the customers and make them scare users into buying a product just because it is the last one, although they may do it on the website that is linked to the pin.

Future Research

should be to look into if pinners take the central route of pinning a product then going to the website it is marked to, and succeeding in your pin by following one of these actions.

See why they pin the picture because they liked the picture itself or if it was useful to discover the DIY website.

See if the business could start off from not having Pinterest presence to creating one and result in your website become very popular due to Pinterest that resulted in more business.

More research could be done on how to establish a highly effective Pinterest account. Research could be done on how academics share teaching plans and techniques all around the world.

In Ten years

More Visual images on sites Facebook and Twitter will decrease because more and

more people will not care about people’s opinion but more on what pictures they post on the day to day.

Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr will increase because it is people’s focus will be on posting pictures and liking them.

Technology will be advancing by making it easier for users to post picture, regulate who the pictures are shown to, and how to edit pictures faster. In 2022, the world will have cameras on their body that capture every moment and the person will be able to post a picture of that memory, relate back to what someone said an hour ago, and this technology will basically be able to think on the behalf of that person.

Google Glasses

Security will become more high strung QR code Problems- for this future are that more people are

just going to rely on random facts that may not be true. people are given all the answers they will think that they are entitled to getting what they want instead of earning it. This will cause major issues in the years to come.

Strengths- be easier to persuade viewers on the 7 common cues. public will be so use to all the ads that they will not find the advertisements as annoying but more so as another cool thing to scan the QR code from. Advertisers will only have to produce a interesting picture and have the public take it in.

Questions