Picture Perfect

The facts: More than 11 million Pinterest users have driven more online revenue per click than 900 million Facebook users and 140 million Twitter users combined. What's more impressive is that this visual sharing pinboard social network achieved these numbers in roughly a year.

The demographic: Unlike Facebook's relatively modest five-year journey from the college dorm room to your grandma's desktop, Pinterest gained immediate traction in the Midwest with 35-year-old to 50-year-old female craft enthusiasts. It then quickly made its way east and west to a younger 20-something crowd. The 35-year-old to 50-year-old female audience has remained strong while the younger demographic keeps growing.

The interaction: Pinterest is a social setting built around sharing and discovering information about your interests and passions (not around what you ate for lunch today). Its users spend, on average, more time per visit than other social sites because they reap greater rewards through deeper engagement. Users may need to work a little harder to create a pinboard than to post a Facebook status, but the results are worth the effort.

Pair that with the high average household income and 80 percent U.S. female audience and you see why Pinterest is so naturally beneficial to online retail. Simply put, it's the first social platform that allows retailers to interact with consumers in a way that feels authentic and easy.

How to Best Engage
Brands that are succeeding in driving online sales via Pinterest are solidly executing on the following three main principles:

1. Keep it authentic. Retailers concentrating on acquiring more users aren't necessarily focusing on the right area. When creating boards for your retail brand, it's important to note that Pinterest is less about the direct "in your face" branding and more about the lifestyle it supports and encourages — i.e., telling a story with images. Photos of your products can be mixed with lifestyle images, art and anything else that helps build the narrative around them. Etsy is a good example of a company driving online sales via its brand story.

Etsy is about creating things, whether it be framed typography or jewelry, and it reflects this part of the brand via DIY boards that teach users how to create these types of products. Etsy also offers ideas on how to best use its products. This strategy not only shows consumers what the brand has to offer, but it also guides them on how to best incorporate the products into their lifestyle. This richer engagement only deepens the consumer-to-retailer bond, giving them more reasons to buy.

2. Reward user engagement. To have a greater reach, you want to offer incentives to the users who are your advocates. A smart way to do this is with promotions. A great example was the Sephora Color Wash Sweepstakes that took place in April. The simple and fun contest asked users to turn their favorite color into a beauty inspiration, with 10 winners rewarded with $250 gift cards to the cosmetics retailer. One entrants' "Shades of Pink" board had everything from Victoria's Secret Pink collection to Bubble Yum to celebrity shots to pink shades of Sephora products. The retailer's contest saw high engagement because it was an easy execution on the user side with a reward hefty enough to warrant participation.

3. Track and analyze. Once your brand has a solid Pinterest strategy in place, the next step is to track performance. By using tools like Google Analytics you can see how many visitors are coming to your site from Pinterest. From an e-commerce perspective, you can then dig a little deeper and analyze things like conversion rate, transactions and revenue. You'll be able to spot the top-performing areas, whether it be a specific board theme or the most popular products, enabling you to shift your Pinterest strategy in an even more successful direction.

Will This Last Forever?
There have been recent reports of a slowdown in what has been seen as the unstoppable Pinterest train. There are a few reasons besides general disinterest that could explain this decline, including a redesign that put off users or a glitch in the social network's iPhone app. More importantly, these reports of a decline to 8.3 million active users from 11.1 million users is based on people logging into Pinterest through Facebook; traffic on Pinterest itself hasn't declined. This begs the question: Is Facebook fatigue the real culprit here? You could draw the conclusion that Pinterest is hopping off its Facebook crutches and beginning to stand on its own.

The connection of these two social realms together feels a bit shoehorned, where Instagram is a more obvious fit. Pinterest is as equally dynamic as Facebook, yet different. Whereas e-commerce feels natural within Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter aren't nearly as conducive. This alone could be marking an interesting transition phase for these social platforms.

New Players to Keep an Eye On
There have been a few new "Pinterest for e-commerce" startups in recent months that are garnering some major attention. Sites like Shopcade and The Fancy operate almost exactly like Pinterest, except everything is for sale. They both have affiliate programs that reward users for sharing with friends. Growth and sales have been impressive in a short amount of time for these newcomers, but there's one major difference between them and Pinterest — cash incentives for users.

While brands on Pinterest reward users for participating via the act of sharing and creating, sites like Shopcade reward users by paying them to share. Shopcade's business model has been performing very well so far, but looking into the near future there could be a danger of promoting social spamming, which, in turn, could dilute the entire experience. Only time will tell whether Shopcade can successfully figure out the balance of sharing for cash incentives while still feeling like an organic experience.

Get Started
Online retailers need to keep up with the demand and engage consumers on Pinterest. There are a handful of top brands executing smart marketing and reward-based campaigns on the site, and they're reaping the rewards because of it. Since it's really people who are driving Pinterest, it could be possible that users did all they can do and are now slowing down because the other side hasn't caught up yet. In other words, there aren't enough brands strategically engaging with their Pinterest users.

This isn't a bad thing, mind you; it's an opportunity to connect with people who are looking for more interaction. Retailers need to have a conversation about their brand with consumers and prospects who are genuinely interested. Engage with them in a way that feels right and reward them in the way that they deserve.

Meghan Widman is the design director at Alexander Interactive, a full-service web design and engineering firm. Meghan can be reached at mwidman@alexanderinteractive.com.