Pinterest's Demographics Mean It Could Become The Next Monster Social Advertising Platform

Pinterest, which has recently begun selling ads, is more unique than other social networks in terms of its audience makeup.

Pinterest is far more popular among women than men, and unlike some of its competitors it is popular across age brackets (including Millennials, Gen Xers, and Boomers).

Women are the decision makers in a majority of household spending decisions. Pinterest is also very focused around visual images and products. Those two factors, taken together, makes it ideal for brands and retailers.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we unpack data from over a dozen sources to understand how social media demographics are still shifting, including the migration of young users to photo-based social networking, including Pinterest.

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Here are a few of the key takeaways on Pinterest's unique selling points from the BI Intelligence report:

• Adoption is ramping up: Pinterest, launched in 2010, is also seeing a huge bump in adoption. The latest data shows that 21% of US adult internet users are on Pinterest, according to Pew, a significant 40% jump over the proportion who used it just one year before.
• Millennials are taking to it: They have bumped up their use of Pinterest more than any other social network, according to data from the Harvard Institute of Politics. Between fall 2013 and spring 2014, the percentage of 18- to 29-year-olds using Pinterest rose from 25% to 33%, a greater adoption increase than Snapchat's.
• The site is also most popular among the wealthiest consumers.
• It is still female-centric:Women remain the uncontested leaders on the visual- and commerce-focused social network. Women are more than four times as likely to use the service as men, Pew found. The number of men on Pinterest increased 3 percentage points to 8% penetration in 2013, compared to women whose presence on Pinterest rose 8 percentage points to 33% penetration.
• Europe is a weak spot: But as fast as Pinterest has caught on in the U.S., it still isn't especially popular in Europe. GlobalWebIndex found that only 3% of European web users use Pinterest.

The report is full of charts (over 20 charts) and data that can be downloaded and put to use.

In full, the report:

• Looks at overall social networking adoption in the U.S. and globally
• Assesses the most important demographic skews at the top social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Tumblr
• Examines whether Facebook is losing out on teen and millennial users as sites like Instagram grow
• Compares how demographics have changed over time as older social networks have matured
• Identifies the social networks that have become more and less gender-skewed in the last year
• Digs into demographics at top social messaging apps, including Snapchat

For full access to all BI Intelligence reports, briefs, and downloadable charts on the digital media industry and social media audience data and demographics, sign up for a free trial.