5 Reasons Pinterest is Like Catnip to Women

This guest post is written by Kat Gordon, founder of The 3% Conference and Creative Director, Maternal Instinct.

Pinterest.

Just saying it makes me swoon. What is it about Pinterest, this amazingly beautiful new social site, that is so dizzyingly addictive?

Not just one thing, but five.

#1 It’s all dopamine, all the time.

War-torn countries. Freeway pile-ups. Hurricane aftermaths. We see so many disturbing images every day. What a relief to surrender ourselves to image upon image of delicious eye-candy.

#2 It’s silent.

Women – especially those with kids – have a lot of noise in their lives. Most social networks add to the cacophony – with video sharing, podcasts, and music sharing. Even sites without sound have chaos built in. Twitter moves at the clip of Class VI river rapids. Blink and you might miss something.

Yet Pinterest is soundless. Something about the sumptuousness of the imagery, combined with the hush of its presentation, creates a deeply zen experience. I feel younger after every visit.

#3 It allows every woman a fantasy life.

Now that Martha Stewart’s daughter has penned a tell-all, blowing the cover on domestic divahood, women everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief. We don’t have to be superwomen after all!

Odd as it may seem, being freed from the expectation that we will live a gracious life frees us to imagine what that unattainable life might have looked like. We pin castles in Scotland we’d like to inhabit, complex confections we’d like to bake, Hollywood leading men we’d like to seduce.  We know we won’t, but we like pretending that we could.

#4 It gets others to weigh in on stuff.

Here’s an experiment: Ask a man the following:

“Honey, what style of drapes do you want for the living room?”

Prepare for stumped silence.

Now try this instead: “Honey, which of these drapes do you prefer?” posed alongside page upon page of box pleats, swag, valance, roman shades — in every hue of the rainbow with every imaginable style of tie-back and trim.

Suddenly, it becomes a rapid-fire yes/no game that yields a winner quickly.

Now imagine substituting almost any word in for the noun there.

Halloween treat

Bathroom tile

Cape Cod bed and breakfast

Bridesmaid shoes

Suddenly you’re getting emphatic feedback from kids, contractors, mothers-in-law, clients – anyone.

Pinterest helps expand the field of choice visually, then narrow it methodically. For busy women, this decisiveness tool is a godsend.

#5 It champions the underdog.

Women care deeply about where their shopping dollars go. And we love to support women-owned businesses. Pinterest creates a level playing field where small-time Etsy shop owners go head-to-head with the Anthropologies of the world.  We discover beautiful one-of-a-kind items without polluting the world with glossy catalogs.  And if we’re unsure which scarf/earrings/blanket we like the most, see #4.

If you’ve not yet explored Pinterest, perhaps it’s time you do. If you’re a marketer and you market products to women, this site should definitely be on your radar screen.

I love Kat, and it’s my pleasure to introduce you to her here. An expert at marketing to women, Kat is Creative Director at Maternal Instinct and founder of The 3% Conference, a conference for female creative directors and brands and agencies who want to do a better job of marketing to women. You can, and should find her on Twitter @katgordon and her agency at Facebook.com/MaternalInstinct.~Shelly