The use of pinterest in marketing communication

Abstract

Businesses in order to stay in contact with customers utilize various communication channels. Due to the rise of informational technology and changes in marketing communication, integrated marketing communications (IMC) have emerged. Nowadays, the popularity of social media platforms as a key part of IMC is growing and evolving at a rapid pace. Hence, with using social media marketing companies obtain a powerful tool to establish close and personal relationships with customers. Especially, visual bookmarking platform Pinterest has gained a widespread popularity among shoppers, which therefore offers companies a potential channel to engage with their stakeholders. This research aims at exploring the reasons, a retail company uses Pinterest in marketing communication. In order to get a deep insight on the topic, a case study methodology was used, followed by an in-depth interview with Social Media Manager of online jewelry shop and visual analysis of Pinterest profile of the company. The findings suggest that Pinterest drives traffic to the websites and boosts sales. Although, there was no correlation between Pinterest marketing and increasing in brand awareness revealed, Pinterest is considered as an opportunity to create customers’ loyalty. By reviewing the literature and the analysis of the data gathered, recommendations and conclusions are drawn that would help understand how to make the usage of Pinterest effective and also gives insights into future research.

Date of Award	19 Oct 2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Marcin Awdziej (Supervisor)