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"Approximately 70% of brand engagement on Pinterest is generated by users, according to a recent study by Digitas and Curalate.\nHowever, companies in the fashion retail and automotive industries aren't capitalizing on Pinterest's engagement. According to Digitas, the lack of brands using Pinterest leaves a gap in overall marketing strategies.\n\"Brands need to go forth and pin,\" said senior vice president of social, mobile, and content lead at Digitas Jordan Bitterman. \"This study reveals the opportunity for brands to drive the conversation on visual platforms like Pinterest. By leveraging rich consumer insight, brands can take the guesswork out of their visual content strategy, and share the types of images their audience wants to see.\"\nDigitas and Curalate found that only 18% of fashion retail brands pin items on Pinterest. The study found that the average retail fashion pin by a brand receives about 46 repins.\nThe automotive industry was also reported to be lacking in Pinterest engagement. According to the study, more than 75% of Pinterest engagement for the industry is driven by users.\nFor automotive brands, more repins were made on community posting than brand postings. The study found that brands received only three repins on average. That is compared to about the 10 repins that users received for posting automotive products.\n\"Aspirational products such as cars should do well on Pinterest. It's unfortunate to see the auto industry stuck in first gear,\" said chief executive of Curalate Apu Gupta. \"The industry needs to leverage the heritage of their brands to tell compelling visual stories that create emotional connections with consumers.\"\nOne industry that was found to be very active in the Pinterest community was electronic brands. Digitas and Curalate found that 47% of electronic industry pins were made by brands. The study found that pictures of e-health devices proved to be very popular on the site.\nThe study was created using statistics from more than 10 million Pinterest pins, comments and likes. Digitas and Curalate examined Pinterest data from more than 120 brands for the study.\nPinterest use for marketing purposes has been gaining momentum in the past few years. Last month, Pinterest introduced analytics for verified brands in a bid to improve marketers' experience with the social network.\nImage via iStockphoto, JuliaMag"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/05/01/brand-engagement-pinterest/>