About 20% of content shared to social networks was shared to Pinterest during Q3, up from 16% in Q2, according to an analysis of client data from Gigya. While Facebook remained the leading destination with a plurality 41% of shares, that was down from 50% in Q2, as Pinterest and Twitter both demonstrated strong growth, with the latter increasing its percentage of shares from 24% to 30%. The data reveals that there continue to be significant disparities when sorting by content type, with Pinterest extending its lead over Facebook in the e-commerce space.
During the 3rd quarter, Pinterest was the destination for 44% of e-commerce site and application shares, up from 41% during the prior quarter. Facebook stood pat at 37% share, with Pinterest’s growth coming at the expense of Twitter, which fell from 17% of shares in Q2 to 12% in Q3.
Facebook wasn’t seriously challenged in any of the other verticals analyzed. On consumer brands properties, where Twitter rivaled Facebook in Q2, the latter increased its leading position, growing its percentage of shares by 5 points to 46%, while Twitter was flat at 38%. Pinterest actually emerged as the big gainer in this vertical, increasing from 2% of shares to 11%.
There was more movement in the media and publishing vertical: Facebook retained its position as the top social network for sharing on media and publishing web properties, but it fell from 52% of shares in Q2 to 40% in Q3. Making up the difference were Twitter (30%, from 23%) and Pinterest (20%, from 18%).
When it came to travel/hospitality and education/non-profit sites, Facebook remained dominant, at a leading 61% and 65% of shares, respectively.
Other research is also pointing to Pinterest’s growing influence: ShareThis recently reported that sharing via Pinterest is growing quickly this year, while in the other direction, Shareaholic data indicates that Pinterest is now a bigger social referrer of traffic than Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit and numerous others, second only to Facebook.