By Elena Villaespesa, Pratt Institute, United States, Jennie Choi, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA While the majority of The Met’s Online Collection users come from organic search, a significant volume of traffic comes from Pinterest. These users are normally in a discovery mode, and are looking for something that sparks an idea, stimulates their creativity, or provides a rich visual experience. In many cases they clicked on a pin link and came upon The Met’s Online Collection, they do not come to the website with a specific purpose, so their visit is unfocused and freer. Web analytics data shows how their behavior is different to other traffic sources and digging into the specific pins we can see how this site brings visits to objects that are not in the highlights of each curatorial department. Thousands of pins have been saved by users in the more diverse and sometimes unexpected boards. From crochet to tattoos, watches or color boards, Pinterest users come to the Collection and find something special that matches their professional or personal interests. This lightning talk will present data about the characteristics of Pinterest users including some fascinating stories about how people use the Collection artworks. Moreover, we will discuss how these platforms can bring new audiences and the challenges to provide an inspiring experience that will keep them discovering more art on the website. See a video version of this presentation on the MW Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MWMuseumsandtheWeb

2. Data source: Google Analytics (2017)

3. Inspiration seekers & Casual browsers
Looking for a piece
of tablet weaving
that I am hoping to
recreate.
I was recently
introduced to the
work of Herbert
Crowley, and I am
looking at photos
of his paintings
and cartoons.
Saw something
cool and unusual
in an area of
interest.
look at quilts
Data source: Online Survey (February 2018, N=388)

4. 16K objects shared in 2017 on Pinterest
Pretty equal distribution of the number of object shares
Data source: Google Analytics (2017)