Some interesting observations in junk wax marketing and trends

[Classic Wax Cards]

I'm an online affiliate marketer. I have many sites, pages, and other entities online that are designed to generate money based on volumes of traffic clicking on, or committing certain actions from with in these various places online.

My biggest projects involve things that I am very interested in personally. It helps to keep me committed and interested and makes it less like work and more like a hobby.

My newest project is a website focusing on junk wax baseball cards (not trying to plug my site here, but it is necessary to mention it in this instance). I promote this site though several means and various social networks.

One of the ways of promoting this particular site, was to create a Pinterest account. For those not familiar, Pinterest is a social network where you have a home page. You create categories (boards) on this page. In the boards, you post (pin) pictures from around the web. Other users can find your pins through either following you, or keyword searches in Pinterest. People can like, or share (repin) your content. A pretty typical platform.

Ive created (am creating) a board for each of the sets im working with. Each board will have the top 30ish cards in it for the set. Every board and pin is set up the same way. The board is titled with the sets year, brand, and term "baseball cards." Each pin in the board is titled with the year, brand, player, and again the term "baseball card."

heres where it gets interesting... Because I'm using exactly the same formatting and photography for each board and pin, all the pins and boards should be considered equal to start with. Its up to the other users to determine what pins stand out.

I currently have a board for 1986 Topps (the 33 top cards of the set.) 1986 Donruss (the top 32 cards of the set.) And 1987 Topps (21 of the top cards, still in progress.) Other sets/cards will follow.

In doing this, I've been able to see some interesting trends within Pinterest. Basically, I can see what sets/cards are hit upon the most from people doing keyword searches. The results are pretty interesting.

Generally speaking, most of the cards have not been touched. Nobody's done anything with them. Others have taken off completely unexpected. Here's some examples...

In the 1986 Topps series, a few of the cards get just a couple likes/shares. But whats very interesting is what cards get the most. The Darren Daulton card has 4. The Pete Rose player card has 5. The Rickey Henderson All Star card has 9. The Pete Rose MGR card has 16. The 86 Topps Reggie Jackson card has 27! Cards in the set that have none are all the other top cards including the Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, 2 Cal Ripkens, 2 George Bretts, and the Mattingly among others.

In the 1986 Donruss board, we again see most of the top cards with no likes or shares. And again several cards have a couple. This time, the cards with the most are Nolan Ryan with 5, Tom Seaver with 6, and the good ol Jose Canseco with 8.

In the 87 Topps board, again most have no likes/shares or just a couple. Then we see Cal Ripken with 4, and Barry Bonds with 6. The other top cards like the McGwire and the Bo have just 2 each, same as Doug Drabek and Devon White.

I find it really interesting that of all the great cards in those 3 sets, the 86 Reggie Jackson vastly dominates. I also find it very interesting that a player may be popular in 1 year/brand and not the other, such as Pete Rose and Nolan Ryan.

Not that any of this means anything, as there are a few variables im sure, but I still think it's pretty interesting from a marketing/analytic point of view.

Just thought I'd share.

and now I'm off to promote eBay auctions for psa 9-10 1986 Reggie Jackson cards and collect the commissions lol :-)