![[Brand Analysis] Social Media Lessons You Can Learn by Studying Pinterest's Marketing Strategy](/blog/content/images/size/w2000/2022/10/New-size-blog-cover-templates--55-.png)
Having a strong visual effect, Pinterest is the go-to source of inspiration for a range of things, from decoration projects to outfit ideas. Everyone on the internet knows and loves Pinterest, that’s quite sure.
Being a social media platform on its own, Pinterest turned into one of the most powerful brands over the years.
Seizing the opportunity of becoming the world’s largest source of inspiration for all sorts of industries, Pinterest has understood how to bring marketing into the game.
For example, did you know that half of the U.S. users actually buy from Pinterest?
But all in all, how did Pinterest become so popular?
We decided to make an inquiry and dive into Pinterest’s social media strategy and marketing tactics the brand used to become the giant it is today.
Let’s start our journey!
Discover the secrets behind Pinterest's social media strategy
- Pinterest on LinkedIn
- Pinterest on Twitter
- Pinterest on Facebook
- Inspiration Nation
- You Might Just Suprise Yourself
- Creators Festival
1. Learn more about the brand’s identity through some Pinterest statistics
With more than a decade since its initial launch, Pinterest has grown into the largest visual discovery engine, while becoming, altogether a great e-commerce platform.
Actually, according to Oberlo, 28% of marketers use the platform to promote various products.
But in order to deeply understand the brand’s expansion and usage of the platform, let’s quickly go over some Pinterest statistics that will reveal the brand’s position in the marketing world, and among all the important players of the world.
Here are some handy Pinterest stats to understand the brand better:
- Pinterest has 444 million monthly active users
- Pinterest was the 31st most relevant brand in 2021
- The platform refers 33% more traffic to e-commerce sites than Facebook.
- 87% of Pinterest users have purchased something they discovered there
- Pinterest ads cost 2.3x less per conversion than other social media ads
- 28% of marketers use Pinterest to promote different products
- Pinterest has 2 billion monthly searches, and the main reason for usage is finding inspiration ideas related to home design
- Over 50% of active Pinterest users live outside the United States
- Pinterest is a huge part of the Millennial's buyer journey
- 89% of shoppers go to Pinterest to get ideas on what to buy
- 41% of people who shop in-store use Pinterest while shopping
- Pinterest reaches an average of 169 million people with ads
2. Pinterest's content strategy for social media
As Lyndsay McGregor, content marketing manager at Pinterest has told un in an episode from our podcast - The Life of a Social Media Manager - compared to all the other social media platforms out there, Pinterest is more of a personal media platform, instead of a social one.
How is that so, you may wonder?
Well, the principal differentiation is that people have a different mindset when visiting Pinterest compared to all the other social media platforms, like TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook.
People stay on Pinterest for more than liking other’s people pictures.
When visiting the “home of inspiration” - as the internal team likes to call themselves people are looking for ideas that could integrate into their daily lifestyle. They are, nevertheless, picturing their lives.
If you’d ask me, this is quite a unique selling proposition!
However, just because Pinterest is a giant media platform on its own, it doesn’t mean they are not present on the other social media platforms as well.
But they’re the competition - you may think!
That’s true! But some of these social platforms also offer the potential of reaching a huge part of the brand’s audience.
Pinterest on LinkedIn
LinkedIn, alongside Twitter, are the two leading social media platforms that Pinterest uses to promote its brand name.
LinkedIn is, without any doubt, the best platform for B2B marketing.
And with many e-commerce brands having great benefits as the result of creating a Pinterest marketing strategy and investing considerably into Pinterest ads, LinkedIn seems like the perfect platform to start looking for potential customers.
The brand’s LinkedIn content strategy focuses on trends and insights.
Since its LinkedIn audience is made out of decision-makers prospects, like other brands or agencies, Pinterest has a data-centered strategy.
On LinkedIn, Pinterest usually creates posts that highlight consumer trends to educate businesses about search behaviours on their key audiences.
Beyond the concept, Pinterest wraps its messages through either colorful, creative, and eye-catching videos or more informational pieces like re-shared blog articles.
Pinterest on Twitter
With a fanbase of more than two million followers, Pinterest is rocking on Twitter, that’s 100% sure.
Just by taking a peak, it’s easy to see that Pinterest's Twitter account stands out from the crowd from a mile away through a very well branded identity.
Pinterest has created a Twitter content strategy that’s very well aligned with its audience, having short and catchy captions for all of its tweets.
The brand uses a mix of short videos and images that are easy to recognize and associate with, thanks to its friendly, fresh, minimalistic, edgy vibe for its Twitter posts.
Pinterest on Facebook
Although Facebook is not a high-priority for Pinterest, the brand could not miss having a presence on the the world’s biggest social media platform.
On Facebook, once again Pinterest has shown its deep understanding of the audience’s preferences.
Pinterests’ Facebook account is mainly populated with short-form videos, as video content has proven to be the most engaging one on Facebook, just like our Facebook videos study has also confirmed.
3. Pinterest's marketing campaigns
As shown, Pinterest likes to dive deep into the audience’s needs, preferences and habits, not only to create really targeted messages for its social media accounts.
The best example of the brand’s analytical skills when it comes to understanding the market, it’s a local campaign Pinterest launched in the UK in 2021.
- Inspiration Nation
Inspiration Nation is a marketing campaign the brand has come up with to gain insights into Pinterest’s UK users and their consumer behaviours to help marketers better shape their messages when doing Pinterest advertising.
As Lyndsay has told us, the launch of this campaign has started with a partnership with a local magazine from the United Kingdom.
The collaboration included hosting a webinar together, where Pinterest's audience study insights were to be revealed.
However, the campaign gained its most exposure through the creation of a dedicated hub on Pinterest’s website.
- You Might Just Suprise Yourself
One of Pinterest’s marketing campaigns that gained massive exposure in 2021 was “You might just surprise yourself.”
It was designed to promote the expanded product discovery opportunities available in the platform, which also overlapped with the brand’s expansion on the Japanese market.
This integrated campaign ran across the United Kingdom and the United States and was developed by partnering with Creative agency Droga5, while global media agency Mediahub was behind its media strategy.
The T.V. and digital advertising campaign kicked off with a T.V. ad released in the United Kingdom, having many digital activations, incorporating audio, out-of-home, podcast, and social ads.
The campaign's centerpiece was a clip named "Discovery," and it was directed by Yann Demange, in both Mexico City and Los Angeles.
According to Pinterest the video it's meant to take the audience on "a fast-paced journey of exploration focusing on one woman's discovery before branching out into an unbroken, energetic thread of other characters' experiences."
And that's not all. A series of 15 films took this premise further, exploring the surprising leaps and ways people can expand their interests, thanks to the platform's increasingly smart interest matching.
As noted by MobileMarketing high-impact mural out-of-home installations were commissioned in London, New York, Chicago, and LA.
Driven by a desire to spark inspiration in new ways, Pinterest expanded the campaign across all media channels, along with high-impact media placements and unique brand partnerships.
- Creators' Festival
When it comes to marketing campaigns meant to unveil new features and launches, Pinterests’ skills are pretty hard to be outrun.
Talking about influencer marketing done right, have you heard about Pinterest’s Creators’ Festival - a global virtual event that featured top emerging creators?
Starting with the COVID19 pandemic, people switched their lifestyle 360 degrees and populated the digital space more than ever.
And as a results, live webinars have become the brand’s newest way to remain connected with their worldwide audiences.
Which was exactly what Pinterest intended to do through this international marketing campaign.
Meant to showcase the platform’s latest features’ updates without being overly promotional, Pinterest has interviewed many recognized talented creators on various topics like:
- how to grow an inspired audience;
- how to create high-quality content that fosters more meaningful engagement;
- how to monetize content;
- how to tackle challenges such as creator burnout.
By highlighting the latest creative products, features, and worldwide known creator’s experiences, Pinterest also aimed to pave the way for the next generation of creators, and help them create meaningful engagement with their communities.
Aya Kanai: Head of content and creator partnerships at Pinterest
👉 "Pinterest is building a future for creators focused on inspiration over entertainment and reaching audiences in an engaging, positive and actionable space.
What makes the Festival so special is, we're handing creators the microphone to share our new products as well as offer guidance and help other creators be successful on the platform."
To promote this initiative, Pinterest has created a dedicated landing page, where future attendees could register to watch the webinars, and not only.
Pinterest’s social media accounts were also used to promote this marketing endeavor, with posts mainly on the brand’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.
After analyzing how Pinterest has approached marketing over the years, and especially in 2021, if we were to sum up, Pinterests’ social media strategy briefly, we’d say that:
- Pinterest uses the latest trends when creating its social media strategy;
- The brand’s social strategy heavily relies on storytelling and data analysis;
- Pinterest is a fan of repurposing content.
As Lyndsay herself told us, other social media lessons you can learn by analyzing Pinterest's marketing strategy would be fostering cross-functional collaborations and creating fresh content weekly.
4. Pinterest's data performance stats
Its solid visual appeal made Instagram Pinterest's number one competitor among all the other social media platforms. Which made us wonder, how are the two of them positioned in other social networks?
Just a thought  - to see how different brands representing two different social media platforms perform on other networks as well, it's a much curious thing.
And since Twitter and LinkedIn are the platforms that interest Pinterest the most, we'll apply a brand comparison on the performance of this two.
Starting with a platform's performance analysis for Pinterest, why the brand has chosen these specific networks to orient its social media efforts becomes quite clear.
While Pinterest has a more extensive following on Twitter, LinkedIn has proven a much better platform in terms of engagement. Which is kind of obvious - given LinkedIn's more business-oriented positioning.
Pinterest and Instagram were both launched around the same timeframe.
But despite that, on Twitter, Instagram seems to have gained a more significant following and a more engaging community.
However, Pinterest's more niched audience can be a good explanation for this.
What comes as a surprise is that Instagram does not have an active presence on LinkedIn.
Besides posting occasional job openings, Instagram does not seem to be interested in managing its LinkedIn account.
5. Bonus: tips to create a marketing strategy for Pinterest
The reason marketers in particular, like Pinterest, is very much related to its ability to create a positive sentiment that drives people throughout the purchase funnel.
One of the main reasons - if not for most brands - for e-commerce brands in particular of why they should have a Pinterest marketing strategy is because Pinterest users are specifically looking for what a brand has to sell.
Therefore, with smaller efforts compared to other social platforms, you can increase your click-through rate and eventually your company’s profits in a quicker way by having a Pinterest marketing strategy.
When doing Pinterest marketing, just like on any other social media platform, every brand must have a solid strategy based on research and data.
To help you build up your Pinterest strategy and build a community around your brand, here are a couple of tactics you should experiment with:
- pin engaging, fresh, creative, and captivating content;
- test different Pin formats;
- join Group Boards (also known as collaborative boards);
- optimize your Pins for SEO;
- try out different Pin ads (which by the way, are similar with the rest of the pins to not interrupt the user experience);
- embed Pins on your blog;
- share your pins and boards on other social media channels.
More general tips for your Pinterest marketing strategy would also be two essential elements of every marketing endeavor: tell a visual story and humanize your brand!
Remember that authenticity as well as getting creative never go out of style!
Final thoughts
There you have it! The most important Pinterest marketing strategies that have turned this brand’s name into a reckoning one.
Suppose you’re thinking about adding marketing on Pinterest to your overall social media strategy. In that case, you can start integrating some of the tactics the brand itself uses for promotion and mixing them with the Pinterest marketing tips that we shared.
Get started with Pinterest marketing to boost conversions, increase sales, and grow your business to match Pinterest's own brand performance!
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