Pinterest: An Appealing Social Media Platform for PR & Marketing

While Pinterest is not always considered a top-tier social media platform, some internet marketers argue that it’s too attractive for ambitious brands to ignore. The image-based platform continues to expand its audience and advertising options. It’s a proven ecommerce venue. In all, Pinterest has emerged as a worthwhile social media platform for both PR and marketing and for most all product categories.

Pinterest Demographics

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social platforms. It boasts more than 200 million monthly active users, and is approaching 250 million, according to news reports. While the conventional view holds that mostly women in their 30s and 40s visit the platform, its demographic base continues to expand to include more men and younger users. Half of millennial users visit Pinterest every month, the platform says. One in four American Pinterest users are men, and 40 percent of new sign-ups are men.

“Pinterest’s active user base will gradually become more diverse as the years go on, making it an increasingly viable and effective platform for virtually any brand to consider,” says brand consultant Victoria Greene in Social Media Today.

Pinterest is ideal for visually appealing products like clothing, furniture and food. But businesses selling more mundane products like accounting software or cleaning products have benefited from Pinterest, Greene says, citing General Electric as an example.

Pinners Show Strong Purchase Intent

Many brands find Pinterest especially valuable since users, or “Pinners,” express strong purchase intent. They often shop for merchandise or research products. They may start searching up to three months before a purchase. Citing Nielsen research, Pinterest says 98 percent of users report trying new products they find on the platform, compared to an average of only 71 percent across other social media platform.

Citing comScore data from January 2018, Pinterest says that roughly 47 million US shoppers used its platform to find back-to-school product ideas last year. It expects that number to rise this year.

Digital marketers sometimes compare Pinterest to Instagram, another visual-based network.

“While Pinterest’s highly targeted, inspirational content often gives consumers a quicker path to purchase, the influencer-dominated realm of Instagram provides intensely curated and visually captivating imagery from brands and individuals all over the world,” Jehan Hamedi, the founder and CEO of the image performance AI software Adhark, tells Marketing Land.

Pinterest Expands its Advertising Products

Pinterest has increased its options for its Promoted Pins and introduced them to more regions. Businesses can “boost” certain Pins for greater visibility and include links to their online stores or websites. Promoted Pins can also be retargeted to Pinners and personalized to suit a customized audience email or customer lists.

The platform recently announced that its Promoted Video at max. width is available to all advertisers. While videos at standard width are the same size as other Pins, videos at maximum width span across Pinterest’s two-column grid. Pinterest recommends that brands considering the new video format:

• Include a logo and strong branding, ideally visible in the first few seconds. People will engage even more if products are integrated into the video.
• Consider instructional videos, which people tend to watch longer and save more.
• Keep videos short, simple and focused on a key idea or message. Six to 20 seconds is ideal.

Tips for Improved Pinterest Promotions

Marketing experts recommend the following strategies to optimize product PR and merchandising on Pinterest:

First cover the basics. Install the Pinterest Save button to your website and create a Pinterest business profile. The About You section limits you to 160 characters, so make each character count and include keywords, states PR and social media expert Lisa Buyer in Search Engine Journal.

Image sizes. Understand the parameters for image sizes. Importantly, Pinterest limits the width of images but not the length, allowing you to take advantage of skyscraper images.

Tell a story. Emphasize images to relay an engaging story about your brand. “Pinterest is an ideal platform for storytelling. And when it comes to PR, I strongly believe that the storytelling approach works much better than direct promotions,” says Smedio! founder and editor Douglas Idugboe.

Events. If you attend trade shows or conferences, you can share pictures and videos.

Contribute to other boards. Like and share other users’ boards and items. “If you contribute, like and share other Pinterest users’ boards and items with similar interests, it serves as a passive PR tool for your business,” Idugboe says.

Augment PR with advertising. The platform offers promoted pins on the basis of clicks, impressions or engagement. Keep in mind that a pin can continue to live on as an organic pin after the paid promotion has ended.

Use your blog. A firm selling software as a service, not a typical Pinterest business user, pinned images from its blog posts — sometimes its own infographics or images of products, sometimes images from its paid Shutterstock account. Pinterest became its top social referrer after just a month and drove about $50,000 in new revenue in four months. “This is a public relations dream—using social media to drive new visitors, which can be attributed to sales,” says Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich.

Embed Pinterest content into websites and emails. For example, Sony incorporates Pins into its email marketing strategy, Green says.

Bottom Line: PR and marketing professionals may wish to take a new look at Pinterest. The platform is beefing up its advertising options and attracting more users. Pinterest promoters say even brands not selling visually appealing products like food and clothing can pin their PR and marketing hopes on the network.