The past year social media has seemed to be dominated by likes of Facebook (for both good and not-so-good reasons), Instagram, and Snapchat. While these platforms spurred the trend toward video content, marketers have since continued to leverage this format throughout their marketing mix. So how does Pinterest, which utilizes both images and videos, fit in the picture for businesses?

Well, it stepped up its game in terms of video in 2018. In August of last year, Pinterest tested and launched Promoted Video at max width to all its advertisers. Promoted video or advertising video had been available since 2016. The new wider format allows for videos to be played at 4x bigger, increasing engagement rates from 12%-33% according to initial brand tests. Promoted Video at max. width stretches across people’s entire feeds on mobile, helping their brands stand out.

Hello Millennials

So users are utilizing video pins more and more on this platform. It makes sense when you consider the Cisco statistic that states by 2021 video content with makeup 82% of all consumer internet traffic. Millennials sure seem to like it, and considering Pinterest’s biggest demographic is Millennials, with statistics showing nearly 70% of Pinners are Millennials. Maybe this makes you wonder if your company should be pinning or not. You first have to consider the stats and then see how your company fits into the Pinterest space.

While it’s clear that social media has become a part of most companies marketing efforts, it’s also important to understand that each platform offers brands and businesses access to a particular audience with specific sets of interests, values, and demographics. Here are some of the interesting stats on Pinterest from Infegy’s 2019 Pinterest sentiment analysis that companies can use to make their business case for using the platform and for developing messaging:

Pinterest User Stats:

  • Over 250 million users are active on Pinterest monthly
  • 125 million users are from the U.S.
  • About 5 million new users are active each month
  • 53% of Pinners use Pinterest daily or several times a week (For Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat that percentage is over 60% for just daily use)
  • Users are most active in the evening hours
  • Average time spent on Pinterest per visit is 14 minutes
  • 80% of users access Pinterest through a mobile device

And as for those 18-34 year-old Millennials (mostly all female) that dominate the platform, here’s a snapshot of their characteristics, according to Pinterest data:

  • 1 of 2 Millennials use Pinterest every month
  • 86% use Pinterest to plan both small and big life moments
  • 83% of weekly Pinners have made a purchase based on Pins from brands
  • 63% say Pinterest helps them discover new brands or products to buy
  • 50% have an annual household income over $75k

Pinterest Stats For Businesses:

  • Over 1.5 million businesses utilize Pinterest monthly
  • Pinterest use and activity varies by demographics
  • However, food, health, tech, and creative products & brands drive the most conversation on Pinterest
  • It is a very positive platform, second only to Instagram, leading all other social channels in this characteristic
  • More than 14 million company articles are Pinned each day
  • Pinterest has seen a substantial growth in advertising especially from small businesses at 50% more year-over-year since 2017
  • Promoted Pins are repinned an average of 11 times per advertisement

The reason it’s not only fun to look at all these stats on Pinterest, there’s value for companies to understand where a niche might be for their business to pursue on this platform. Additionally, according to reports, Pinterest is gearing up for a mid-2019 IPO. So last year they introduced new features to make their app and website stickier to users, and more appealing to advertisers.

Photo With Text Search

One particular feature businesses with highly visual products should know about is the Pinterest Lens. They combined lens photo searches with text searches. This means users can pair a search term like “centerpieces” with a picture of a centerpiece from a recent wedding they attended. Users then see results with all the related centerpiece ideas. Within a year of introducing this feature, the number of visual searches has increased 140% to 600 million queries every month. Think of the possibilities if you’re a clothing retailer, caterer, remodeler, florist, etc…

Pinterest is happening and is established and agile in promoting business content. It’s also made a concentrated effort to attract small businesses to try to entice users with local content. So companies just need to find the right strategy for working in this social media platform. We’ve got lots of Pinterest ideas to help you get started, contact us to learn more.