In this lesson you'll learn:
Pinterest is a highly visual website where people can browse, search for and save ideas and inspiration about topics that interest them.
Pinterest analyzes the Pins each Pinner saves, then suggests more Pins that person might like on their “Home Feed.” The Home Feed is a seemingly endless grid of Pins someone sees whenever they login to Pinterest.
If someone recently saved some recipe ideas for Christmas cookies, they might see more Christmas cookie recipes, or perhaps some Christmas decoration ideas, or new bakeware for their kitchen.
Since every person is unique, no two Pinners will have the same collection of Pins. One person may collect Pins about baking, fashion and travel, while another likes to Pin art, parenting ideas and beauty tips.
This also means no two Pinners will be shown the same Pins on their Home Feed when they log into Pinterest.
Here’s what the Home Feed of our Pinterest account for Tailwind looks like right now. As you can tell, we Pin a lot about marketing, so Pinterest shows us a lot of marketing-related Pins.
.webp)
This personalized discovery that happens on Pinterest makes it an incredibly powerful marketing platform. Pinners see content that aligns with their interests. If your business provides products, services, or content related to those interests, Pinners will be happy to find your brand’s Pins in their feed. It’s not an interruption to how people use Pinterest; rather, discovery of products and services is baked into how Pinterest brings value to Pinners’ lives.
Pinterest is an incredible marketing platform precisely because their user’s are in a different headspace than they are on other popular sites. In general, people log onto Facebook and Instagram to see updates from other users and accounts they follow so a post or ad from your business that appears in their feed is unrelated to their original intent for getting on the site. You may be able to grab their attention and get them to clickthrough to your site, but you’ll have to overcome the friction of asking them to do something they didn’t originally plan on doing.
A Pinterest user, on the other hand, gets on Pinterest so that they can discover Pins like yours because Pinterest is about content discovery. They're actively looking for your content, products, and solutions. When your Pin appears in their search results, it’s not distracting them from their original intent, finding your Pin is their intent. They are on Pinterest to discover, learn, find new and interesting things, and be inspired to create something. This alignment between your marketing and their intent makes Pinterest a uniquely effective and powerful marketing opportunity.
Search is a big part of Pinterest and that fact is a key part of understanding why Pinterest marketing is unlike marketing for Facebook, Instagram, X, and other popular social media sites. Someone looking for Christmas cookie recipes can type “Christmas cookie recipes” into the Pinterest search bar, and be presented with a seemingly infinite number of options gathered from across the web by other Pinners.
As Pinners search, Pinterest also suggests refinements to the search query, helping them navigate to precisely what they’re looking for. Here’s what that looks like, continuing with the Christmas cookie recipe example:
Shopping has also become a bigger part of Pinterest over the years. Many topics Pinners are interested in eventually require some form of purchase to turn the Pins they’ve saved into actual parts of their lives. This might mean shopping for new outfits, home decor, beauty products, places to stay when traveling - and even marketing software like Tailwind!
As Pinners explore Pins across Pinterest, Pinterest will recommend similar products or content they might be interested in. Maybe a certain sweater is kind of what they want - but not exactly. Perhaps another one on Pinterest will fit the bill better!
Pinterest is often referred to as a “visual discovery platform.” It’s part inspiration board, part search engine, part shopping site, and part marketing platform all in one.
As an entrepreneur or marketer, Pinterest can be a powerful tool to help your brand get discovered and drive traffic. But for that to happen, you need to learn how Pinterest works, what opportunities exist to make money on Pinterest and the best practices to follow so your content can be seen by people who are looking for products and services just like yours.
In the next lesson, we’ll learn more about how Pinterest understands and analyzes content, powering features like Pinterest image search.
If you’re a small business owner considering Pinterest as part of your marketing strategy, you’re probably wondering: Who actually uses Pinterest? Is my target audience there? Understanding Pinterest’s audience is key to determining whether the platform is a good fit for your brand and how to tailor your marketing efforts to reach the right people. Let’s dive into the latest data and insights about who uses Pinterest and why it might be the perfect platform for your business.
Here’s a snapshot of who’s using Pinterest:
When it comes to advice on how to promote your business online, you’ll hear a lot about “the big 3” marketing channels, Google, Facebook, and Instagram, but Pinterest will often be left out of the conversation. Pinterest is an extremely underrated marketing channel for small businesses. Sure, Pinterest doesn’t have billions of users like Google and Facebook do, but 460,000,000 users (as of July 2024) is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, the lack of attention it gets as a marketing channel means there’s less competition with other marketers and businesses. Your content and ads have a better chance of being seen and engaged with.
As an entrepreneur or marketer, Pinterest can be a powerful tool to help your brand get discovered and drive traffic. But for that to happen, you need to learn how Pinterest works, what opportunities exist to make money on Pinterest and the best practices to follow so your content can be seen by people who are looking for products and services just like yours.
In the next lesson, we’ll learn more about how Pinterest understands and analyzes content, powering features like Pinterest image search.
Key takeaways:
