Advertising your business on Pinterest – Y or N?

In pure numbers, Pinterest may not rival social media juggernauts like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. For many, this alone might make it unappealing as a new marketing front to tackle. Trends in social media marketing NYC sees do suggest as much. As with all things marketing, however, audience numbers and potential reach alone don’t tell the full story. Yes, you may not reach the massive audiences of other platforms, and yes, Pinterest requires some effort. But which audiences do you need to reach, and what doesn’t require effort in this field? These and other business-specific questions will ultimately decide if advertising your business on Pinterest is the right choice for you. So, let’s get started.

Pinterest by the numbers

First, let us briefly explore Pinterest as a platform. Glancing through its key metrics should explain why one can’t give blanket answers on this topic.

#1 Audience size

Starting with the basics, let us repeat that Pinterest is certainly not in the league of other social media titans. In terms of active users, it ranks 14th, according to SproutSocial:

That’s not to say that 442 million active users don’t deserve your attention. That’s still a massive potential audience you may tap into. Especially if you have some experience with visual-focused social media, you may do so rather easily.

#2: Growth

For that matter, Pinterest’s audience is growing – albeit in specific directions. To illustrate, let us first cite some statistics SearchEngineJournal reported on last year:

• “Pinterest’s U.S. membership has been steadily growing since 2016.”
• “[In 2020,] monthly average users (MAUs) have increased 37% globally.”
• “With the growth in every quarter, Pinterest grew its revenue from just over $1B in 2019 to $1.69B for 2020.”

Still, those only offer insights into the platform’s growth. How about audiences specifically then?

Here we may cite some of SproutSocial’s statistics again:

• “Pinterest demographics are up 50% year-over-year for Gen Z[.]”
• “[Similarly, they are up] 35% year-over-year for Millennials.”
• “[T]he number of Pinterest users under age 25 grew twice as fast in Q2 2020 than those ages 25 and older.”

So do those stats suggest that you should be advertising your business on Pinterest? Perhaps – but speaking of demographics, this final section bears noting.

#3: Demographics

Finally, as you can see above, Pinterest has specific demographic strengths businesses may lean on. To keep this brief and digestible, consider the average user’s profile as statistics frame it:

• 1% of Pinterest audiences are female, while only 14.5% of Pinterest users are male.
• 32% of Pinterest users are 18-29 years old, 34% are 30-49 years old, and 38% are 50-64 years old.
• “The median age of a Pinterest user is 40, however, the majority of active pinners are below 40.”

That said, Pinterest’s younger demographic is growing steadily, as we highlighted above. Still, as it stands, Pinterest offers a somewhat unique user base. It’s quite different from primarily male or evenly distributed ones of other platforms, and age distribution also varies somewhat.

Advertising your business on Pinterest – why?

So, that’s a brief but hopefully satisfactory look into its numbers. With them in mind, why would you want to advertise your business on Pinterest? Consolidated for your convenience, here are our top three picks:

#1: If you need to expand your reach

For one, any social media marketing campaigns on new platforms directly expand your reach. 442 million users are only modest in comparison to Facebook’s staggering 2,7 billion but are certainly not negligible.

That’s not just a direct benefit to your social media reach either. An expanded social media presence will also inform and benefit your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts as well. Granted, it won’t be direct, as any reputable SEO company NYC offers will tell you, but it will be substantive. As we’ve covered before, Google’s John Mueller famously said:

“Being active on the social media platforms is a great way to test and refine your website content to see if it’s connecting with users, but it’s not a ranking factor.”

#2: If you’re looking to drive sales

But reach and SEO will only go so far if your audiences aren’t looking to buy, right? Interestingly, Pinterest’s users are, and quite more so than other platforms’ users:

Here, one may note the rather startling finding that Pinners get more purchasing ideas from Pinterest than from their peers. Coupled with Pinterest’s own find that “80% of weekly Pinners have discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest”, your business may have considerable sales to look forward to.

#3 If you’re active on visual-focused social media

Finally, most businesses already engage in some form of social media marketing. While often dubbed as a visual search engine, Pinterest doesn’t drastically differentiate from other platforms at its core. Thus, expanding to it will come very easily to many.

Especially for experienced social media marketers, Pinterest will present ample opportunities with minimal effort. For a notable example, consider cross-posting opportunities with Instagram posts and Facebook visual content. That’s very, very easy to fit into one’s schedule – with many potential returns.

Advertising your business on Pinterest – why not?

Now, all that said, there wouldn’t be a question if the answer was so easy. There are also valid reasons to avoid advertising your business on Pinterest, despite its promise. Unlike its merits, these will primarily hinge on your own business, niche, target audience, and so on. To isolate the 3 most common ones, our picks are the following:

#1: If you really can’t budget for it

The final arbiter of many marketing decisions, especially for smaller and emerging businesses, lies in budgeting.

Your business may simply not have the resources to undertake this expansion. Or, you may only now seek to start delving into social media marketing. In such cases, prioritizing larger platforms or postponing this endeavor may make more sense for you.

#2: If your primary audience isn’t there

Second, and a crucial distinction to make, Pinterest may simply not house your primary audience.

Yes, audience numbers by themselves don’t tell the full story – but demographics might. As we highlighted above, Pinterest offers an overwhelmingly female audience:

While this does present an opportunity for many businesses across many industries, it also excludes others by default. With a male audience of only 14,5%, many businesses may need to look for their target audience elsewhere.

#3: If it doesn’t suit your product or service

Finally, as with all social media platforms, Pinterest has its own unique focus; on visuals. To succeed, marketers will need to leverage attractive visuals to stand out in their audiences’ increasingly crowded feeds.

Requiring a different skill set than, say Twitter marketing, Pinterest also presents another potential drawback. Namely, not all products or services may work well within this format. In such cases, especially on tighter budgets, you may best consider other forms of marketing, such as Pay Per Click (PPC). In our experience, PPC services New York agencies offer may very well offer an excellent substitute toward meeting one’s goals.

Conclusion

To conclude, advertising your business on Pinterest may very well make sense for your business. It offers a comparatively modest but highly engaged, purchase-ready audience, and the platform continues to grow steadily. Experienced social media marketers will also find themselves at home, and have the option to cross-post their material. However, it may also not offer the ideal audience for your business, or it may not adequately flatter your product or service. Finally, your budget may simply not allow it at this point in time. Generally, yes, Pinterest warrants marketers’ attention – but the final choice will depend on your own business needs.