With Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter, as well as mass layoffs at both Meta and Twitter, social media is a pretty volatile place at the moment, to put it lightly.

Amid the negative press coverage of social media platforms and a potential recession, it’s understandable business owners and marketing managers are feeling unsure about which platform offers the best bang for their buck and where to focus their organic and paid marketing efforts right now.

Pinterest is not unaware of these struggles and I recently attended an Independent Agency breakfast event hosted by Pinterest Australia and Accenture about future-proofing marketing strategies in 2023.

So, I thought I’d share some of the key lessons from the event to provide you with food for thought as to whether Pinterest marketing could be worth ramping up further or adding to your marketing initiatives moving into the new year.

Here are 6 awesome things you might not know about Pinterest.

Lesson 1: Pinterest is the #1 platform for driving inspiration. 

If you were looking into TV and magazine advertising you may want to consider Pinterest Ads instead. Pinterest is the #1 platform for driving inspiration, over even TV and magazines.

We know pinners (of which there are 500 million worldwide) plan earlier than users on any other social media platform. They use Pinterest as a starting point and come with an open mind ready to discover new products and ideas, and get inspired.

Pinterest says that over 60% of people surveyed agree with the statement ‘when I’m in an inspirational environment or mindset, I’m more likely to explore and discover things to try or buy’. Great news for brands wanting to grow and reach new customers.

Lesson 2: Open minds = open wallets. An inspired audience spends big. 

Pinterest says, ‘the magic of moving up the funnel is that open minds open wallets – and increase average order value’. Research shows 91% of people who convert on Pinterest saw an ad on the site mid-funnel and ultimately spent more. People on Pinterest outspend non-pinners by 2X every month and have 85% larger baskets. For this reason, Pinterest users are known as ‘super shoppers’ and are why it is such a lucrative advertising platform.

Lesson 3: 97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded.

97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded where people on Pinterest want to buy something new, but aren’t committed to a certain brand or product just yet. Meaning? There is a massive opportunity for your brand to acquire new customers and get discovered by optimising your pins and ads to align with the search terms and trends your audience is most interested in.

You can use Pinterest’s trends tool to find out more about what content is popular with your target audience. You can even refine your search to explore trends by interests, keywords, age, gender, and season, and discover growing trends to guide your content strategy. So handy!

Pinterest hinted that their next batch of Pinterest Predicts trend forecasts for 2023 are due to drop in late 2022. Super useful timing for getting a window into the future and cherry-picking relevant trends to factor into your 2023 planning. Keep an eye out for those. 

Lesson 4: Pinterest ranks #1 in digital trust among its competitors. 

Pinny ranks number 1 for trustworthiness ahead of the likes of LinkedIn, Reddit and Instagram. According to Insider Intelligence’s Digital Trust Report, Pinterest surpassed LinkedIn in 2022 to become the most trusted platform on the World Wide Web.

Business Insider says, ‘low trust can erode ad effectiveness and user engagement – and even drive some people to completely abandon a social platform’. Knowing trust is high on Pinterest signals to businesses and marketers they too can use the platform to build trust for their brand. Also, brands can feel confident to invest in the platform knowing pinners are there for the long haul providing opportunities for engagement and sales.

Lesson 5: Pinterest: the happiest place on the internet. 

Pinterest is not the place for doomscrolling or where ‘trolls’ hang out leaving nasty comments. It’s a largely aspirational and positive environment where people go to discover ideas to ‘build their best life’. Think: recipes, fashion, home decor and wellness. And for these reasons, it is a really nice and attractive corner of the internet.

Not to mention the great initiatives Pinterest has rolled out over the last 6 years or so to make it an even nicer social media platform that looks out for its users, including:

• 2017 – Launched the health misinformation policy blocking anti-vaccination content.
• 2018 – Banned political ads.
• 2019 – Rolled out ‘compassionate search’ for people seeking mental health support.
• 2021 – Banned weight loss ads and introduced skin tone searches and hair patterns tools to Australia. 

These power moves against misinformation and harmful content are a credit to Pinterest and we certainly feel like Zuckerberg and Musk could and should take a leaf out of Pinterest’s policy playbook. 

Lesson 6: +45% increase in ROAS (return on ad spend) for advertisers investing in multiple campaign objectives compared to conversion-only campaigns. 

If you are considering Pinterest Ads, we recommend adopting a multi-objective approach to advertising (i.e. ads with awareness, traffic, leads and conversion goals) as Pinterest says that is how advertisers achieve more success and see higher ROAS on their platform. 

In fact, Pinterest says advertisers can expect to see a 2.4x improvement in sales lift when more than one campaign objective is used. Very nice.

Plus, if you invest in organic Pinterest marketing by pinning images that link to your website, blog and product pages, you can experience a serious uplift in impressions – which, in turn, increases brand awareness and has positive flow-on effects for digital advertising across all channels!

So, Pinterest: one platform to rule them all? 

Not exactly, but Pinterest sure does have a lot of good things going for it and reasons to get on board for your brand. And it does, at present, rule in the trustworthiness stakes beating out LinkedIn, Reddit and Instagram. 

As with everything in life, it’s best to not put all your eggs in one basket. So we always suggest to businesses and marketing managers to diversify their strategies across the most relevant social media platforms for their business. There’s a whole world of social media and advertising options out there to be explored! Why limit yourself and your business’s growth to just one?

For more insights on alternative platforms for social media advertising, read about the best alternatives to Facebook Ads. 

Learn more about Pinterest Ads here or get in touch with us to talk about a custom Pinterest strategy for your brand.