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Consumers and Brands are Winning with Pinterest this Holiday Season

December 15, 2017





If you’re anything like me, this is the time of year when you really hit your Pinning stride on Pinterest. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are my Pinterest big three trifecta. My home page is a flurry of DIY halloween costumes, fall recipes, holiday drinks and decorating inspiration. The only thing that gets my Pin button burning more is vacation planning, so throw in a Thanksgiving weekend getaway, and that lingering home remodeling project from the summer, and suddenly Twitter, Instagram and Facebook fall by the wayside. If I had to choose a preferred social media platform, at the moment I’m 100% team Pinterest.

But regardless of platform, one thing remains consist these days – social media advertising is big business. Revenues are expected to exceed $35 billion in 2017, according to Hootsuite. Facebook is the biggest of the bunch, with a longer history and more users than the other platforms, so advertisers are more comfortable with Facebook, and spend the majority of their ad dollars here. In 2016, Instagram (purchased and supported by Facebook) and Twitter reported astronomical increases in advertising revenue and engagement with promoted posts. On Twitter, ad engagement was up 91%, and overall costs per engagement were down, which is good news for brands trying to do more with coveted ad budgets.

In September 2017, Pinterest announced that they had more than 200 million users and that one in two users made purchases after seeing a promoted Pin. Not only are they making more purchases, they are spending more than users on all other social media platforms with an average purchase of $50.

Video ads led to a 2x higher awareness over Promoted Pins.

Retailers like Lowes are using promoted boards and Pins to drive brand awareness and in-store purchase with great success, by placing ads in front of users while they are searching for inspiration for their latest home project. On Pinterest consumers can watch DIY videos and see the products in real homes, while being just one click away from a purchase.

New social media products are launching all the time, offering smarter ways and new opportunities for brands to reach consumers. The latest from Pinterest is “Secret Santa,” which creates a custom board of gift recommendations for one of your followers, based on what they are currently pinning. CVS, Bed Bath & Beyond and Amazon are sponsoring the service, and so naturally buyable Pins from these brands show up on your inspiration board. But a curated board of gifts ideas for that one friend who has everything sounds pretty cool, and I can’t wait to try it out.

In an interview earlier this year, the president of Pinterest, Tim Kendall, told Marketing Week, that the the Pinterest “brand’s goal is to figure out the way people can spend the least amount of time using Pinterest in order to achieve their objective,…we don’t measure time spent…We want people to have a delightful experience, but ultimately, we want to inspire people with an idea and then help them – with the least amount of friction – to make that idea a reality.”

Less screen time means more facetime with friends and family, which seems to be a universal goal this time of the year. Now, that’s a brand value I can embrace!

If you are exhausted by your daily Twitter newsfeed, and only scan Facebook to identify who you need to unfriend this week, then log off of both and head to Pinterest. When you get there, you’ll find a recipe for that drink you desperately need, and cute new shoes for that party you have coming up. Get what you want, then get out and celebrate for real. That’s my definition of a #HolidayGoal.

Author:

Michelle Taglialatela is Tag’s brand strategist, one of 35 nationally who is certified by The Brand Establishment.
Michelle applies Tag’s proprietary process to create one-of-a-kind brand strategies that transform cultures and improve the bottom line. Tag has brand depth rivaled by few; and has been working with clients for more than a decade helping them exceed their objectives and stand out!

About The Brand Establishment

The Brand Establishment perfected the first contemporary brand development process specifically for small to mid-sized advertisers more than two decades ago. These tools and procedures have been utilized by companies in virtually every business sector – hundreds of times.