Pinterest may not be your brands’ go-to platform for Influencer Marketing or even any other kind of marketing. I mean, it’s really more of a huge idea search engine than a social media platform. Maybe it doesn’t have the same up-to-the minute gratification that other platforms provide. But it can be one of the most effective platforms—no matter how you view it—for long-term gains and partnerships. If you know how to leverage it strategically, Influencer Marketing in Pinterest could become your next secret weapon.

Why Incorporate Pinterest Into Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns?

There are two primary reasons for creating Pinterest Influencer Marketing campaigns:

  1. Consumers go to Pinterest to get inspired AND make purchases. Nine out of ten people use Pinterest for inspiration before buying. Eight of them end up doing so, according to Pinterest.
  2. Pinterest has a gigantic audience. Four-hundred and fifty-nine million active users and potential customers await you there. That’s more than Twitter and Snapchat combined.

What Are the Top 2 Secrets of Pinterest Influencer Marketing Campaigns?

1. Align With Power Pinners

Successful Influencer Marketing in Pinterest includes many components, but the most important is picking the right influencers. However, Pinterest influencers look a little different than other influencers. These social media mavens are called “Power Pinners,” mostly because they are ahead of the trends, know their follower’s styles and needs, and curate customized boards just for them.

Data we compiled about the top five Pinterest Power Pinners, according to InfluencerMarketingHub.com, shows that they have an average of almost 10 million followers and 261 million monthly views. They’ve created an average of 115 boards and have pinned an average of 438 pins to each board. Whew!

Pinner# of followersAve. Mo. Vws.# of BoardsAve # of pins per board
Oh Joy152000003,700,00070459
Maryann Rizzo9000000887,800266414
Poppy Talk105000007,400,00095231
Jane Wang7700000unavailable118478
Bonnie Tsang7000000248,900,00028610
9,880,000260,887,800115438
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub.com as of June 26, 2021

But, it’s not just quantity that makes them powerful Pinners. They also do the following, which is highly beneficial for brand-sponsored campaigns:

Understand what “organic” really means

Expert Pinterest influencers fill their boards not only with their own relevant and fresh content but with others’, too. Their real-time, trendsetting, and customized pins set a unique tone, making them authentic instead of “sales-y.” The more authentic they are to their audience, the more their followers want to replicate their look. As a result, they will be more valuable to your brand when you partner on custom collaborations.

Know that Pinterest content has a much longer lifespan than content on other social media platforms

Exact “ages” vary by source, but half of all product orders from Pinterest pins are placed 2.5 months+ after their first pinning. Product purchases can theoretically continue forever from one pin. That is because repins (pins their friends have found on others’ boards and pinned to their own) make up most of what shows up in creators’ feeds. Plus, fresh pins can show up in feeds as much as three months after their first pinning. Adding a Pinterest component to your Influencer Marketing campaigns allows for more impressions and possible conversions to purchases of your product or service. Win-win!

Utilize in-platform SEO

Just as with search engines in general, Pinterest pins are more likely to be found and engaged with if they’re optimized for relevant keywords. So, aligning with SEO-savvy influencers who know how to optimize pins and repins is key. Keep in mind that most searches on Pinterest aren’t branded. Users look for concepts and ideas, not specific brands. Therefore, the real advantage for brands is in partnering with Pinners who place content on boards using keywords that Pinterest users search. When a user finds the perfect search result and discovers the brand behind the problem to meet their need? Match made in heaven!

Create profiles and board in top niches

Power Pinners create profiles and/or boards related to the top 20 niches—or general search topics—as shown by sheer number of followers:

Home decor60.5 million
Art54 million
Travel52 million
Photography47.1 million
DIY and Crafts45 million
Design44 million
Technology38 million
Quotes35 million
Food and drinks31 million
Humor29 million
Gardening27.2 million
Tattoos27 million
Animals25 million
Education24 million
Hair and beauty21 million
Health and fitness21 million
Architecture20 million
History20 million
Celebrities16.5 million
Kids and parenting16.5 million
Men’s fashion16.5 million
Weddings16.5 million
Women’s fashion16.5 million
Birthdays16.5 million
Christmas16.5 million
Outdoors16.5 million
Source: ShaneBarker.com 3/17/21

That means, if you have a product or service that can in any way fit into one or more of those niches, then your influencers are getting content about your product or service in front of millions of people for months instead of days. More views = more impressions = higher likelihood of in-platform social purchasing for you!

Also, do you want to know a secret? Many influencers use Tailwind, a third-party app that provides complementary and, in some ways, more robust metrics than Pinterest’s native suite. If asked, they can give you things like virality scores, which are the number of repins per pin. It represents how many repins per pin the influencer gets on average. If you ask influencers, when you’re vetting them, which of their pins has the highest virality score, you have another way of honing in on which of their pieces performs best on Pinterest. Another way to align influencers with your campaign goals in the bag!

So, say you have products or services in any one of those many niches. And say you align with a Pinterest influencer who writes and promotes about those topics. You’ve got two of the most important components of your Influencer Marketing in Pinterest strategy down! Yay!

So, what’s next?

2. Be Where Your Audience Is

If you think that Pinterest is the place to go only if your target audience is moms, you would only be partially right. While moms and women do make up a majority of Pinterest’s audience, both male and Gen Z Pinners are up 40 percent year over year. 

You’d probably also be surprised to know that 80 percent of U.S. millennial women and 40 percent of millennial men are on Pinterest. Four out of five millennial women and two out of five millennial men use this platform regularly. Any brand trying to market to millennials should be on Pinterest.

Four millenials (two women, two men) smiling and holding sparklers up, showing one of Pinterest's audience, for influence marketing in Pinterest campaigns

Ideas for Pinterest Influencer Marketing Campaigns

You know the secrets of Pinterest Influencer Marketing. You’ve gathered your perfect set of Pinterest influencers, identified your target market, and realized how much they’re on this platform. Now, how do you put together a successful Influencer Marketing on Pinterest campaign? 

First, realize that Pinterest Influencer Marketing campaigns might look a little different than they do on other platforms. This is because Power Pinners concentrate more on providing inspiration and ideas than influencers on other platforms, rarely featuring themselves at the forefront. Which works out even better for you as a brand because you want to inspire and provide ideas to your potential consumers too, right? 

Second, and speaking of inspiration and ideas, take a look at these examples of Influencer Marketing campaigns we’ve done that drove great results. Maybe they could do the same for you!

Repin and Giveaway Bonanzas

McCormick Spice was looking for a creative and visual way to drive everyday bakers to their website to test their recipes and products during the back-to-school season. So, we partnered them with 36 power pinners to create a virtual bake sale, Pinterest style. Six teams of six creators each collaborated on their bake sale offering (six items per team), using recipes from the brand’s website. Each influencer was sent McCormick Spice products that aligned with their baked good item and charged with the task of baking, photographing, and sharing the recipe on their blog and across social media. 

To spice things up (pun intended), the teams engaged in a friendly competition to see who could drive the most impressions of and engagement with their McCormick Spice-related pins with an emphasis on driving follows to the brand’s Virtual Bake Sale Pinterest Board. The teams hosted giveaways on their blogs with specific task requirements, including not only engaging on Pinterest but also visiting the brand’s website. The winning team rewarded their followers with a prize. 

The campaign was so successful that Pinterest featured it on its homepage, it won awards, and though the name changed, the board that started from scratch (just like all of the recipes pinned therin) is still going strong with more than 300K followers. But make sure to be mindful of Pinterest’s terms and conditions when running campaigns. Always make sure to be up-to-date and ensure compliance before executing Pinterest Influencer Marketing campaign strategies.

a picture of chocolate raspberry cookies, made as part of an influencer marketing in Pinterest campaign
[Source: cafejohnsonia.com]

Video Marketing

Pinterest just announced that they’re doing their own influencer campaign of sorts with “Pinterest TV.” Launched on November 8, 2021, these live streams—part of a larger trend across all social media platforms—will be a series of original and shoppable episodes featuring creators and influencers. Pinterest TV episodes will be refreshed each weekday and recorded and available for Pinners to view on-demand. Each Friday, products will drop in a live-shopping setting where Pinners can take advantage of discounts from a wide variety of brands.

Of course, savvy influencers already leverage pinned videos, which are displayed in a scrollable banner at the top of the Pinterest mobile app search results, similar to IG Stories. Check out this example from influencer JJ, who cross-platformed a TikTok video to Pinterest.

Friendly Competitions

If you’re looking to increase your Pinterest Board followings, create a campaign that is not only visually appealing but can also be recreated by your audience. In a past campaign, 31 of our influencers and 11 brand ambassadors teamed up to increase followers of P.F. Chang’s Wok Wednesday Pinterest board. In combination with a blog tour, giveaways, and promotion across other social media platforms, the 42 ambassadors and influencers competed to see how many users they could drive to the board by pinning images multiple times across many of their boards.

Their competition generated nearly 35,000 repins and 19,781,887 total impressions, far exceeding P.F. Chang’s campaign goals.

a picture of some PF Chang's entrees, which was taken as part of an influencer marketing in Pinterest campaign

Team Collaboration

One way to maximize impressions on Pinterest is to group your influencers into teams and have them feature their teammates’ content, competing against the other team for repins. During a particularly important 2019 Big Football Game, 25 of our influencers pinned six images a week for four weeks and repinned their team members’ pins to increase visibility. The campaign generated 27,788,146 total impressions and 3,599 giveaway entries.

a picture of the ingredients of guacamole, taken as part of influencer marketing in Pinterest campaign

Wrap It All Up

Because of Pinterest’s huge reach and invested audience, the boundless popularity of influencers on that platform, and the timeless possibilities for converting users to purchasers, you have to consider including Pinterest in your next Influencer Marketing campaign. So many campaign possibilities exist, with the few I mentioned above being just the beginning! What are you waiting for? Let’s get pinning!

Sources

How to Pair Affiliate Marketing With Influencer Marketing Campaigns: A Playbook
Cracking the Live Streaming on YouTube and YouTube Shorts Code
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