You’ve probably heard that the glory days of Pinterest are over. But what does that even mean? Let’s chat about the current state of Pinterest and if it will even work for your business in 2024.

Episode Highlights:

• Pinterest Has Changed
• Pinterest Proof of Life
• What to Expect from Pinterest

Resources Mentioned:

Pinterest Q1 Earnings Call Transcript - https://s23.q4cdn.com/958601754/files/doc_earnings/2024/q1/transcript/Q1-2024-Transcript.pdf

Let's Chat about YOUR Pinterest strategy over on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephanieroyersolutions/

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So whether you're new to Pinterest, or you've been around for a while, you know that this is not the experience people are having on Pinterest anymore. Because several years ago, the algorithm started to shift. And the home feed became much more sophisticated. And Pinterest became much more controlling over what they are showing to people in the home feed. And so it is definitely no longer a game of when you pin and how often because the algorithm has control over what is being shown in the home feed. And now, as the algorithm is doing its work. It's showing fewer pins to actual followers. Everybody's impressions started going down. Bloggers started to complain that Pinterest just wasn't working anymore. Because it wasn't it wasn't working in the same way.

Stephanie 3:42

Now not surprisingly, these changes came around the time that Pinterest became a publicly traded company, they needed to make money. So they needed to increase ad revenue. And how they do that is by keeping people on the platform. Because the longer they're on the platform, the more ads they see. And the more ads people see the more revenue they generate, and the happier the investors are. And so Pinterest began this quest to keep people on the platform for longer, which basically went against the entire purpose of Pinterest. I mean, the point of Pinterest was for people to curate ideas of things that they're finding online, so that they can go back and find those ideas later. The whole point of Pinterest is to ultimately leave the platform and go read a blog post or check out a tutorial or a video. And this is why idea pins were created. So idea pins. Essentially they wanted them to be very much like tick tock videos or Instagram reels because Pinterest thought they could keep people on the platform by creating a really engaging and entertaining home feed where people will just start the endless scroll. They even paid creators to start making these idea pin was for a little while. And the algorithm was really highly favoring idea pins. So it felt like that was the best way to be seen on Pinterest.

Stephanie 5:10

But here's the thing. There has always been another side to Pinterest aside, that's not the home feed and the scrolling and then the social media aspect and the followers. There's another side to Pinterest, that has always been working the same way. It always has been through all of the home feed changes through the rise and fall of Idea pins. And this side of Pinterest is the search engine side. Because you see a good portion of people who turn to Pinterest, they aren't going there just to scroll, they open Pinterest because they have something in mind. They have a birthday party, they're trying to plan or a bridal shower, or they're looking for gift ideas. They are looking for something specific, and they go straight to the search bar. And so that part of Pinterest is alive and well. The people who have treated Pinterest like a search engine, and they don't get pulled into all the changes to the home feed. They have continued to thrive on Pinterest. Now, it's slow growth. But it's still growth. It still works. And we're going to talk more about that. Because it's one thing to say that Pinterest still works, but it's another to prove it.

Stephanie 6:25

So I thought I'd walk you through just a few key pieces of evidence to show you that Pinterest is moving in the right direction for content creators. When it comes to blog traffic. Pinterest does continue to perform well for even like my really neglected blog. The pins that are bringing me traffic though they are obviously old and very well established pins, because I haven't made any new pins for a long time. And in the Pinterest world, we call those legacy pins. And this is why a lot of people argue that Pinterest isn't a viable traffic source for new bloggers. Because fresh pins aren't gaining traction, because only the legacy pins are ranking well in search.

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So the first piece of good news is that Pinterest is still attracting new users. They reported that the monthly active users increased by 12% year over year. So now there are 518 million active users on Pinterest and that's global. Now, what's awesome is that Pinterest is still attracting a younger audience. So in the transcript from the quarterly call, the CEO of Pinterest, he reported that, quote, we're continuing to win with Gen Z. They are more than 40% of the users on the platform, and our largest and fastest growing demographic and quote, and then he went on to talk about the really interesting phenomenon that Pinterest is actually aging down because usually internet applications as they age, the average user also ages and then You know, the younger demographic usually just finds somewhere else to go hang out. But that hasn't been happening with Pinterest. And so when I look at that, through the perspective of a teacher business owner, I think that's amazing news, because that means the next generation of teachers, when they're looking for ideas and inspiration for their classrooms, they could still be turning to Pinterest. Pinterest is not dying. It's not just for the teachers who were getting close to retirement, the next generation is going to be using Pinterest, which I think is just really exciting. And then I wanted to share one final quote from this report, the CEO said, we updated our content strategy to focus on content that satisfies purpose and intent, rather than pure entertainment and quote, and then he also talked about the importance of the curation experience, which is like saving pins. And so when I read between the lines, to me, this confirms that Pinterest has been rolling back their efforts to basically create the next tick tock, I mean, we've seen this already, idea pins have been absorbed into just regular video pins. And it just, it feels like Pinterest is heading in the right direction that they're starting to go back to their roots of why people use this platform. And I just think that's really, really promising.

So then, if Pinterest isn't dead, what can you expect from marketing your business on Pinterest? Well, it's actually going to sound very similar to our last episode about what you can expect from blogging. Because first, you can expect slow growth. Pinterest is a search engine, it takes time for your pins to be indexed for future searches. But as long as you're fresh pins are getting at least some user interaction, they will eventually gain traction in search results.

The second thing you can expect are hits and misses, you are going to have pins that take off and bring you a good amount of traffic. And you will have pins that flop that is just part of the platform. And in future episodes, we'll talk more about what you can do to create a successful pin and have fewer of those flops.

And then finally, what you can expect from Pinterest these days, you can expect traffic to your website, you can expect it to work. If you focus on creating quality content on your blog, and then you pin it to Pinterest. According to the current best practices, you are going to be able to get more website visitors and more product sales. You can expect it, it might not be the instant traffic machine that it once was. But really with patience. And with the right strategy, you can definitely expect to see results for your business from using Pinterest. And not just having to pay for promoted pins that you can organically get more traffic to your website, and more product sales.

So there you have it, Pinterest. It feels different. It just does. It's not the platform that we remember from the glory days. But it is still alive and well. We have seen the monthly users continue to grow. The next generation is using Pinterest, which is a huge piece of news. And all signs point to the fact that Pinterest will be around for a while longer and will continue to work for your business.

As I plan the upcoming podcast content about Pinterest. I would love to know more about just what you're seeing and experiencing as you pin for your business. So go ahead and send me a DM on Instagram. If you'd like voice memos, I like them too. You can send me a voice memo. And we can just chat about all of those big Pinterest feels. So whether you're just starting out, or you've been pending for a long time, I would just love to know how you're feeling about using Pinterest for your teacher business. So I will put my information below and I would love to hear from you.