Reaching Men on Pinterest

Key Takeaways

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Focus Allocation — Pinterest: While not one of the largest social platforms, Pinterest can drive significant traffic. Brands in “Trend Chasers” and “Peak Performance” brands generate anywhere between 1-16% of their desktop social traffic from Pinterest. Outdoor Voices, Canada Goose, and Everlane are the strongest performers on this platform. In absolute terms, these brands are driving tens or hundreds of thousands of website visitors quarterly using this social channel.

Content & Messaging — Create custom graphics for your pins and boards: With “shoppable pins” becoming the norm and most retailers making use of this feature, create custom graphics aside from the usual product shot to make your products stand out. Everlane finds a way to do this that not only shows discounted offers, but additional graphics to piece together a full outfit. Outdoor Voices, on the other hand, has custom board cover images to overcome the issue of cut-off titles on their longer board titles.

Pinterest Tactic — Treat Pinterest as a search engine: Use generic keywords such as “crewneck”, “sweater”, “hoody” rather than product or brand specific keywords such as “Air Max 90”. Optimize your pinterest page with keyword-rich descriptions, board titles and pin titles.
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Content & Messaging — Use GIFs and video content to make your content stand out amongst photos: GIFs work particularly well in this board format as Pinterest allows auto-play for their GIFs. While most content on Pinterest are static photos, GIFs break up the flow of the photos and draw user attention.

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It’s commonly accepted that Pinterest is a platform best suited for reaching female audience members. However, 27% of Pinterest app users and 43% of web users in the United States are male.

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While not the largest social platform for web traffic, Pinterest still contributes anywhere from 2-12% of social web traffic for “Essential Loyalist” brands.

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Pinterest web traffic for these brands saw an upward trend in the summer, with American Eagle seeing 18% of their social web traffic driven by Pinterest. In September, Pinterest web traffic picked up, seeing a +24% growth overall.

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When it comes to “Trend Chaser” brands, Pinterest plays an even bigger role in driving web traffic, contributing anywhere from 1-16% of social web traffic.

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For “Trend Chaser” brands, Pinterest web traffic has been more stable throughout the past 6 months, with Outdoor Voices seeing the largest growth, at +35% in September.

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This is the same for “Peak Performer” brands, with brands like Canada Goose seeing 16% of the social traffic coming from Pinterest.

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“Peak Performance” brands have seen the largest overall growth overall in the last six months. Canada Goose, in particular, grew their web traffic from Pinterest by +138% from July to August.

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Treat Pinterest like a search engine - Patagonia uses descriptive, product-related keywords such as “lightweight crewneck hoody” rather than branded keywords.

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Patagonia also shares and reposts UGC and content from their brand ambassadors to increase brand awareness and tie together cross-platform content.

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Patagonia also uploads shoppable carousel style pins that tell a story (i.e: a complete outfit) :

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American Eagle, on the other hand, uploads their product catalogues onto Pinterest in the form of shoppable pins with prices, and a link to the product.

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Everlane takes the same approach with their shoppable pins; however, they enhance this feature by using more than just a product shot.

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Aside from static photo content, Everlane posts video content and GIFs to better showcase their products.

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For Canada Goose, aside from only showcasing their products, they create boards where they show the places that their products can take their customers.

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In their “Beijing” board, rather than having only product-focused shots, they include images of different scenery in Beijing.

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Outdoor Voices creates unique board covers that clearly communicate the contents of each board.

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An example of where it is best to pay attention to board titling length and why Outdoor Voice’s example of custom board graphics is a good idea.